The GOP's Latest Weapon: 'Med Ed' Bills

A new legislative trend endangers women & doctors

Republicans know they need to do damage control. Thanks to post-Roe horror stories—and doctors coming forward about being forced to delay or deny care—the GOP is losing at the polls and any time abortion is on the ballot.

It turns out forcing women to go septic really fucks you up come election day!

The anti-abortion movement thinks they have an answer: a new legislative trend that gives voters the impression that Republicans are working with doctors to ensure women can access health- and life-saving abortions. In reality, these laws would divorce abortion from healthcare, and pressure doctors to deny care to women who have dangerous or nonviable pregnancies.

And because the anti-abortion movement is nothing if not predictable, they’re once again shrouding their extremism with credible-sounding language—calling the bills ‘Med Ed’ policies’.

The inaugural legislation comes to us from South Dakota, and it’s deliberately crafted to sound as innocuous as possible. House Bill 1224 would mandate that the state health department publish an informational video and other materials to explain the state’s abortion ban. (South Dakota’s law only allows abortions to save the life of the pregnant person.)

The idea, Republicans say, is to help doctors and patients understand when care is legal. How generous of them!

‘Med Ed’ policies are based on the idea that abortion bans are perfectly fine as they are, and that doctors just need the laws “clarified” for them. In fact, the anti-abortion movement says it’s not their bans causing this chaos at all—it’s abortion rights activists.

Kelsey Pritchard, state public affairs director at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, says the South Dakota bill is the “first legislation of its kind drafted to end the confusion caused by the abortion industry through direct education to medical professionals.”

“Abortion activists have sown confusion on this point around the nation to justify their agenda for no limits on abortion. This lie not only deceives but puts women in danger, and a Med Ed Policy is the solution.” 

In other words, they’re using the bill to shirk blame for the nightmare they’ve created. What’s worse is that these ‘Med Ed’ policies give legislators the opportunity to pretend that they give a shit about women’s health while actually pushing legislation that further enshrines anti-abortion cruelty.

For example, the bill mandates that the informational materials for doctors describe “the most common medical conditions that threaten the life or health of a pregnant woman” and “the generally accepted standards of care applicable to the treatment of a pregnant woman experiencing life-threatening or health-threatening medical conditions.” 

I truly cannot think of anything more dangerous than allowing Republicans and the anti-abortion movement to define what conditions endanger pregnant women’s health and lives. After all, these are the people who tried to argue that hemorrhaging isn’t an “objective medical standard” for care.

And remember: The anti-abortion movement doesn’t believe that abortion is ever necessary to save someone’s health or life. That’s why Republicans have been systematically redefining ‘abortion’ to exclude miscarriage treatment and treatment for ectopic pregnancies. It’s also why they’ve been changing the language of state laws to call life-saving abortions ‘maternal fetal separation’ procedures. It’s all part of a larger effort to divorce abortion from healthcare. (More on this here.)

So when Republicans outline what conditions are dangerous during pregnancy, they’re making a political calculation—not a medical one. What’s just as scary is Republicans defining the “standards of care” around how to treat dangerous pregnancies. Because we know where that ‘science’ is going to come from: extremist anti-abortion organizations. And we know what extremist anti-abortion organizations think about how to treat women.

For example, the Charlotte Lozier Institute—SBA Pro-Life America’s so-called research arm—claims that when women have life-threatening pregnancies, it’s “medically standard” to give them c-sections or force them into vaginal labor rather than provide a ten minute abortion procedure. And the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that when women have issues like massive placental abruptions, they should be made to labor for up to 24 hours instead of given an abortion. Why torture women rather than give them quick, safe and effective care? Because they want them to deliver “an intact fetal body.”

These are not people who care about women’s mental or physical health, and they are certainly not people who should be giving doctors advice on when and how to care for pregnant patients.

By passing ‘Med Ed’ bills, the state will allow radical anti-choice activists to dictate what kind of care doctors can give patients—and let them feign concern for women’s health along the way. Pritchard, for example, says the laws will “[make] it abundantly clear that pregnant women can and must receive timely emergency care under our pro-life law.” (Her group cares so much about “emergency care” for women that they’ve been lobbying against requiring states to provide life-saving abortions under EMTALA.)

And by framing these laws as “educational,” the anti-abortion movement will pat themselves on the back for addressing the post-Roe care crisis. A crisis that they themselves created! If Democrats call out these efforts, anti-choice legislators will say they’re just trying to work with doctors! They want to help!

The anti-abortion movement has known for years what the fallout would be after overturning Roe. They knew it would kill women, they knew it would drive up maternal and infant death rates, and they knew it would mean dangerous pregnancies would going untreated. They have polled and messaged every possible nightmare scenario—these bills are a product of all that work.

That’s why we can expect to see more ‘Med Ed’ bills in the coming months; and they won’t just be directives to doctors. I suspect anti-choice groups will start pushing for more ‘informed consent’ policies under this umbrella, as well. These are the laws that claim to give women with nonviable pregnancies medical information, when in fact they’re just lying and pressuring them to carry doomed pregnancies to term.

I’ll be keeping a close eye out for more bills like this one, but remember that all of these policies are connected—whether it’s informed consent, ‘Med Ed’, or bad data about mifepristone. Conservatives are well aware that when it comes to abortion, the science and medicine is not on their side. So they’re making up their own.