Without Roe, Memphis' OBGYN shortage will worsen. That means more women will die | Weathersbee

So, Roe is done.

Expect a body count. Or rather, a boost to the body count.

Meaning that, in Tennessee, which has a law at the ready which bans abortions past six weeks and makes it a felony for a doctor to perform abortions if they know the woman is seeking one because of the fetus’ sex, race or a Down syndrome diagnosis, women will die.

Oh, and there’s no exception for rape or incest.

Women will die because most of them won’t know that they’re pregnant before six weeks. Some will resort to desperate, pre-Roe measures, like coat hangers and bleach, to exercise a right that the Supreme Court, a court now dominated by justices who lied to get their jobs and who were nominated by a president who continues to lie about the 2020 election being stolen – have ripped that right away.

But here in Tennessee, women will also die because this decision will worsen a horrendous situation. That situation being that right now, many women don’t even survive pregnancy.

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It ranks 9th among the states in maternal mortality. Mississippi, the state that the Supreme Court wielded as the dagger to kill Roe, ranks 19th.

In both states, Black women are more than twice as likely than white women to die during pregnancy.

Expect that body count to build as more obstetricians and gynecologists begin to retire, or medical students choose other specialties, because they don’t want to risk going to prison if their medical decisions aren’t OK’d by ideologues.

And that's chilling.

Memphis is seventh most-at risk when it comes to shortages of OBGYNs, according to a report by Doximity, the nation's largest social medial network. The report says Nashville is 19th most at risk.

The report predicts that by 2050, the nation will be short of 22,000 OBGYNs.

But now that Roe is gone, expect 2050 to arrive in 2022.

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That’s because, under the state’s abortion ban, a doctor would have to prove to a judge, if a charge is brought, that an abortion was medically necessary to save a woman’s life. He or she would also have to prove that he or she made a “good faith effort,” to save the fetus.

How does that even happen? And what will a judge, especially if it’s a judge who hews more to fanaticism and ideology than science, accept as a “good faith” effort?

And for those OBGYNs whose decision to perform an abortion is accepted by a judge, who’s going to risk their personal information being tweeted out or being stalked by fanatics who disagree – leaving them vulnerable to being terrorized or even killed?

It’s a safe bet that most OBGYNs aren’t going to stick around long enough to find out.

We’re seeing this already.

According to a recent article in Fortune, many medical residents who were looking to become OBGYNs are reconsidering their options – and even more established OBGYNs are seeing the danger.

Said Dr. Beverly Gray, the residency director at Duke University’s OBGYN department in North Carolina: “I don’t think I anticipated that I was going to need a mini law degree to be able to do my job.”

Right. And more won’t be doing the job.

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That, as well as other aspects of this horrendous ruling, will impact people’s lives in ways that they can’t imagine.

It’ll impact the lives of the couple who, upon learning that the fetus the wife is carrying is dead, won’t be able to get the OBGYN to risk being judged, or even prosecuted, for terminating the pregnancy – even though expelling a dead fetus means risking death, or emotional or psychological damage, for the mother.

It’ll impact the lives of OBGYNs who will, more than likely, be plagued with anguish over being powerless to terminate the pregnancy of a 12-year-old raped by her stepfather; a girl who, along with countless others, will be forced to risk dying on the altar of ideology and GOP hypocrisy.

It’ll impact the lives of OBGYNs and, for that matter, emergency-room doctors who’ll have to care for victims of botched abortions but will have to report them to the state – as patient privacy will become a thing of the past.

Said state Sen. London Lamar, who lost a child during pregnancy, in a press release: “It is unconscionable that a group of politicians, who mostly neglect families that look like mine, now have the power to endanger women’s health and criminalize our doctors for offering appropriate life-saving care.

“I am devastated. I am angry. But words fail to describe the pain and horror I am feeling right now as I try to make sense of where this dangerous decision will lead us.”

Justice Clarence Thomas has offered a clue as to where it will lead.

In his concurrence, Thomas called for wiping out constitutional precedents that established the right for couples to obtain birth control, and for people of the same sex to have relations and to marry.

That means Thomas is fantasizing about allowing states to bring back a law that could imprison gay people for having sex – and that’s an invitation for states like Tennessee and other states governed by lawmakers hostile toward LGBTQ rights, to initiate a case that leads to that.

This can be fixed, though.

It can be fixed if voters, more than 60 percent of whom believe Roe should have been upheld, turn out in November’s midterm election and vote for candidates that support abortion rights.

It can be fixed if voters get that they’ll ultimately get to buy gas at $2 or $3 a gallon again, but what they won’t get back are their rights to reproductive freedom, a right that is key to women’s health, and privacy if state lawmakers, now abetted by the Supreme Court, take them away.

“I am deeply concerned about the health and wellness of women who will become pregnant in Tennessee, but who will not be able to get the services that they need,” said Cherisse Scott, founder and CEO of SisterReach, a Memphis reproductive justice organization.

“But I think I’m further concerned about further actions of the Tennessee legislature on the lives of those who will seek abortions out of desperation, and the foretold criminalization component that will follow that.

“Conservatives across the country feel that this is some type of a win. But there is nothing about young people dying, there is nothing about women dying, about women who have been raped, women who have been victims of domestic violence, women who have been victims of human trafficking…

“This isn’t a win for a state where many [women] live in abject poverty and who are limited in accessing the birth control that they need, and who are limited in understanding their bodies because of a legislature that staunchly is against sexual health education being taught.”

Nor is it a win for Memphis women - and especially Black women - who will need health care but won’t be able to find it because few OBGYNs will risk imprisonment for providing it.

Or, for that matter, being killed by crazy people if they do.

Tonyaa Weathersbee can be reached at tonyaa.weathersbee@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter: @tonyaajw

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: The end of Roe will add to Memphis' maternal mortality body count.