Northern Virginia Congressman Gerry Connolly today released a statement summarizing contents of a report of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on the negative effects of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe V. Wade.
The report finds:
- Providers are seeing sicker patients suffering from greater complications due to delayed care caused by Dobbs;
- The Dobbs decision has harmed the training of OBGYN residents in restrictive states;
- Residency applicants are increasingly concerned about the quality of abortion training that programs can offer in restrictive states;
- Residency directors are finding that restrictions on clinical communication is degrading trust between providers and patients and robbing patients of the ability to make informed decisions about their health;
- The training of OBGYN residents in protective states has been harmed as programs in those states strain their capacity and resources to help train out-of-state residents from restrictive states;
- Restrictive state laws are already leading us to a future with a provider workforce less prepared to provide comprehensive reproductive health care;
- OBGYN residents and program directors are increasingly frustrated, discouraged, and experiencing negative mental health effects in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision;
- Residency program leaders who participated in the report universally agreed that abortion care is integral to other components of reproductive health care and cannot be eliminated or isolated from residency training;
- After Dobbs, OBGYN residency applicants more strongly prefer programs in states that permit abortion access; and,
- A patchwork of state restrictions is leading to disparate systems of reproductive health care, worsening reproductive and maternal health care shortages, and a fractured OBGYN workforce.
Connolly adds that “even more frightening than the report’s findings, however, are the personal testimonies from doctors and other providers who report that the Dobbs decision has hindered their ability to both properly care for patients and prepare the next generation of doctors for service.”