‘It feels like a hostile attack’: Iowa doctor expresses concern over new abortion restrictions
Questions about the future of medical care are on the minds of doctors after the Iowa legislature passed new abortion restrictions this week.
"It's really very stressful, it feels like a hostile attack," obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Emily Boevers said.
The bill passed Tuesday night said an abortion cannot be performed if cardiac activity is detected. To find that, the state is requiring doctors to perform an ultrasound which must be done before six weeks if someone is seeking an abortion.
But Dr. Emily Boevers doesn't think it's a good idea to perform the ultrasound so early.
"Most insurances are only covering one to two ultrasounds per pregnancy," Boevers said. "I, frankly, wouldn't recommend that somebody have an ultrasound prior to six weeks because you can't observe very much fetal anatomy."
She said if an ultrasound is completed so early in a pregnancy, the parent may not be covered by insurance for another one later on.
"Requiring those things puts physicians in a very difficult position because it again is not the standard of care," Boevers said.
"The bill also specifies a certain type of ultrasound, called an abdominal ultrasound, to decide if an abortion is legal. But Boevers said this method isn't the best for early pregnancies.
"An abdominal probe has to go through all the layers of the abdomen so the ultrasound waves can be distorted," Boevers said. "In early pregnancy, usually a vaginal probe is most accurate because it gets the ultrasound waves closest to the anatomy."
That means cardiac activity may not be detected.
"You can see cardiac activity earlier on most vaginal ultrasounds than you can on most abdominal ultrasounds," Boevers said.
The bill passed said, "If a fetal heartbeat was detected, an abortion is prohibited," making it unclear for doctors if detection from a vaginal ultrasound allows for an abortion or not.
"This bill puts a very onerous requirement on both patients and providers, to seek and provide medical care that's not really recommended or clinically valuable," Boevers said.
Leaving Boevers, and other doctors across the state, wondering how they will care for their patients.