Natalie Crawford, a board-certified OBGYN/REI fertility physician, recently went viral for a Twitter post about abortion rights and how it will affect treating ectopic pregnancy, IVF, and contraception.
“In case you think abortion laws don’t matter: last week, a pharmacist declined to fill a prescription for a patient of mine with an ectopic pregnancy citing SB8 restrictions. The same medicine that saved my life in 2013 when I had my own ectopic pregnancy,” the Twitter thread began.
Fertility Doctor Shares How Abortion Rights Will Affect Treating Ectopic Pregnancy, IVF, and Contraception
“I’ve also had pharmacists decline misoprostol (cytotec) lately, which can be used for abortion, labor induction, helping a missed miscarriage (incomplete miscarriage), and more. I like to use it before hysteroscopy in non-pregnant patients to make surgery easy/safer. This is about more than just abortion, this is about all reproductive rights. Contraception. Medical treatment of miscarriage and ectopic pregnancies. IVF. We have so much at stake – including the safety of our patients. I have friends who are fertility doctors in Louisiana and Nebraska contemplating leaving the state – leaving their home because they can’t practice fertility medicine there safely. Listen to us. Reproductive rights matter.”
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The post comes amid the Supreme Court slated to strike down the Roe v. Wade case that has guaranteed the right to abortion in the United States for decades. Abortion bans have been introduced in 31 states this year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.
Bans have passed at least one legislative chamber in seven states: Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and West Virginia. They have been enacted in six of those states: Florida, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, Idaho, and Wyoming.
Several states already have so-called trigger bans, which will make abortion illegal if Roe is overturned or scaled back. Just this past weekend, thousands took part in protests across the US on Saturday to denounce the expected reversal of the landmark 1973 law.
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“Methotrexate saved my own life in 2013 when I had an Ectopic pregnancy. This thread should terrify you. Pregnancy is not a health neutral situation,” the caption of the Twitter post read. “Ectopic pregnancies are pregnancies in the Fallopian tube. They can’t be re-implanted in the uterus (I promise, I would have chosen this myself if it was an option). They can rupture, you can bleed, and you can die.”
“Surgical removal is sometimes an option. Methotrexate is sometimes an option. Methotrexate stops rapidly dividing cells – this terminated my pregnancy. It saved my life. It saves the lives of women every day. Abortion bills are about much much more than just abortion. Reproductive rights are at stake, all of them,” the caption concluded.