Two years ago, the plan was approved. We waited. And waited. And waited. In May of last year, the UW announced that the MSC was not a suitable location and went to work finding an alternate site. Again, we waited. And waited.
The MSC never began providing the services. In December, shortly after the election of Governor Scott Walker and anti-choice majorities in the State Senate and State Assembly, the UW announced that it would not be moving forward with its plans, citing security concerns:
Monday's announcement ends that attempt, said UW Health spokeswoman Lisa Brunette. She said the surgery center "was really the only viable option within our system, and we have concluded that it cannot be secured to the extent necessary for patient safety and privacy."NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin and other advocacy groups reacted immediately, expressing our disappointment and outrage that the UW and MSC let down the women of our community.
Subeck, of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin, said most second-trimester abortions are performed when the woman is in medical danger or has learned that something has gone terribly wrong with the pregnancy. "I would have hoped (UW Health) would have continued its commitment to the entire spectrum of women's reproductive health," she said.Outraged citizens spoke out through their letters to the editor, their blog posts, and even their Facebook pages. The community was outraged, but where were the doctors? The nurses? The medical students? The medical community as a whole has been eerily silent in response to this news.
On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Dr. Doug Laube - a Madison physician who chairs the national group Physicians for Reproductive Choice - wrote a column calling on his colleagues to express their outrage that the UW and MSC let down the women of this community and left a gaping hole in the availability of reproductive health services with their decision.
“It is just appalling to me that there is not one lick of criticism out there from anybody who represents the physician practices in town,” says Dr. Doug Laube, a professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin, who was not involved with UW Health’s plans.
He calls the Dec. 13 decision a hypocritical one, counter to both UW Health’s claim to offer comprehensive women’s health services and an earlier vote by its board to offer the abortion services at the Madison Surgery Center, which is jointly owned by UW Hospital, UW Medical Foundation and Meriter Hospital.We agree with Dr. Laube and join him in calling upon his colleagues to express their outrage. NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin is committed to ensuring the full range of reproductive health services is available to women in our state, but we cannot do it without the help of the medical community. We know that medical professionals in the Madison area are upset, outraged, and concerned for their patients who can no longer access this critical care. Now it is time to step up and let the University of Wisconsin and Madison Surgery Center know that they let the community down.
I applaud the well informed and intelligently written work on this sight. I hope people will make an effort to add comments; it would be great to see a dialog on many of these important postings.
ReplyDeleteI think we all know why this didn’t happen. The notion that appropriate security isn’t available is an interesting one and it really underscores the state of women’s reproductive healthcare in the U.S. Anti-choice activists have managed to bully their way past federal law in what amounts to tacit acceptance of their criminal activities. It is perhaps the ultimate irony that people proclaiming the sanctity of life would justify those beliefs by using murder, violence, and intimidation to achieve their goals. No one wants to deal with the inevitable throng of daily intimidation protests by anti-choice. Plus, it just doesn’t look good - all of those placard-carrying yokels could reduce profitability of related facilities. It’s not a question of what’s right or in the public interest; the myopic handicap of for-profit health care is the profit motive. You can hardly expect the majority of people whose bread is buttered by such a system to join you in outrage over such an issue. Why don’t we have legislation that protects public rights including access to appropriate reproductive healthcare?
Dave