Des Moines, IA — Today the Iowa Board of Medicine issued a press release announcing the formation of an ad hoc committee to study the use of telemedicine in Iowa.
The following is a statement from Operation Rescue President Troy Newman in response to that announcement:
We were aware that the Iowa Board of Medicine formed this ad hoc committee because we attended the Board meeting on Aug. 20 where it was announced.
We are glad that telemedicine will be studied and hope that the committee will especially focus on the misuse of telemedicine by Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, which distributes dangerous abortion pills through a remote controlled push button system that denies the patient access to examination by a licensed physician as well as any meaningful doctor/patient relationship.
However, due to the way nearly 30 citizens were treated at the last Board meeting, we have concerns that the Board may not give our concerns for the health and safety of women fair consideration.
At the Aug. 20 meeting in which the Board solicited public comment on telemedicine, the Board, without notice, limited access to the meeting to only six people, then limited the total length of comments on telemedicine to only 10 minutes. The rest of the citizens, some who drove several hours to be heard, were forced by the Board to stand outside in the rain. There were health care professionals, attorneys, clergy, and leaders of a number of different groups that represented the concerns of thousands of Iowans that simply were not heard, or were limited in some cases to mere seconds of comment. Despite whatever the Board may say, that act clearly communicated to us that the Board is completely uninterested in hearing our concerns.
In addition, we have received documentation regarding the relationship between certain IBM staff members and Planned Parenthood of the Heartland that further erodes our confidence that the Board is capable of sound judgment regarding any issue related to Planned Parenthood. We plan to release our documentation on Monday.
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