On SCOTUS, medicine and public health

In a well-functioning society, individuals and professional institutions work together, respect each other’s expertise and boundaries, and policy makers weigh in on the consequences of their decisions. In health matters, the SCOTUS has shown it is no longer willing to rule by these principles when they put their ideological interpretation of an 18^th century Constitution ahead of our 21^st century realities.

Does SCOTUS expect legislators to understand a woman’s reproductive biology and function better than medical providers? As “natural” as pregnancy is, practitioners never underestimate the fact that it is a biological state that imposes a heavy overload on a woman’s physiology and carries many risks, some of them with life-long consequences, especially for teenagers and those with underlying health issues. Patients and their medical providers already have clinical guidelines that are evidence-based and monitored by licensing boards to achieve the safest and best possible health outcomes. They don’t need politicians to tell them how to practice reproductive medicine.

For years, physicians have declared gun violence a public health epidemic. When SCOTUS puts individual right-to-bear-arms undisputedly above the horrible consequences of an unregulated gun culture, it endangers our communities.

Aware of the health problems associated with pollution, Congress previously decided that national environmental air standards are best set by climatologists and public health experts. By reversing the power to regulate pollution back to legislators, SCOTUS widens the door for fossil fuel lobbyists in Congress.

This regressive SCOTUS majority is a clear and present danger to the health of Americans.

(Submitted July 7, 2022 to the Gazette Times, Corvallis, OR)