Katherine Drabiak, University of South Florida

Voters in 10 states decided on measures relating to abortion on Nov. 5, 2024, many of which sought to expand access to abortion or expressly recognize a right to abortion in the state’s constitution.

Seven of the ballot measures passed, while three failed. Measures in Arizona, Colorado, New York, Maryland, Missouri, Montana and Nevada were approved by voters, while measures to expand abortion access in Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota went down.

Nebraskans voted on two competing measures. The one that passed enshrines the current law that allows elective abortions until 12 weeks into the state constitution. The measure that failed would have extended elective abortions until fetal viability, about 24 weeks.

Abortion across the US

Since the Supreme Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson in 2022, ending a federal right to abortion, states have moved in multiple directions. Abortion laws across the U.S. have changed a great deal in the past two years and vary widely.

Some states still allow abortion but only earlier in pregnancy. Nebraska, for example, allows abortions before 12 weeks.

Some states expanded or wrote into law abortion access. Colorado, eight other states and Washington, D.C., allow elective abortions until birth, without any restriction on gestational age.

Other states, like Texas, sought to restrict abortions once a heartbeat is detected at around six weeks.

All of this variation can be confusing. And, as a health law professor, I know how important it is for people to understand the law so that pregnant women, or women who have had a miscarriage, are not fearful of seeking medical care.

What abortion laws regulate

The most important thing to understand, in my view, is that laws which regulate abortion apply to actions that health care providers take to intentionally terminate a pregnancy.

Laws designed to limit abortion procedures are not meant to block access to care for women who are seeking treatment for a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy.

Abortion laws do not penalize or criminalize women seeking an abortion; they regulate health care providers. This is true even in states with restrictive abortion laws, such as South Dakota, Indiana, Texas and Alabama.

Regulating physician conduct is not new – nor is it unique to abortion laws. Very specific laws regulate physician conduct with severe, and even criminal penalties, for possibly fraudulent billing, disregarding federal privacy rules or inappropriately prescribing medication.

Colorado enshrines a right to abortion

In Colorado, Proposed Initiative 89 passed with 62% of the vote. The initiative added language to the state constitution that expressly recognizes a “right to abortion.”

In 2022, the Colorado Legislature codified access to abortion without limits to gestational age. The initiative adds the provision to the state constitution, which makes it a permanent law, so the Legislature cannot amend or modify it.

The initiative also struck language in the Colorado Constitution that prohibited using taxpayer funds to pay for abortions for women with Medicaid or state-sponsored insurance plans. Colorado already requires private insurance to cover the total cost of abortions.

Supporters of the initiative say that allowing taxpayer funding for abortions will stop the “discriminatory and harmful effects” of previous insurance restrictions.

About 38 states prohibit using taxpayer funds for abortion, while some states allow using taxpayer funds for abortions only in cases involving rape, incest or where the woman’s life is at risk.

Florida votes to maintain abortion law

In Florida, Amendment 4, which voters did not pass, proposed a state constitutional amendment to permanently expand abortion access. This measure would have allowed women to obtain an abortion until viability for any reason. It also would have permitted abortion after viability until birth “when necessary to protect the patient’s health.”

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that “health” not only includes a pregnant woman’s physical health, but also extends to considering her age, emotional state or psychological well-being.

Since Amendment 4 did not pass in Florida, the law remains the same.

Florida allows abortion only until six weeks gestation. However, Florida’s law has multiple exceptions, allowing abortions that result from crimes such as rape, incest, domestic violence or human trafficking for up to 15 weeks.

Florida also permits abortion in the first two trimesters in cases where the fetus has a fatal abnormality. Finally, Florida has exceptions that allow abortion for emergencies, or where continuing the pregnancy would pose a threat to the woman’s life or physical health.

Misconceptions about abortion laws

Several articles, including a series in ProPublica, have described cases where women who were pregnant and sought emergency medical treatment suffered complications or death.

The death of any young woman is tragic. However, in my opinion, these cases reflect a misunderstanding of what the law allows, which could make physicians unsure and slow to treat the patient. Some cases may also involve miscommunication, or potential medical mismanagement.

Unfortunately, incorrect or even missed diagnoses are common in emergency rooms, affecting 7.4 million people per year. One in 350 people who had a missed diagnosis suffers serious disability or death.

State laws that regulate abortion do not prevent physicians from intervening to provide necessary or life-saving medical care for women.

Florida’s law plainly says that if there is a conflict between trying to preserve the woman’s life or the fetus’s life, the physician “must consider preserving the woman’s life and health as the priority.”

Florida and Georgia have provided guidance to physicians to clarify what the law allows when treating their patients.

All states – even those with restrictive abortion laws like Texas and Indiana – have exceptions that allow abortion in cases of a medical emergency, or where continuing the pregnancy would pose a risk to the woman’s life or health. In addition, the Department of Justice has stated that people have a constitutional right to travel to seek medical care or abortions in other states from willing providers.

Physicians who feel uncertain can reach out for assistance from a lawyer or find information from their state health department for clarification.

