A young friend of mine told me that when she was even younger and living in a large city, she went to Planned Parenthood for her healthcare.

She was not looking for an abortion or even contraceptives. She was looking for a low-cost healthcare provider that understood a woman’s body. And she found it at Planned Parenthood.

It was difficult to find a healthcare provider then, and even more difficult now because the fight to end abortions is having an adverse impact on women’s healthcare. It is increasingly more difficult today to find physicians who specialize in women’s health.

The Hill reports that the United States is currently facing a shortage of obstetrician-gynecologists (OB-GYNs) and that shortage is expected to get worse in states, like Indiana, that have abortion bans.

According to a survey of more than 2,000 current and future physicians which was conducted at Emory University School of Medicine, 76% of the respondents said they would not even apply to work or train in states with abortion restrictions. According to American Medical Association research the number of OB-GYN residency applications is already down in all 13 states that have enacted abortion bans since the Dobbs ruling.

A story from NPR says that doctors are showing by both words and actions that they are reluctant to practice in places where making the best decision for the patient could result in huge fines or even a prison sentence. The story also quotes a tweet from former Trump Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who is now at Purdue. He tweets, “the tradeoff of a restricted access (and criminalizing doctors) only approach to decreasing abortions could end up being that you actually make pregnancy less safe for everyone and increase infant and maternal mortality.”

The sad fact is that pregnancy in the United States is already risky business. The United States consistently ranks poorly in maternal healthcare and outcomes compared to other developed countries. The March of Dimes says that 2.2 million women of childbearing age live in what they call “maternity care deserts” with no hospitals offering obstetric care. The organization reports that half of all U.S. counties lack an OB-GYN. Micromanaging doctors through our courts and our laws will not improve the situation.

Pew Research Center polling shows that very few Americans take an absolutist view of abortion. Maybe that is due to the fact that another study reported in Medical News Today talked about the reasons that women have abortions and reported that 12% of the reasons for abortions were medically related.

The Indiana Supreme Court writes that “Article 1, Section 1 of the Indiana constitution protects a woman’s right to an abortion that is necessary to protect her life or to protect her from a serious health risk, but the General Assembly otherwise retains broad legislative discretion for determining whether and the extent to which to prohibit abortions.” This sounds like a formula for litigation; there is a constant need to referee the line where one right begins and another ends.

I am no longer of childbearing age. I have a daughter and daughters-in-law who are of that age, and grandchildren who will be there much faster than I can imagine. And I want their doctors to decide about their health, not the General Assembly.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists advocates that “the best health care is provided free of political interference in the patient-physician relationship.” I don’t want politicians interfering in that relationship. And if politicians must flex their political muscle they should do so in a way that does not criminalize difficult medical decisions.

The current path being taken in Indiana only scares future physicians away, exacerbating the shortages and the healthcare deserts that already exist.