Map of the Day: “Bad medicine” laws undermine reproductive health care across the country

A new report from the National Partnership for Women & Families explores the common anti-choice restrictions that are forcing doctors to choose between following the law and doing what they know is best for their patients. 

The report focuses on four anti-abortion restrictions–ultrasound requirements, biased counseling sessions, mandatory waiting periods, and regulations on the abortion pill–that they describe as “bad medicine” laws since there is absolutely no medical justification for them. Over 30 states have at least one of these types of restrictions on their books, and half of those states have all four of them. And that doesn’t even include the TRAP laws that are equally medically unnecessary and are shutting down clinics altogether.

“Politics are taking over our exam rooms and that is a dangerous, disturbing trend,” said the group’s president Debra L. Ness. “More and more, lawmakers across the country are enacting laws that mandate how health care providers must practice medicine, without regard to their professional judgment or their patients’ needs.”