Dr. Jessica Shepherd, the chief medical officer at Verywell Health, joined Cheddar News to discuss what the overturning of Roe v. Wade means from a medical standpoint. “There are a range of reasons that women choose to have an abortion, and that can range anywhere from financial reasons to also medical reasons," she said. "These are the reasons why, it's again, very important that we understand the importance of abortion care because it's never just one thing or one reason why someone is choosing to have abortion. And we really need to make sure that we understand why access is so crucial."

Cheddar's News Wrap

Why Abortion Access Is a Healthcare Concern

And in the discussion about whether people should be able to get an abortion, we often forget the reasons why people want them. They go far beyond just wanting a baby. Now in a survey, 12% of people who got abortions said at least one of their reasons was related to health that includes their own health, the health of the fetus or other factors like medications. It shows abortion access is not just a social or political issue, but also a medical one. Joining me now to discuss just that is dr Jessica shepherd, chief medical officer at very well health dr shepherd, Welcome back to the show. What do you think some misconceptions are when it comes to the medical reasons for an abortion? Yeah, I think, you know, just outright hearing this news today, which is uh extremely disappointing is that you can see that there is quite a social construct on what abortion is, why it's done. And it's just as you said with those statistics, many feel that it's just a callous decision for many women to make and quite opposite. What we've seen all throughout studies. It is actually very emotional and hard decision. So what we see is that there are a range of reasons why women choose to have an abortion and that can range anywhere from financial reasons to also medical reasons which may be due to their health or the health of the fetus. Now, that again, is information that can be divulged in a later portion of the pregnancy, specifically the second trimester. And when we look at abortion percentages, most of those are done within the first trimester. However, there are a lot of reasons why women should be able to get abortions into their second trimester. And again, those can be for specific medical reasons. And also again for financial concern and health of the baby and or mother. The number of abortions per year was actually going down until fairly recently. Dr shepherd as you will know. How much of that do you think is credited to access to contraception and of course other health services that were available or there was a fear of going away. Yeah, we see. Did see through the Obama administration that again, the increase to access and advocacy and awareness for contraception actually helped people and decreasing those numbers. So even as we've heard and seen today is that even with the overturning of roe versus wade, there may be some concern if if there's going to be any issue now with contraception in the future. So like we've seen again through study and literature evidence based is that when you don't have access to health care such as abortion care and or contraception, you immediately see those numbers go up of whether that means that unsafe abortion or increase in unwanted pregnancies. So clearly we have a disconnect between actual Evidence and what is perceived as why people get abortions. Data from 2019 shows, 92% of abortions typically happen with within the first trimester, most of them within the first six weeks. I want to ask you about the remaining 8%, what are some of the common reasons for abortions later in pregnancy? Now, that's a great question because as we've seen even before, the overturning of roe versus way, there are a lot of laws that would say, you know, whether it's the early heartbeat or even six weeks. Many people don't even realize that they're pregnant until their latter portion of their first trimester and they're very close to that second trimester. Now, in that second trimester, a lot of times, if someone's just realizing that they're pregnant, that's when we do a lot of testing labs that can actually show if there's any chromosomal abnormalities or if there is a miscarriage or an impending miscarriage for reasons which may again be physiological or pathological. So, these are the reasons why it's again very important that we understand the importance of abortion care because it's never just one thing or one reason why someone is choosing to have abortion and we really need to make sure that we understand why access is so crucial. You know, we've heard so many horror stories. My colleague Megan prats was talking about a case in Ireland there's a story out of malta where a woman could not get an abortion even though she was in a life threatening situation with a non viable fetus. I have to ask you dr shepherd. Do you see that happening here in the United States? You know what I you know, optimistic. I want to be optimistic. But I know from what we have seen in the past, this is again, 50 years of something that was critical for women's health, for reproductive access and care. We are definitely going to see that one. We're gonna see more people that have to travel or find the finances in order to get the care that they need. But the other portion of that is the health care providers, the abortion health care providers that actually give the service to these women. They're gonna be overloaded because the ones that are in the state that can provide the care now, they're going to have a significant increase of women who are coming to them for care. So, as you can imagine, you can already see where that struggle is. And so I do feel that the again access to abortion care, we're going to see much more unsafe abortions and we're going to see a strain on the health care providers who provide that care. And as you know, it's huge. Typically women in those lower income neighborhoods, those marginalized communities that are affected most. We always appreciate your insight dr shepherd, especially on a day like this dr Jessica shepherd, chief medical officer at very well health. Thank you