David H. Perlmutter, dean of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and executive vice chancellor for medical affairs
The causes that divide us most deeply are those we feel most passionately about. One such issue has come home to Missouri against a backdrop of state challenges to women’s reproductive rights under U.S. law.
As providers of women’s health care and one of the state’s largest employers of physicians and other medical caregivers, we at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and BJC HealthCare are deeply concerned about legislation in Missouri that will curtail access to comprehensive reproductive health care, obstruct the doctor-patient relationship and criminalize the actions of physicians providing care to women.
In our state, recently signed legislation soon will allow for unnecessary intrusions into the doctor-patient relationship, with physicians facing the threat of criminal prosecution for providing medically necessary services. While there are exceptions for medical emergencies, what constitutes a medical emergency and how the law would be interpreted and enforced involve vast gray areas and vague standards.