REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CARE
Access to Comprehensive Reproductive Health Care
The North Carolina Medical Society supports access to comprehensive, safe, equitable, and evidence-based quality reproductive care for every individual of reproductive age, regardless of gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, race, creed, culture, disability, geography, or financial status.
Therefore, the North Carolina Medical Society:
❖ Supports abortion as an essential part of comprehensive reproductive medical care.
❖ Supports access to comprehensive family planning, pregnancy, and post-natal services.
❖ Supports the preservation and protection of the relationship between patients and qualified health professionals and shared-decision making among available options for care that best meet patients’ medical needs and goals.
❖ Supports promoting access to a qualified health professional for guidance and evidence-based care for all reproductive health services, regardless of location.
❖ Supports medical science as the best source of evidence-based care.
❖ Supports a qualified health professional’s medical judgment, based on a holistic assessment of the pregnant patient’s condition, for determining the presence of an emergent or potentially emergent situation and determining the appropriate course of action and care.
❖ Supports the AMA’s Principles of Medical Ethics, including the obligation to ensure that patients have access to needed emergency services.
❖ Supports qualified health professionals not being required to perform or assist in an abortion if their personal beliefs conflict with the interruption of a pregnancy by such means.
❖ Supports that the decision to continue or end a pregnancy is influenced by an individual’s cultural, ethical, philosophical, and religious values and beliefs.
❖ Opposes regulations that impose undue burdens that supplant pregnant people’s values, beliefs, and circumstances or impede the ability of qualified health professionals to support their patients.
❖ Supports health care providers and trainees in North Carolina receiving medical education in fair and equitable principles and procedures in reproduction and childbearing, including core competency in comprehensive family planning, contraception, and pregnancy termination.
❖ Opposes government, institutional, or corporate interference in individuals’ ability or right to access reproductive health and support services.
❖ Supports correcting inequities in reproductive health care and health outcomes for people disadvantaged by socioeconomic status and people of color.
❖ Supports the prevention of restrictions that heighten medical risks for individuals with high-risk conditions during pregnancy or have pre-existing conditions that may be exacerbated during pregnancy.
❖ Opposes any attempt to impose legal or regulatory penalties or retaliation against health care professionals, patients, advocates, and organizations that aid in providing medically appropriate reproductive health services.
The North Carolina Medical Society fundamentally values compassion and respect for human dignity and rights, empowering patient self-determination and bodily autonomy with respect to reproductive health.