(Photo: Natalie Behring/Getty Images)
Ohio doctors asked lawmakers this week to withdraw a bill that would require a 24-hour wait before an abortion procedure.
During a hearing before the Ohio Senate Health Committee, doctors emphasized that informed consent is already part of the standard of care for which they have been trained.
They said Ohio House Bill 347 not only prevents patients from receiving care in a timely manner, but creates disparate treatment options for those treating people who may become pregnant.
“Requiring abortion providers to do so without similar requirements for all other procedures is discriminatory and, frankly, patronizing to people seeking abortions that they would need additional rules and time to decide whether to have an abortion,” said Dr. Elise Berlan, an Ohio physician who treats children and adolescents.
Berlan and other opponents of the bill spoke at the last expected committee hearing before lawmakers go on recess that could last until the November election.
The committee did not vote in favor of the bill before the break, but did hear from several Ohioans about their views on the bill.
Ohio House Republican lawmakers passed HB 347 in March along party lines.
Abortion rights supporters who spoke at the latest hearing made arguments similar to those at previous hearings when the bill passed the House.
They criticized the bill as not only unnecessary, but also inconsistent with a 2023 Ohio constitutional amendment that established abortion rights and other reproductive health issues.
HB 347 would establish in Ohio law a requirement that doctors meet with patients 24 hours before an abortion procedure, which bill sponsors and supporters say allows patients to receive needed information about and consider the risks and methods of abortion procedures.
A 24-hour waiting period for abortions was already established in state law, but a Franklin County court postponed enforcement of that law until after the trial.
In staying the execution of the sentence, Judge David C. Young cited the constitutional amendment approved by voters in his ruling.
Dr. Annalize Celano, a resident physician in family medicine, said informed consent is already a “crucial and mandatory element of all medical care.”
“Informed consent ensures that our patients know the benefits and risks of any indicated procedure or drug, ensuring patient independence and empowerment to make the best health care decisions of their lives,” Celano told the committee.
The doctor said a 24-hour waiting period could create more barriers to care and that having doctors provide information required from the state, including information about “reversal” abortions that she and Berlan said have been disproven in numerous medical studies, would not facilitate her empower patients.
“HB 347 would legally force me to force my patients to do what state lawmakers want them to do, not what is best for them and their family,” Celano said.
Unlike decisions about, for example, which antibiotic to operate for an infection or which particular inhaler to operate for asthma, decisions about reproductive health are “very sensitive to patients’ priorities and values,” Berlan said.
However, the same delays included in HB 347 are not considered for other procedures such as vasectomy.
“Having worked in urology for many years before medical school, I saw the (vasectomy) consent process several times,” Celano said.
“I can assure you that nowhere in the consent process was there any counseling for anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.”
The bill has until the end of the year to vote, after which it will need to be reintroduced as modern legislation in the next General Assembly.
The committee’s chairman, state Sen. Steve Huffman, R-Tipp City, said that “unless something extraordinary happens” he does not plan to convene another committee until after the legislative recess, “most likely in November.”
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