House Republicans introduce a wave of anti-abortion bills<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\nDuring an evening news conference, state health Commissioner Adam Crum was asked to clarify what that period would be. He said the language leaves room for “professional judgment” on the timeframe. <\/p>\n
He said most of the guidance released Tuesday follows that of the American College of Surgeons.<\/p>\n
But the American College of Surgeons, on its website, cites suggestions from Temple University for handling gynecological surgeries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under surgeries that if “significantly delayed could cause significant harm,” it includes the termination of pregnancy.<\/p>\n
Jessica Cler, Alaska state director for Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest and Hawaii, in a statement said abortion is an “essential, time-sensitive medical procedure.”<\/p>\n
“It is shameful to see elected officials exploit a public health crisis to score political points and restrict abortion access,” she said.<\/p>\n
The guidance released by the state also lists other procedures that could be put off, including some related to cancer, certain pediatric surgeries and gastric bypass surgery.<\/p>\n
Crum said the primary purpose of the revised mandate is to preserve personal protective equipment for health care workers and patient care supplies, ensure staff and patient safety and expand available hospital capacity as the state deals with the coronavirus.<\/p>\n
On Monday, a federal appeals court left in place a judge’s temporary order allowing surgical abortions to continue in Ohio during the coronavirus pandemic. Oklahoma ‘s attorney general said the state planned to appeal a separate, similar decision affecting that state.<\/p>\n
Tuesday, a federal appeals court sided with Texas in allowing it to ban most abortions while that state is under an emergency order limiting nonessential surgeries.<\/p>\n
Alaska has reported more than 200 cases of COVID-19.<\/p>\n
• This is an Associated Press Report by Becky Bohrer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state lists surgical abortion as something that can be postponed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":59751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-59750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59750"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=59750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}