A federal district court in North Dakota has sided with the AMA and others and issued a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of a state law that would force physicians to violate the ”AMA Code of Medical Ethics” and act as mouthpieces for a politically motivated message that is misleading and could harm patients.

The provision would have forced North Dakota physicians to tell women “that it may be possible to reverse the effect of an abortion-inducing drug if she changes her mind, but time is of the essence, and information and assistance with reversing the effects of an abortion-inducing drug are available” in government-printed materials to be given to the patients.

“State legislatures should not be mandating unproven medical treatments, or requiring physicians to provide patients with misleading and inaccurate information,” says Chief Judge Daniel Hovland’s decision. “The provisions of [this law] violate a physician’s right not to speak and go far beyond any informed consent laws addressed by the United States Supreme Court, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, or other courts to date.”

The lawsuit was filed by the AMA in in the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota, in Bismarck, on behalf of the Red River Women’s Clinic, and the clinic’s medical director, AMA member Kathryn Eggleston, MD, as co-plaintiffs.

My lede. The whole shebang.

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