Medically unneeded

Earlier this year, Arkansas became the first state to effectively ban medication abortion. Act 577 requires that physicians who provide medication abortion have a formal agreement with a backup provider who has hospital admitting privileges. The law is medically unnecessary, as American women have safely and legally used medication abortion for well over a decade.

Like any other health-care provider, Planned Parenthood follows rigorous requirements and regulations based on scientifically accurate information. And yet, unlike every other licensed healthcare provider, Planned Parenthood also has to comply with state and federal anti-abortion restrictions based on nothing more than political ideology.

Case in point, Planned Parenthood was forced to stop providing abortion services in Arkansas after the state ignored recommendations of leading medical experts, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and enacted Act 577. This law left Arkansans with only a single option for abortion in the state: a surgical abortion provider in Little Rock.

Laws like Act 577 don’t improve women’s health or strengthen the patient-provider relationship. Instead, they force women to take multiple days off work and drive hundreds of miles round-trip to visit their nearest provider, sometimes out of state.

Planned Parenthood has been around long enough to recognize a wolf in sheep’s clothing. After three years of searching for a backup doctor, Planned Parenthood can now comply with Act 577, but the threat of additional restrictions is imminent. False claims from the media will only lead to greater burdens on patients across Arkansas. MURRY NEWBERN Little Rock