Thank you to all members who responded to the ISMA Abortion Legislation Survey before it closed the evening of Monday, July 18. This time-sensitive survey was critically important in anticipation of the July 25 special legislative session addressing abortion.
ISMA will have to engage on this issue to help educate legislators and advocate for physicians and patients. The ISMA Commission on Legislation determined that ISMA has some policy on abortion and reproductive health, but not on all of the issues that the Indiana General Assembly will be considering, such as criminalizing actions by physicians. And, the special legislative session is likely to conclude well before ISMA’s convention in September, when new policy may be made. For that reason, the Commission on Legislation recommended that ISMA staff survey ISMA members. The ISMA Board of Trustees approved the request.
The survey feedback cannot be used to repeal or replace existing House of Delegates policies and will not have the weight of formal policy, but will be treated as supplemental information to help guide ISMA’s advocacy efforts during the special session.
"We are extremely pleased by the response to this survey,” said ISMA President Elizabeth Struble, MD. “Hoosier physicians are clearly passionate about this topic. While we saw that physicians have different views about abortion generally, we also saw that a lot of them agree on some issues, like the importance of exclusions in the law for things like rape, incest, lethal fetal anomaly and life or health of the mother, as well as protections against criminal punishment for physicians and patients.
“It is important that ISMA protect the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship and of the medical profession.”
More than 1,500 total responses to the survey were received from ISMA members in active practice, medical students, residents, fellows and retired members.
ISMA members should watch their email tomorrow (Friday, July 22) for Legislative News, which will include updates on the abortion legislation.