President’s Message

Telemedicine Abortions

          Telemedicine has become the “new normal” for medical practice in this COVID-19 world  in which we find ourselves.  Currently, governmental regulations have been relaxed to facilitate the implementation of this modality into all areas of medicine.  A technology that was previously looking for an application has become a mainstay of out-patient medical care. 

This has resulted in legitimizing telehealth with the public.  Other than in psychiatry, the success of medical care delivered without the benefit of physical examination is yet to be determined. 

Nowhere is this lack of physical examination more egregious than in abortion services.  There are currently 13 states (see below links) that permit medical abortions.  Medical abortions induce a spontaneous miscarriage with healthy fetus up to 10 weeks gestation using mifepristone  and misoprostol.  This is all done in the comfort of one’s home without the benefit of a medical evaluation or physical examination to accurately determine either gestational age or viability of the pregnancy.  Maternal comorbidities only discoverable by physical examination going undetected.  These patients face the risks of complications of abortion remote from medical care.  Without a bimanual pelvic examination or pelvic ultrasound, accurate assessment of the age of the fetus and the appropriateness of medical abortion are unkown.

Telemedicine abortion subjects the woman to the risks of hemorrhage, infection and sepsis, all potentially fatal.  These dangers of telemedicine abortion are obvious to all medical practitioners and 18 states have banned this dangerous procedure.  However, 13 states embrace telemedicine abortion as an acceptable and legal medical procedure.

Currently, New Jersey is not one of the 13 states that condone this procedure.  New Jersey law currently requires that a woman have proof of the gestational age of the fetus through an in-person examination before an abortion, medical or surgical, can be performed.  However, it may only be a matter of time before this examination requirement is challenged with the intention of introducing telemedicine medical abortions to our state. 

What can we, as Catholic physicians, nurses and healthcare workers, do.  First, we must be vigilant for any signs that telemedicine abortion is starting to gain momentum in New Jersey.  Secondly, we must start to organize a response team to combat this evil and its close companion, telemedicine physician assisted suicide.  We need to identify professionals now who will be available to provide strong testimony when these bills are coming out of committee in our State legislature in Trenton; to defend the women of our State.  We must be ready to actively proclaim our fears of these dangers to the health and welfare of our communities as these opportunities arise.  As opposed to the feeble response of medicine when physician assisted suicide was introduced to New Jersey, we must be ready to mount a grass roots campaign to sound the alarm of the dangers of this practice. 

Now is the time for awareness and vigilance.  This is a function that membership in the Diocese of Camden Guild of the Catholic Medical Association will provide for you, as a member.  Please join today.  Only united can we stand during these troubled times.

May God Bless and Keep you, your families and your patients.