this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
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Doctor patient confidentiality is not absolute, and even if it were, the associated records are not. They are subject to subpoena in certain circumstances.
It is unsafe to suggest that they can. Safety isn't on the menu here. You can only get it with a referendum. Or a guillotine.
You are misconstruing health and legal safety. There is already an alarming lack of women's reproductive care, and America already has the highest maternal mortality rate of any wealthy nation.
Your suggestion that you should fear talking about a provider out of concern for the slim possibility that you will be prosecuted for having an abortion is outright dangerous.
How many people have been jailed so far for this information? Now weigh that against the amount of just black women who die every year for lack of prenatal care. What you are spreading is not only dangerous, but reeks of privilege.
How's the health care in prison?
Indeed, it is. As is your suggestion that the possibility of prosecution is "slim". We have highly motivated people seriously promoting pregnancy registries. They believe such registries are necessary to prevent murder.
You're hand waving away even the possibility of civil or criminal penalties for seeking healthcare, and I'm the one who sounds privileged?
Again..... How many people have gone to prison from this information? Because lack of prenatal care or access to reproductive care is responsible for over 1k deaths a year in the US alone.
And we have even more people determined to protect abortion rights, and many states have constitutional protections for this exact reason. The vast majority of Americans have ample protections for their abortion rights, and telling them they shouldn't trust their physicians is doing nothing but endangering their own health.
No, I'm just not trying to instil distrust in medicine. If you live in a state where this is a potential issue, then yes, do what you need to do to be safe. But, if you are like the vast majority of Americans whom this is not an issue, than all you are doing by instilling distrust is needlessly endangering peoples health.
Yes. One of the major hurdles for prenatal and pediatric care among minority communities is a general distrust in medical systems. This stems from systemic racial inequalities that a lot of people within the medical system are attempting to actively change. You characterizing this care as legally dangerous to all women does nothing but jeopardize the most at risk communities. Most of whom already have adequate protections for abortion care.
You are giving medical advice, and you have no idea what your talking about.
You don't get to make that claim. You only get to claim harm arising from a patient refusing to provide dates of last menstruation, or similar information that can be used to time a pregnancy. The idea that women shouldn't seek care at all is your own strawman. I didn't make any such claim whatsoever. My claim is only that people should not be testifying against themselves to medical professionals.
And when they are charged or sued in a state that doesn't?
Those "systemic racial inequalities" you're talking about? Those exist. "Just trust doctors" doesn't solve them. "Just pretend there are no legal risks" doesn't save patients from having their medical data used against them. That's great that people in the field are actively trying to change that. But it does not change the fact that people outside the field are actively working in the opposite direction.
While we are waiting for sanity to be restored, anyone who can get pregnant and find themselves in the jurisdiction of a hostile state should consider the legal ramifications of discussing their period.