Story by Emma Cooke
Photo by Cameron Thomas
Third-year medical student, Kristel Black, has found a home at UNC’s School of Medicine, but after the passage of Senate Bill 20 in May, she doesn’t plan to stay in North Carolina.
The 72 hour in-person waiting period is one of the biggest barriers to abortion care that the state has seen. It means that patients have to go to a clinic twice, take increased time off of work, and find more child care if they already have two or three kids at home.
Black: A lot of people that are in Congress making these decisions are not people with medical backgrounds. There are people who, like, could not, you know, terminate a pregnancy, whether that be for a number of reasons.
And Black says that makes all the difference in whether OB/GYNs can provide life-saving care.
Black: I can’t do my job, like I can’t do the extent of my job because of some of the laws that are in place.
According to Amy Bryant, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology in UNC’s School of Medicine, even OB/GYNs who don’t perform abortions end up leaving areas with increased restrictions. Idaho became one of the U.S.’s most restrictive states with the passage of its House Bill 242 earlier this year. And according to CBS News, it drove out more than half of OB/GYNs who specialize in high-risk pregnancies.
Bryant: You know, they’re so severely restricted in their ability to provide care that could be misconstrued as abortion care or, you know, would be considered abortion care in some settings. They just feel so scrutinized and threatened that they don’t even want to be there.
This means increased maternity desserts in these areas, with fewer OB/GYNs to provide care for pregnant mothers. And she’s worried that N.C. could experience the same trend.
Though she says it might be too soon to determine the leading reason, she says UNC’s school of public health saw a drop in residency applicants last year and that this year could also see a drop.
Bryant: It’s potentially a problem because people really do often stay in the states where they train. And so if we have fewer applicants, we have fewer, you know, or lower quality applicants. That’s going to have long term effects on our state’s health system.
Simply, she says North Carolina could end up with a workforce that isn’t trained in life-saving maternal care.
And according to Bryant, growing abortion restrictions has forced maternal health experts into having what she calls a ‘mini law degree.’ The passage of S.B. 20 had her consulting lawyers daily to figure out how to implement it.
Bryant: No one wants to not be compliant with the law because we know that will jeopardize the care that we’re able to provide for patients.
Black says students in her program attend rallies, write letters, and tend to be more politically active than students in other specialities. They feel like they have to.
Black: Knowing what, like, options are available to someone, whether it’s, like, can they terminate a pregnancy, or like, what’s the timing, or like, what are the other barriers to prevent somebody from having, like, life-changing or life-saving treatment is, like, that has such a big impact. Like, why don’t I know about that. Why am I not advocating on behalf of my patient? Because I can’t do my job to the best of my ability if I’m not right?
But she says it’s a bigger role than students like her asked for.
I’m Emma Cooke reporting.