Katherine Drabiak, Professor of Health Law, Public Health Law and Medical Ethics, University of South Florida

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Nir Eisikovits, UMass Boston

Anyone following the rhetoric around artificial intelligence in recent years has heard one version or another of the claim that AI is inevitable. Common themes are that AI is already here, it is indispensable, and people who are bearish on it harm themselves.

In the business world, AI advocates tell companies and workers that they will fall behind if they fail to integrate generative AI into their operations. In the sciences, AI advocates promise that AI will aid in curing hitherto intractable diseases.

In higher education, AI promoters admonish teachers that students must learn how to use AI or risk becoming uncompetitive when the time comes to find a job.

And, in national security, AI’s champions say that either the nation invests heavily in AI weaponry, or it will be at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the Chinese and the Russians, who are already doing so.

The argument across these different domains is essentially the same: The time for AI skepticism has come and gone. The technology will shape the future, whether you like it or not. You have the choice to learn how to use it or be left out of that future. Anyone trying to stand in the technology’s way is as hopeless as the manual weavers who resisted the mechanical looms in the early 19th century.

In the past few years, my colleagues and I at UMass Boston’s Applied Ethics Center have been studying the ethical questions raised by the widespread adoption of AI, and I believe the inevitability argument is misleading.

History and hindsight

In fact, this claim is the most recent version of a deterministic view of technological development. It’s the belief that innovations are unstoppable once people start working on them. In other words, some genies don’t go back in their bottles. The best you can do is harness them to your good purposes.

This deterministic approach to tech has a long history. It’s been applied to the influence of the printing press, as well as to the rise of automobiles and the infrastructure they require, among other developments.

But I believe that when it comes to AI, the technological determinism argument is both exaggerated and oversimplified.

AI in the field(s)

Consider the contention that businesses can’t afford to stay out of the AI game. In fact, the case has yet to be made that AI is delivering significant productivity gains to the firms that use it. A report in The Economist in July 2024 suggests that so far, the technology has had almost no economic impact.

AI’s role in higher education is also still very much an open question. Though universities have, in the past two years, invested heavily in AI-related initiatives, evidence suggests they may have jumped the gun.

The technology can serve as an interesting pedagogical tool. For example, creating a Plato chatbot that lets students have a text conversation with a bot posing as Plato is a cool gimmick.

But AI is already starting to displace some of the best tools teachers have for assessment and for developing critical thinking, such as writing assignments. The college essay is going the way of the dinosaurs as more teachers give up on the ability to tell whether their students are writing their papers themselves. What’s the cost-benefit argument for giving up on writing, an important and useful traditional skill?

In the sciences and in medicine, the use of AI seems promising. Its role in understanding the structure of proteins, for example, will likely be significant for curing diseases. The technology is also transforming medical imaging and has been helpful in accelerating the drug discovery process.

But the excitement can become exaggerated. AI-based predictions about which cases of COVID-19 would become severe have roundly failed, and doctors rely excessively on the technology’s diagnostic ability, often against their own better clinical judgment. And so, even in this area, where the potential is great, AI’s ultimate impact is unclear.

In national security, the argument for investing in AI development is compelling. Since the stakes can be high, the argument that if the Chinese and the Russians are developing AI-driven autonomous weapons, the United States can’t afford to fall behind, has real purchase.

But a complete surrender to this form of reasoning, though tempting, is likely to lead the U.S. to overlook the disproportionate impact of these systems on nations that are too poor to participate in the AI arms race. The major powers could deploy the technology in conflicts in these nations. And, just as significantly, this argument de-emphasizes the possibility of collaborating with adversaries on limiting military AI systems, favoring arms race over arms control.

One step at a time

Surveying the potential significance and risks of AI in these different domains merits some skepticism about the technology. I believe that AI should be adopted piecemeal and with a nuanced approach rather than subject to sweeping claims of inevitability. In developing this careful take, there are two things to keep in mind:

First, companies and entrepreneurs working on artificial intelligence have an obvious interest in the technology being perceived as inevitable and necessary, since they make a living from its adoption. It’s important to pay attention to who is making claims of inevitability, and why.

Second, it’s worth taking a lesson from recent history. Over the past 15 years, smartphones and the social media apps that run on them came to be seen as a fact of life – a technology as transformative as it is inevitable. Then data started emerging about the mental health harms they cause teens, especially young girls. School districts across the United States started to ban phones to protect the attention spans and mental health of their students. And some people have reverted to using flip phones as a quality of life change to avoid smartphones.

After a long experiment with the mental health of kids, facilitated by claims of technological determinism, Americans changed course. What seemed fixed turned out to be alterable. There is still time to avoid repeating the same mistake with artificial intelligence, which potentially could have larger consequences for society.

Nir Eisikovits, Professor of Philosophy and Director, Applied Ethics Center, UMass Boston

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Jordan Batchelor, Arizona State University; Charles Max Katz, Arizona State University, and Taylor Cox, Arizona State University

America’s military veterans make up about 6% of the adult population but account for about 20% of all suicides. That means that each day, about 18 veterans will die by suicide.

