Groundbreaking Massachusetts Law Protects Telemedicine Abortion Providers Serving Patients Located

[niyad]

(Thank you, Massachusetts, for caring about women. Excellent information at link)

Groundbreaking Massachusetts Law Protects Telemedicine Abortion Providers Serving Patients Located in States Banning Abortion
8/18/2022 by Carrie N. Baker


Reproductive Equity Now’s Government Affairs Director Claire Teylouni (third from right) joined the Legislature and Governor for a signing ceremony for the new Massachusetts abortion access law. (Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts)

Massachusetts passed a sweeping new reproductive rights law on July 29 with robust protections for healthcare workers who provide abortion services to patients living outside the state—both those who travel to Massachusetts for care, and those who receive care in their home states from Massachusetts providers via telemedicine. The Massachusetts law means women, girls, trans men and nonbinary people living in states with abortion bans can receive telemedicine abortion care from U.S. providers and obtain abortion pills promptly by mail, rather than having to order pills from outside of the country, which can take weeks. In addition to provider protections, the law removes cost barriers to abortion care, expands access to third-trimester abortions in cases of grave fetal diagnosis, increases access to emergency contraception and medication abortion, and guarantees the right to gender-affirming care.

“Today Massachusetts has made it indisputably clear: Our commonwealth will stand up to hostile attacks on life-saving and life-affirming healthcare,” said Rebecca Hart Holder, executive director of Reproductive Equity Now. The new law includes 11 recommendations from the Massachusetts Beyond Roe Agenda, an advocacy plan put forward by Reproductive Equity Now, the ACLU of Massachusetts and Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts. The Beyond Roe Coalition launched the advocacy agenda in early May following the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. Advocates worked closely with Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey to draft a strong law that will withstand a likely constitutional challenge from anti-abortion forces.

To shield healthcare providers from unjust attacks by anti-abortion states and advocates, the new law:

prohibits the extradition of Massachusetts providers who lawfully provide abortion care in Massachusetts to a resident of a different state where the procedure is illegal;

prevents Massachusetts law enforcement officers or employees from providing information or assistance to any federal or state law enforcement agency or private citizen in relation to an investigation or inquiry into protected reproductive healthcare services;

creates a new civil remedy for providers in Massachusetts to countersue if they are the subject of criminal prosecution or civil lawsuits filed by someone outside of the state, enabling them to recover an amount equal to the damages assessed in these out-of-state lawsuits;

protects providers’ professional licenses from any negative impacts of being sued by a resident of a state where abortion is illegal for providing legal abortion care in the Massachusetts; and

keeps malpractice insurance within reach for providers when they face out-of-state civil lawsuits for providing lawful abortion care in Massachusetts.

I want providers to feel like Massachusetts is standing with them and up for them.
Rebecca Hart Holder, executive director of Reproductive Equity Now

. . .


After the law was signed, Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Massachusetts and met with lawmakers and advocates in Boston on August 4. At this meeting, Harris described Massachusetts as “a national model for protecting reproductive rights on the state level” and she encouraged the leaders to support state legislators across the country who are fighting for abortion protections.
“None of us could anticipate what the fall of Roe would feel like when it really happened,” said Hart Holder. “In a state like Massachusetts, the goal was to go big…to go bigger than we ever dreamed. And it worked. It paid off.”


https://msmagazine.com/2022/08/18/massachusetts-abortion-law/

[lindysalsagal]

1. Note to GQP: Because we actually DO live in the 21st century!!

Wake the eff up!

[niyad]

2. actually, I would prefer that they all stop wasting oxygen.

[Ms. Toad]

3. Unfortunately, there are licensing issues which this is probably not capable of addressing

It is illegal to practice medicine in most states without a license. When you are engaged in telemedicine, the location of the treatment is the location of the patient, not the physician.

It is unlikely that Massachussetts can protect its physicians from actions in other states arising out of the physician's practice of medicine in that distant state.

[GregariousGroundhog]

5. Has a question around location of treatment already been settled by the courts?

I suspect there will be a showdown at some point where a state outlawing abortion will try to extradite a doctor from Massachusetts. That said, I don't know what existing caselaw there is regarding telemedicine and where treatment is considered to take place when the physician and patient are in two different locations.

[Ms. Toad]

6. Yes.

Long before this quesiton arose. Statutes in most states are very specific about what constitutes the practice of medicine within their state. So it's not even a matter of case law - the text of the statutues is clear. (This is an issue which existed long before the question of abortion, so it isn't a novel question.)

I encountered this when I was diagnosed with sarcoma (a rare and aggressive cancer) at the height of COVID. There are a few recognized sarcoma centers nationwide, and I wanted a second opinion (since the survival rate is piss poor - especially if you aren't in one of those centers).

I live in Ohio, and one of the centers is in Texas. Ohio law is very specific that it is the location of the patient which governs where medicine is being practiced. With few exceptions, no one who is unlicensed in Ohio is permitted to provide care via a telemedicine appointment with anyone in Ohio. So my options were to travel to Texas during the first wave - before vaccinations were available, or skip the second opinion.

There are two hopeful things, but neither would put out-of-state practitioners in the clear.

First - more states are joining the interstate compact which permits cross-licensing of physicians (I believe 37 states participate now, and the first applications from out-of-state physicians in Ohio were submitted within the last couple of weeks). Physicians in those states who are licensed in Ohio can practice medicine in Ohio.

Second - some physicians are being creative and are consulting with physicians in other states (so the consult isn't with the patient, but with the patient's doctor, with the patient sitting in).

The challenge is that it doesn't change the location of the practice. So in both cases, the physician would be subject to at least the licensing laws of the state which prohibits abortion. So if the state would remove the license of a physician performing abortions, the multi-state compact would not save the physician's license to practice in the state which has the ban.

There are some protections built in (e.g. no extradition), but license removal likely doesn't require extradition - and rules against extradition only apply while the practicing physician is in Mass. So, for example they could likely be arrested when they travel outside of Mass, and extradited from that state which is friendlier to the anti-abortion cause.

It's fantastic they are trying to problem solve, but if I were a Mass physician I doubt I'd risk it.

[LiberalFighter]

4. It should be more than just damage costs.