Focus on reducing unintended pregnancies

By The Gazette Editorial Board -------

Advances in telemedicine have helped rural Iowa patients gain critical access to medical services.

It's a high-tech way to safely serve patients in remote, medically underserved areas - a benefit to our collective health.

Some pro-life activists and other Iowans are alarmed by the success of a telemedicine program that allows doctors to remotely prescribe the abortion pill. They worry that making it too easy for women to choose abortion will increase the number of woman who do. They've asked the Iowa Board of Medicine to block the program, saying it violates state medical standards and puts women's' health at risk.

With respect to personal beliefs and activists' concerns, denying rural women access to a legal prescription isn't the way to reduce the number of abortions in Iowa.

Better to attack the root of the problem: unintended pregnancies - which have long made up about half of all pregnancies in the state.

That's the focus of work like the Christie Vilsack-led Reduce Unintended Pregnancies initiative - which we have previously supported.

Reducing the number of women - especially those who are young and single, with few resources and support - who become pregnant unintentionally reduces the number who must make the difficult decision about how to handle an unintended pregnancy.

More education and family planning services also can reduce the transmission of sexually transmitted disease.

About 1,900 women have taken the abortion pill through Planned Parenthood of the Heartland's telemedicine program in Iowa.

Through the program, women seeking the pill are given an ultrasound and examined by a nurse at one of 16 clinics in the state.

The patient then consults with a doctor via a secure Internet connection. After that consultation and a review of the woman's medical records, the doctor can remotely open a container to provide the pill.

We understand why the number of those prescriptions would alarm some people - there's no way of knowing how many of those women might have carried those pregnancies to term if it were more difficult for them to choose abortion.

Some have asked the Iowa Board of Medicine to block the program, arguing that it poses a risk to patient health.

Yet, as Jenifer Bowen, executive director of Iowa Right to Life, acknowledged to an Associated Press reporter, there have been no verified health emergencies among the telemedicine patients who took the abortion pill.

Abortion, legal in this country, is a difficult issue that may never be resolved. But rural access to health care is a serious need in Iowa, and shouldn't be manipulated for political ends. The way forward is to provide greater access to health care, including family planning services - not less.