Arresting Doctors and Patients for Abortions is a Step Backward for Public Health
Making Healthcare a Crime
Imagine being a doctor sworn to save lives, only to face criminal charges for doing your job. Or a patient grappling with a deeply personal and often agonizing decision, only to face the unimaginable prospect of legal repercussions. This is the stark reality in many places where abortion has shifted from being a protected medical procedure to a potential crime. To say this is unjust is an understatement—it’s a dangerous attack on healthcare, personal freedoms, and public health.
A Threat to Medical Ethics and Professionalism
Doctors enter their profession to care for and protect lives. They are trusted to make decisions rooted in medical training and the needs of their patients—not fear of prosecution. Criminalizing abortion puts medical professionals in an impossible position, forcing them to weigh their legal safety against their duty to provide the best possible care.
Imagine this scenario: a woman experiencing life-threatening pregnancy complications enters an emergency room. Her doctor knows that an abortion could save her life, but local laws threaten criminal charges. The result? A delay in care, unnecessary suffering, and in some cases, preventable deaths. This is not hypothetical; reports have already surfaced of physicians hesitating or declining to act due to fear of legal consequences. How can a healthcare system function when fear trumps patient welfare?
Patients Deserve Protection, Not Prosecution
For patients, the criminalization of abortion adds another layer of trauma to an already weighty decision. Abortions happen for a multitude of reasons—financial instability, health risks, or pregnancies resulting from sexual assault or molest, to name a few. Politicians and legal systems enforcing blanket abortion bans fail to acknowledge this complexity, instead punishing patients for making a choice that, in many cases, profoundly affects their physical and emotional well-being.
Placing the law between patients and their healthcare choices not only violates personal autonomy but disproportionately harms those in marginalized communities. People with lower incomes or limited access to healthcare have fewer resources to seek safe, legal options, meaning they’re most likely to suffer the consequences of criminalization. The cruel irony is that the very measures framed as “protecting life” put countless lives at risk.
The Larger Public Health Impact
Beyond the individual cases of doctors and patients, criminalizing abortion erodes public health as a whole. Studies consistently show that abortion bans do not reduce the number of abortions; they only make them less safe. According to the World Health Organization, unsafe abortions are one of the leading causes of maternal death globally. Legal abortion is healthcare. Restricting it forces people into desperate situations, turning to unsafe procedures or self-induced efforts that put their lives on the line.
Additionally, laws targeting abortion pave the way for increased surveillance of pregnancies. Think of the implications of monitoring women’s private medical decisions. Miscarriages, which occur in as many as 1 in 4 pregnancies, could potentially be scrutinized as suspicious. This climate of fear and suspicion serves no one—it undermines trust in the medical system, harms families, and stigmatizes reproductive health.
Critic’s Counterarguments
Critics often frame abortion bans as a moral imperative, arguing that protecting life at all stages, including fetal life, is non-negotiable. While the protection of life is an important ethical principle, this argument oversimplifies the complexities of abortion and health care. Many abortions are performed because continuing a pregnancy poses a threat to someone’s health, life, or circumstances. Whose life takes precedence in these situations? And why should the state—not the individual—make that decision?
Some may also argue that exceptions for “allowed” abortions, such as cases of rape or medical emergencies, prevent injustice. But exceptions don’t erase the harm of criminalization. They are often vague or difficult to prove, leaving doctors and patients in legal limbo. Worse, they fail to account for the broad spectrum of real-world scenarios in which abortion is a necessary part of healthcare.
A Call for Action
Healthcare decisions belong in the hands of patients and doctors, not courts and lawmakers. We need to shift the conversation toward protecting access to safe, legal abortion as a matter of public health, not partisan politics. For doctors, for patients, and for the health of our society, the criminalization of abortion must end.
I urge readers to speak out—whether by reaching out to their representatives, supporting reproductive health organizations, or starting conversations in their communities. Silence only enables injustice. If we care about protecting life, health, and dignity, this is a moment to act. Lives depend on it.