As an OB/GYN, I Can Tell You This Election Is A Patient Safety Issue

Sierra M. Starr, M.D.

In medical school, I learned how to deliver babies, perform surgeries, and support patients through hard times. I didn’t learn to write newspaper opinion pieces. But for the well-being and safety of the patients for whom I care, I feel obligated to share my voice now in advocating for Vice President Harris this election – because access to abortion care is once again on the ballot this November. Depending on the outcome of the presidential election, a national abortion ban may be enacted that would override the reproductive freedoms that Michiganders chose in 2022, when we amended our State Constitution to protect people’s reproductive decisions.

Michiganders’s support for abortion care has allowed me, an OB/GYN, to be there for all patients seeking my assistance, including when they choose to end a pregnancy. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, my colleagues and I have continued to provide full spectrum care to Michiganders, and in addition, we have provided care to patients traveling from across the country to Michigan to access abortion care. I vividly recall a patient who traveled hundreds of miles from the South, alone, on a bus to get to me. She shared that she had spent essentially her entire savings to do so. And she was back on the bus as soon as it was safe, not being able to afford more time away from her children or work. I feel grateful to practice in Michigan where I was able to provide this patient with the care she needed and support her as she made decisions that were best for her family, even as I wished she could have accessed this care where she needed it.

But I know for every patient who does make their way to me, there are many who do not have the financial means to travel hundreds, if not thousands, of miles. This puts not just their self-determination, but sometimes their health and life in danger. We have seen these very real and dangerous implications already; brave patients have come forward and shared their stories of how lack of access to abortion care has caused severe infections, life-threatening bleeding, and made subsequent pregnancies impossible or higher risk.

Each week, as I hold a patient’s hand while they fall asleep before surgery, I cannot help imagining what would happen without my team there to care for them. Would their cancer treatment have to be delayed months and months? Would this preteen be forced to carry a pregnancy resulting from rape? Would this mother give birth to a baby only to watch their newborn suffer from an untreatable birth defect and pass away? Patients in states where abortion is banned already live this reality.

What will we do if a federal abortion ban is passed? What will happen if the roughly two million reproductive-aged women in Michigan lose access to abortion care, in addition to the 28 million already living under abortion bans now? I will do everything I can to ensure that patients under my care have reliable contraception, as I already do, but no method works perfectly.

The people of Michigan and of our country deserve better. My patients recognize the complexities of abortion, and do not make the decision to end a pregnancy without the consideration it deserves. They know their lives, their bodies, and their families best; the decision to end a pregnancy should rest with them and their chosen support system.

It seems clear to me that only one candidate in this election cares about the same things that I do, about the rights and safety of Americans. That candidate is Kamala Harris. What happens in this election affects patients’ health and well-being. The election has become what we refer to in medicine as a patient safety issue, a term that causes the whole team to stop and listen because something critical, and often preventable, is occurring. Please consider the patients for whom I care as you approach the upcoming election this November – the very lives of pregnant women around the country depend on the result.