Testimony of Rachel Stacey, MD

Physicians for Reproductive Health

Submitted to the Senate Medical Affairs Committee
March 18, 2015
I am an obstetrician/gynecologist and have been living and practicing in Charleston, South
Carolina for five years. I trained at the Medical University of South Carolina and completed
my residency in 2014. I am a member of Physicians for Reproductive Health, a doctor-led
national advocacy organization that uses evidence-based medicine to promote sound
reproductive health policies. Our members include physicians of all specialties from across
the country, including South Carolina. Physicians unites the medical community and
concerned supporters to improve access to comprehensive reproductive health care,
including contraception and abortion, especially to meet the health care needs of
economically disadvantaged patients. I am writing to urge you to reject House Bill 3114 (H.
3114), the so-called South Carolina Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. This
dangerous bill would deny South Carolina women access to safe and legal abortion care by
interfering with the doctor-patient relationship.
As physicians, our top priority is the health and safety of our patients and we strive to
provide high quality care each and every day. If enacted, H. 3114 would ban most abortions
at 20 weeks after fertilization, clearly before viability. The bill threatens providers with fines
and/or imprisonment for providing professional and compassionate care, and is intended to
intimidate and discourage doctors from providing abortion care. This bill places health care
providers in a painful and untenable situation when they are facing a complex, urgent
medical situation, they must withhold treatment that would protect the health and safety of
their patients in order to comply with this medically dangerous and unjust law.
This bill ignores the health complications and real-life situations that women can experience
in pregnancy. Every pregnant woman faces her own unique circumstances, challenges, and
potential complications. She must be able to make medical decisions based on her doctors
advice and whats right for herself and her family. Politicians are not medical experts and
should not intrude into the doctor-patient relationship in this way. Further, this bill attempts
to dictate care based on inaccurate and unscientific claims. Research shows that contrary to
the bills claims, a fetus doesnt have the neurological structures needed to experience pain
until significantly later in pregnancy. 1
H. 3114 would force a doctor to deny an abortion to a woman who has determined that
terminating a pregnancy is the right decision for her, including women carrying a pregnancy
with severe or lethal anomalies that may not be diagnosed until after 20 weeks in
pregnancy2 and women with serious medical conditions brought on or exacerbated by

Rigorous scientific reviews of the evidence on fetal pain in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA),
Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and Journal of Maternal-Fetal and Neonatal Medicine
concluded as recently as 2012 that fetal perception of pain is unlikely before the third trimester.
2 These conditions can include anencephaly, renal agenesis, limb-body wall complex, neural tube defects such as
encephalocele and severe hydrocephaly, limb-body wall complex, and severe heart defects.

pregnancy.3 H. 3114 contains no exception to preserve the health of the woman. Instead, it includes a vague
life endangerment exception that exposes doctors to disciplinary action, limiting their options for care that is
often needed in acute and complicated medical situations. Physicians for Reproductive Health, along with
other leading medical organizations, strongly oppose bills like H. 3114 because they interfere with providing
women the best possible medical care, interfere with the doctor-patient relationship and undermine the
thoughtful decisions of women and their families.
As a doctor who takes care of women and their families every day, I know that in order to ensure their
health and safety, women need access to the full range of reproductive health care, including abortion.
Although most women can expect an uneventful, uncomplicated pregnancy, some situations will arise
where a woman needs a safe and timely abortion. Politics and ideology should not enter into her health care
decisions or the doctor-patient relationship. I most forcefully urge you to respect my medical experience, my
patients, and my medical colleagues throughout South Carolina, and reject H. 3114.

Such conditions can include pulmonary hypertension, Marfans syndrome, severe valvular heart disease, Eisenmenger's syndrome,
cyanotic heart defects, hormonally sensitive cancers, kidney disease, preterm premature rupture of membranes with sepsis,
placenta previa, severe preeclampsia, HELLP syndrome, and ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome.