While much of the news media was rightly focused on Egypt last week, your friendly GOP-led House of Representatives was busy introducing a truly heinous bill called the “Protect Life Act.” This bill would allow emergency room doctors to let a pregnant woman die rather than perform an abortion to save her life.
This isn’t the pipe dream of some lone Bible-Belt crackpot from Upper Butt Scratch. The “Protect Life Act” is co-sponsored by one hundred Representatives, among them such right-wing luminaries as Paul Ryan and Ron Paul, whose libertarianism conveniently ends where ladyparts begin.
You know, we fight these battles year after year, and instead of seeing reason gradually prevail, we have a situation where the opposition only grows more radical and monstrous. It’s only a matter of time before these people are really running the show, and I shudder to think about what will happen.
On a cheerier note, look for one of my cartoons in the current issue of Ms. Magazine!
I may be sort of stupid, but I don’t understand how that bill could be used to let pregnant women die.
No funds authorized or appropriated by this Act[…]may be used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion, except:
[….]
(B) in the case where a pregnant female suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the female in danger of death unless an abortion is performed
So doesn’t it say that funds may be used to pay for abortion, in the very case when a female suffers from something that would place her in danger of death unless an abortion is performed ?
The “letting women die” part refers to the new addittion to HR358 , an extended “conciece clause” that allows hospitals to refuse emergency abortions, even to women who will die without them. The question here is not one of financing, but the fact that a doctors wish not to provide abortions is seen as more important that a woman’s right to live.
Let’s be clear, when a woman will die without an abortion, the zygote, embryo or fetus will die with her anyway. This isn’t about “protecting life”. Women who come to an emergency room have a right to lifesaving procedures. The fact that anyone thinks a doctor should be allowed to say “no, I will rather let you die because I don’t like to do the procedure that will save your life” is disgusting. If you don’t like providing life serving procedures, don’t work in an emergency room. That’s how you can protect your “concience”.
I’ve long since given up the idea that anti-woman folks can be convinced by anything. IMHO, the best course of events we can hope for is a legal holding pattern until some technological breakthrough renders the entire issue moot.
Ah…there was an addition to HR 358.
Thanks, I feel so much smarter now.
If you don’t like providing life serving procedures, don’t work in an emergency room. That’s how you can protect your “concience”.
Yep. I work in pharmacy, and the bleating about “conscience” makes me sick. There are lots of pharmacy jobs that don’t involve putting your precious self before women’s health – go do one of them instead. In Australia, we at least require that the pharmacist direct women to an alternative provider (just as in the cases where we are, say, out of stock of an item) but really this shouldn’t be an issue at all.