And in the discussion about whether people should be able
to get an abortion, we often forget the reasons
why people want them. They go far beyond just
wanting a baby. Now in a survey, 12%
of people who got abortions said at least one of
their reasons was related to health that includes their own
health, the health of the fetus or other factors
like medications. It shows abortion access is not just
a social or political issue, but also a medical
one. Joining me now to discuss just that is
dr Jessica shepherd, chief medical officer at very well
health dr shepherd, Welcome back to the show.
What do you think some misconceptions are when it comes
to the medical reasons for an abortion? Yeah,
I think, you know, just outright hearing this
news today, which is uh extremely disappointing is that
you can see that there is quite a social construct
on what abortion is, why it's done. And
it's just as you said with those statistics, many
feel that it's just a callous decision for many women
to make and quite opposite. What we've seen all
throughout studies. It is actually very emotional and hard
decision. So what we see is that there are
a range of reasons why women choose to have an
abortion and that can range anywhere from financial reasons to
also medical reasons which may be due to their health
or the health of the fetus. Now, that
again, is information that can be divulged in a
later portion of the pregnancy, specifically the second trimester
. And when we look at abortion percentages, most
of those are done within the first trimester. However
, there are a lot of reasons why women should
be able to get abortions into their second trimester.
And again, those can be for specific medical reasons
. And also again for financial concern and health of
the baby and or mother. The number of abortions
per year was actually going down until fairly recently.
Dr shepherd as you will know. How much of
that do you think is credited to access to contraception
and of course other health services that were available or
there was a fear of going away. Yeah,
we see. Did see through the Obama administration that
again, the increase to access and advocacy and awareness
for contraception actually helped people and decreasing those numbers.
So even as we've heard and seen today is that
even with the overturning of roe versus wade, there
may be some concern if if there's going to be
any issue now with contraception in the future. So
like we've seen again through study and literature evidence based
is that when you don't have access to health care
such as abortion care and or contraception, you immediately
see those numbers go up of whether that means that
unsafe abortion or increase in unwanted pregnancies. So clearly
we have a disconnect between actual Evidence and what is
perceived as why people get abortions. Data from 2019
shows, 92% of abortions typically happen with within the
first trimester, most of them within the first six
weeks. I want to ask you about the remaining
8%. What are some of the common reasons for
abortions later in pregnancy? Now, that's a great
question because as we've seen even before, the overturning
of roe versus way, there are a lot of
laws that would say, you know, whether it's
the early heartbeat or even six weeks. Many people
don't even realize that they're pregnant until their latter portion
of their first trimester and they're very close to that
second trimester. Now, in that second trimester,
a lot of times, if someone's just realizing that
they're pregnant, that's when we do a lot of
testing labs that can actually show if there's any chromosomal
abnormalities or if there is a miscarriage or an impending
miscarriage for reasons which may again be physiological or pathological
. So, these are the reasons why it's again
very important that we understand the importance of abortion care
because it's never just one thing or one reason why
someone is choosing to have abortion and we really need
to make sure that we understand why access is so
crucial. You know, we've heard so many horror
stories. My colleague Megan prats was talking about a
case in Ireland there's a story out of malta where
women cannot get an abortion even though she was in
a life threatening situation with a non viable fetus.
I have to ask you dr shepherd. Do you
see that happening here in the United States. You
know what I you know, optimistic. I want
to be optimistic. But I know from what we
have seen in the past, this is again,
50 years of something that was critical for women's health
, for reproductive access and care. We are definitely
going to see that one. We're gonna see more
people that have to travel or find the finances in
order to get the care that they need. But
the other portion of that is the health care providers
, the abortion health care providers that actually give the
service to these women, they're gonna be overloaded because
the ones that are in the state that can provide
the care now, they're going to have a significant
increase of women who are coming to them for care
. So, as you can imagine, you can
already see where that struggle is. And so I
do feel that the again access to abortion care,
we're going to see much more unsafe abortions and we're
going to see a strain on the healthcare providers who
provide that care. And as you know, it's
huge. Typically women in those lower income neighborhoods,
those marginalized communities that are affected most. We always
appreciate your insight dr shepherd, especially on a day
like this dr Jessica shepherd, Chief medical officer at
very well, health. Thank you