Opinion: Doctors in states that ban abortion can still refer patients elsewhere. Why are so few doing that?
Refusing to provide abortion information in order to minimize legal risk violates doctors’ ethical responsibility.
For now, abortion remains accessible even in states where it’s banned — at least for those who know where to look. It’s still legal in two-thirds of the country, and numerous websites explain how to order medications from international pharmacies to end early pregnancies at home.
But not all patients have equal access to reliable information. Even before Roe v. Wade’s reversal, the most vulnerable U.S. patients — particularly low-income women, women of color and first-generation immigrants — disproportionately lacked accurate knowledge about abortion access. Today almost half of Americans are uncertain about the legality of medication abortion.
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