OB-GYN Spearheads Crowdfunding Campaign For Patient’s Abortion

An OB-GYN in Madison is trying to crowdfund an abortion for one of her patients that would have to take place out of state due to Wisconsin’s ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Amanda Schmehil-Micklos of Associated Physicians set up a GoFundMe campaign for her patient’s abortion in Chicago after determining the fetus had a lethal skeletal condition. So far, almost $3,000 has been raised through the crowdfunding website for the procedure and travel costs.

“It’s a very obvious example of what happens when government steps in to the physician-patient relationship,” said Schmehil-Micklos. “As an OB-GYN, I could easily help my patient and we could have decided what was the appropriate treatment together. But because of the (20-week) ban, I’m not able to be there with her when she goes through this horrible procedure that no one would wish on anyone. She has to go see a doctor she doesn’t know, travel to a city she doesn’t live in and miss work for several days.”

The ban, one of the strictest in the country, doesn’t include exceptions for rape, incest or fatal fetal anomalies.

In a written statement, Wisconsin Right to Life said both parents and the “unborn child deserve to be spared from the pain of abortion.”

Proponents of the law contend that a fetus can feel pain. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association says that’s unlikely before the third trimester, which begins at 27 weeks. That’s also the view held by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which has opposed 20-week abortion laws around the country.