In a February 5 letter to House Civil Justice Committee members, the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians stated its opposition to Senate Bill (SB) 145, a proposal that criminalizes a legal medical procedure (dilation and evacuation) subjecting physicians to a fourth-degree felony for including this legal medical procedure in their medical practice. SB 145 passed the Ohio Senate on June 28, 2017. Consideration of the House Civil Justice Committee is pending.
In its letter to House Civil Justice Committee Chair Nathan Manning, OAFP President Don Mack, MD, stated, “The proposal represents an inappropriate and misguided intrusion into the patient-physician relationship, represents an unprecedented level of legislative interference into the practice of medicine, and actually seeks to turn a physician who performs a legal, safe, and appropriate health care service into a criminal.”
The OAFP follows the American Academy of Family Physicians’ policy on the criminalization of medical practice which states “the AAFP takes all reasonable and necessary steps to ensure that medical decision-making and treatment, exercised in good faith, does not become a violation of criminal law.”
In addition, the OAFP follows the AAFP’s policy on reproductive health which states “the AAFP supports a woman’s access to reproductive health services and opposes non evidence-based restrictions on medical care and the provision of such services.”