Today, Massachusetts-based ob/gyn and Physicians for Reproductive Health Fellow, Dr. Kathryn Fay, is testifying before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Policy. Alongside ACLU of Massachusetts Executive Director, Carol Rose and Reproductive Equity Now President, Rebecca Hart Holder, Dr. Fay will share her expertise on the economic and health impacts of threats to reproductive rights reflecting on what it was like to practice in states with bans and with protections of reproductive health. Today’s hearing will be live-streamed at 2 PM ET.
The following statement is from Dr. Fay’s remarks to the Senators:
“My name is Dr. Kathryn Fay and I use she/her pronouns. I am a board-certified, fellowship trained, obstetrician and gynecologist specializing in family planning. I provide full spectrum sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion. As is typical of many in medicine, I completed my training in other states, in my case Illinois and Utah. Now, as a resident of Massachusetts, I bring a firsthand account of the ways state policy supports or obstructs quality healthcare. I am here today as a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, a network of physicians from across the country working to improve access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care, and as a physician at The Brigham and Women’s hospital.
“In Massachusetts I am able to provide care based on what patients and I decide together is safest and healthiest for their lives using my clinical training and following best medical practices without political interference. Massachusetts has been and continues to be a leader for access to reproductive health care…
There is no safe state as long as threats to sexual and reproductive health care continues…
“I am grateful to live and practice medicine in a state that supports the broad scope of sexual and reproductive health care, including contraceptive care. In the past few months, I have cared for people who needed life-saving abortion care to begin treatment for a new cancer diagnosis and people who needed an abortion in the setting of life-threatening hemorrhage. I have cared for people who sought abortions in the setting of fetal anomalies, abusive partners, housing instability, sexual assault, contraceptive failure; the indications are endless and all of them are valid. However, we cannot ignore that the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs has wreaked havoc on the lives of people across our country seeking care for similar reasons, and on the clinicians who are doing their best to care for their communities. There is no safe state as long as threats to sexual and reproductive health care continues…
“As states continue to ban abortion, patients are having to travel farther and farther distances away from their homes and their communities putting their health and lives at risk… Abortion restrictions only serve to burden and endanger patients and clinicians, not make abortion any safer. These restrictions represent a national movement that threatens health care.
“If not just for the general moral good, I am here today advocating for the status of care in Massachusetts. Since Roe, steady chipping away of sexual and reproductive health rights has jeopardized justice for all. Dobbs was a clear and devastating loss, but it does not represent an end point. I worry about the loss of mifepristone, a federal abortion ban, and threats to contraception and assisted reproductive technology, hazards that will transcend state lines. Abortion, without stipulation, is life-saving, necessary, compassionate, essential health care.”