I've been scarce with blogging because all I can think to blog about is Primary or pregnancy. Neither topic is particularly riveting, really. But this news story caught my eye and pissed me off enough to blog. Thanks, Georgia.
Basically, this ridiculously stupid Georgia lawmaker (obviously a male) wants to pass a law that will make any attempt to remove a live fetus from a mother considered murder, unless the goal is a live birth. Translation: let nature take its course unless you're delivering a baby.
Where to start? Well, I get the gist of the proposed law. It's just an anti-abortion law gone horribly, horribly wrong. He just wants abortion to be murder. I also get that it will never, in a million years, pass. But that's not what I'm worried about. It just worries me that we have such uneducated, single-minded people running our country.
The next thing that pops into my head is my experience with ectopic pregnancies. I've had two. The unfortunate truth about ectopic pregnancies is that you can't save the baby and the mother. You just can't. It's not even a matter of having a choice, really. If the ectopic pregnancy was allowed to progress, both would die. The fetus isn't far enough along to survive without the mother. So when both of my ectopic pregnancies were removed, the fetus was still alive. We didn't have a choice. It just happened to us. We are not murderers. We were unfortunate victims of a situation that just shouldn't happen. There aren't any exceptions in this proposed law for situations like ours.
How about partial miscarriages? Where a mother starts to miscarry but her body doesn't finish the job? Technically, under this proposed law, she would have to bleed out and die. Again, no exceptions.
Aside from the obvious medical-related reasons why this is utterly ridiculous, let's talk about the emotional damage we're looking at here. Pregnancy loss, of any kind, is tough. This law would require a fetal death certificate for any pregnancy loss, whether medical assistance was used or not. In my opinion, that's not going to help anyone through the grieving process. Being investigated for a natural event will cause feelings of doubt and guilt in the hearts of the parents. Also, I'm pretty sure those things aren't free.
Basically, a Georgia lawmaker wants to 'investigate' every causes of pregnancy loss that is 'unknown'. WTF? Does this guy even know what a miscarriage is? By definition, a miscarriage is a pregnancy loss, before 20 weeks, for which the cause is typically unknown. As in, the doctor will say, "It's hard to tell what happened. Just try again in 3 months."
Things like this are what makes me, a staunch Republican, question anti-abortion laws. Personally, I believe that abortion (choosing to end a pregnancy when there is no medical reason for doing so) is wrong. I believe that it is a sin. But I'm not sure that I believe that our government has the right to dictate that. I'm not really sure if I'm in favor of or against anti-abortion laws, but I do know that I'm against crazy proposals like this one.
Oh, Georgia.
Monday, February 21, 2011
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1 comment:
I agree. This proposed law makes me furious, for all the reasons you mentioned. The whole obstetrics field is too paternalistic in my opinion and this just takes the cake (yes I know he's not an OB, but it is dealing with pregnancy). Women have to be policed, even during something as devastating as miscarriage.
And from an economic sense, this would cost a lot of money.
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