In the U.S., the overall rate of suicide has largely increased since the start of the millennium, but veterans are disproportionately represented among this tragic trend.

Each of these losses affects not only the individual but also their families, friends and co-workers. Thus, working to prevent suicide and its underlying causes is important not only to protect our loved ones but also to foster happier, safer communities.

We are a team of researchers at Arizona State University’s Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety. We manage the Arizona Violent Death Reporting System, a surveillance system sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and part of the larger national surveillance system that operates in all U.S. states, Puerto Rico and Washington. We gather information on suicides through agreements with the Arizona Department of Health Services, medical examiners and law enforcement.

Assessing risk amid uncertainty

Military veterans range from 18 years of age to more than 100, include both men and women, and represent diverse races and ethnicities. As of 2018, the largest veteran cohort were those who served during the Vietnam War, followed by those who served during peacetime only, the Gulf War and post-9/11 conflicts.

Identifying the true risk of veteran suicide, especially relative to the general population, is a surprisingly difficult task. In past decades, researchers and stakeholders debated about which figures were most accurate, those showing veterans at increased risk or those showing the opposite. Such debates often stemmed from methodological factors.

However, mounting evidence shows that veterans need targeted suicide prevention services, and our data backs this up. From 2015 to 2022, the age-adjusted suicide rates among male veterans in Arizona outpaced those of nonveterans by a factor of 1.49 to 1.88. Put another way, while veterans in Arizona made up only 8.4% of the population in 2022, they represented 20.3% of the state’s suicides, meaning veterans were 2.5 times more likely to die by suicide.

While these numbers stem from Arizona, they also reflect the national trends showing greater and growing rates of suicide among veterans.

Why are veterans at greater risk?

One reason is that, compared to nonveterans, a greater proportion of veterans are white, male and older – demographic categories with elevated rates of suicide in the general population. For example, in Arizona, about 97% of veteran suicides between 2015 and 2022 were men, compared with 75% in the comparable nonveteran population.

Other explanations relate to veteran-specific factors. Some argue that military training and combat exposure can reduce a person’s fear of pain or death, putting suicidal veterans at greater risk of completing suicide. Military training also familiarizes a person with the use of firearms, a particularly lethal means of suicide. Statistics show that veterans, including female veterans, die by suicide using firearms more so than the general population. This tendency to use firearms as the method of suicide leads to more fatal suicide attempts.

At the Arizona Violent Death Reporting System, we collect data on circumstances that precede and may have contributed to suicide, which can help identify risk factors. While we’ve found that veterans often exhibit fewer such factors overall, certain demographic categories do display risk factors.

For example, a higher proportion of veterans ages 18 to 54 had a diagnosed mental health problem – primarily post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. In addition, more male veterans ages 65 and older had physical health problems that contributed to their suicide compared with similar nonveterans.

This highlights the need to encourage veterans to share their mental or physical health struggles with others, which will prevent veterans from struggling alone. Large-scale initiatives are trying to tackle this issue, but we can also raise awareness and reduce stigma around suicide on a local level.

Shining a light on the problem

In 1999, then-Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher highlighted suicide as a serious public health crisis, paving the way for tackling the monumental issue on a national scale.

Now, 25 years later, the U.S. government continues to emphasize the increasingly dire situation. Most recently, the Biden administration released a 2024 national strategy aimed at establishing strategic directions for improving mental health treatment and reducing suicide.

Historically, health care facilities operated by the Veterans Health Administration have been a central resource for veterans experiencing mental or physical problems. This continues to be true: While the overall population of veterans is decreasing, the number of veterans who seek resources from the organization has increased. Encounters between veterans and the Veterans Health Administration offer opportunities to screen for suicide risk and offer resources for those in need.

Crisis lines are a potentially effective means of prevention. For example, the Veterans Crisis Line has been shown to reduce a caller’s immediate distress and suicidality. Many callers have found the crisis line helpful, with responders providing both effective intervention and compassionate support.

Education and policy provide another means of suicide prevention. As firearms are a particularly lethal means of suicide, a great deal of research funding has gone toward understanding their role in suicide. Studies generally find that reducing access to guns is associated with reduced suicide rates. As a result, both general and veteran-specific suicide prevention efforts highlight the importance of handling guns safely and storing them securely.

If you know a military veteran, keep an eye out for warning signs of mental distress, which may display in a person’s words, feelings or behavior.

For example, they may display intense anxiety, agitation or desperation, or express a sense of hopelessness. Veterans diagnosed with depressive syndrome, PTSD or both may be at greater risk.

For a person who is considering suicide, even the slightest hope can mean the difference between life and death.

If you or someone you know is experiencing signs of crisis, the free and confidential 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available to call, text or chat.

If you are a veteran and would like to speak with responders trained to understand your unique circumstances, call 988 and then press 1.

Jordan Batchelor, Research Analyst at the Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety, Arizona State University; Charles Max Katz, Director of the Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety, Arizona State University, and Taylor Cox, Program Coordinator, School of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Arizona State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.