June 27, 2022

The ABA Stands by the Statement from the ABMS on Legislative Interference in Medical Education, Training, and Practice

The ABA supports the American Board of Medical Specialty’s (ABMS) recent statement emphasizing that patients have a fundamental right to evidence-based medical care, free of legislative and governmental interference.


 

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On June 25 the ABMS released the following statement:

The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) maintains that patients have a fundamental right to evidence-based medical care provided by physicians and health care providers in a manner that is free of legislative and governmental interference. All medical care should represent a shared decision agreed upon between a patient/guardian and a health care provider.

The Opinion issued by the Supreme Court of the United States in Thomas E. Dobbs, et al. v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, et. al., which reverses Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, eliminates the federal protections affording women the privacy and right to pursue access to evidence-based reproductive health care and abortion. This ruling establishes a dangerous precedent of legislative interference in the practice of medicine.

The medical profession exists to serve patients. ABMS fully supports the Member Boards and recognizes their professional expertise in setting standards for necessary and appropriate boundaries of care in education, training, and practice. Criminalization of physicians and medical specialists providing evidence-based care that is medically necessary and wanted by patients is inappropriate and a significant transgression into the boundaries of medical professionalism.

View the statement on the ABMS website here.