Governor Mike Dunleavy issued an update to COVID-19 Health Mandate 5, regarding Elective Medical Procedures, on Tuesday. The inclusion of surgical abortion in the list of procedures to be delayed has some in the Legislature accusing the Governor of using the COVID-19 pandemic to politicize the issue of abortion.
The update suggests that some medical procedures be delayed for a matter of weeks in order to preserve staff Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and patient care supplies. Also, the mandate aims to ensure staff and patient safety and expand available hospital capacity.
Governor Dunleavy said during a Wednesday briefing that the only goal is to protect medical resources, not to press a political agenda: “We’re trying to save PPE and be as fair as we possibly can. In other words, we’re not going to single out the orthopedic clinic, or the dental clinic, or these other clinics. We’re all in this together. We all need to contribute. We all need to do our best right now to move elective surgeries off to the future. If there’s something that’s life threatening, gotta deal with that. That’s the exception, that’s in the rules. We’re just trying to make sure we can collect as much PPE, catalog it, and make sure that we have it for this wave. I think most Alaskans agree with that.”
Dr. Anne Zink, Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer whose medical recommendations prompted the health mandate, claims that the decision to include surgical abortions in the list of procedures-to-be-delayed was purely medical, consistent with the purpose of protecting Alaskans: “My 100% mission and focus is the health and well-being of all Alaskans. Honestly, that’s a really hard job in a setting of a world pandemic with a lack of supplies and I really try to stay out of the political aspect of it and stay 100% focused on the health aspect of it. I have a large team of people that I work with and we work together to try to figure out what are the best recommendations and how to move forward as quickly as possible. The decisions right now are broad and they’re hard.”
Senators Tom Begich and Jesse Kiehl wrote separately to Dr. Zink to express their disappointment in, what they call: “the Administration politicizing the COVID-19 public health crisis.”
Senator Kiehl, in his e-mail message, advised Dr. Zink to act exclusively in Alaskans’ health interests, without regard to politics: “[This] mandate violates my trust. It violates the trust of the Alaskans I represent. You need to act immediately to restore Alaskans’ trust in you and the team you lead. The stakes for our state are too high for you to let this stand.”
Similar mandates in other U.S. states have prompted lawsuits. Nicole McAfee of the American Civil Liberties Union discussing a legal challenge taking place in Oklahoma: “Challenging what has been a trend by Republican Governors to use the COVID-19 public health response to threaten to limit access to abortion care: it seeks an injunction that allows folks to provide that critical abortion access, to continue to practice. The real harm here is limiting abortion access. What we’re doing is simply protecting access to a health care procedure that is medically safe, but is also time-sensitive.”
Senators Begich and Kiehl have each called upon Dr. Zink to retract this provision from Health Mandate 5.
