The GOP War on Women’s Health has become so out of control that stories break daily about proposed state laws that do everything from force women to have ultrasounds before having abortions to allow empolyers to withhold birth control coverage to women using contraception for anything that’s not “medically necessary.” But a proposed Kansas law takes all of that a step further by allowing doctors to directly lie to patients about the potential health of their children.

The proposed bill would make it legal for a healthcare provider to lie about or withhold the results from ultrasounds, amnios, blood tests, and cvs tests. These procedures screen for birth defects and genetic conditions that might lead women to the tough decision of terminating a pregnancy (or of course, might just help her prepare for the birth of a special needs child).

Similar laws are in the pipeline in Oklahoma and Arizona, with the official GOP logic supporting a provider’s right to shield him or herself from future malpractice suits if a child is in fact born with a defect that the technician could have prevented by giving a woman a reason to have an abortion. None of this makes good sense.

Am I the only one more frightened by this bill than by any of the others? Conservative forces claim that they are only trying to protect women from bad health decisions by instituting all of these rules and regulations, and that has become commonplace. It’s also become the norm for them to create obstacles around securing reproductive health services…no sex education, no birth control, shame on you if you get pregnant, no abortion, no social services to help care for your child once you have one … I totally get it (and the nonsense of it).

But the purpose of pre-natal testing is not to help women find reasons to have abortions, it’s to help families make the best decisions possible. Many families find out that a baby with health problems is on its way, prepare themselves with the knowledge and extra resources that they’ll need, and welcome that new family into the world with open arms. Why should the right of those families to be as prepared as possible be trumped by lawmaker objection to abortion?

What do you think?

around the web

5 Comments

  1. Crazy religious nut-jobs are masking their true agenda by making claims of “protecting woman and child” when they are only concerned with forcing their religious beliefs on the whole country. Texas Women’s Health fund is on standby to be pretty much shut down due to loss of federal funding for Medicaid programs because the dummy Rick Perry calls himself being slick and it backfired.

    I hadn’t heard about this latest Kansas bill. It’s getting hard to keep up with them all since Republicans(and some Democrats) are whipping them out faster than we can keep up with them. Continue to write about these issues because the African-American community unfortunately rarely keep up with these things. We need to spend less time concerned about which rapper just hooked up with which video-vixen and more time concerned about the current state of affairs that ultimately affect us all.

  2. It is plain that many social conservatives desire to create a permanent underclass by controlling both procreation and recreation. Out of control breeding brought about by restrictive policies, constant building of prisons, and the selective criminalization of petty drug charges all accomplish this.

  3. fIRST OFF..KANSAS BILL ONLY RESTRICTS LATER TERM ABORTIONS AND FOR GOOD REASON. ULTRASOUND IS NECESSARY TO PROVE FETAL AGE. MORE THAN 50 PERCENT OF FETUSES ABORTED OR BIRTHED AT 23 WEEKS ARE BORN ALIVE AND A GOOD PERCENTAGE OF THEM CAN LIVE INTO ADULTHOOD…
    THERE IS NO REASON FOR ANY PREGNANT FEMALE TO WAIT TILL 20 WEEKS TO HAVE AN ABORTION.
    ESPECIALLY TODAY WHEN THEY KNOW THEY ARE PREGNANT WITHIN SEVERAL WEEKS.

  4. Doug Hammerstrom

    Legislatures traditionally have the right to define tort law and procedures. But there must be limits to that authority or we could wake up one day and find that we no longer have recourse to the courts for harms done to us. I find it frightening that legal allies of the anti-choice movement are so ethically un-restrained as to serve every doctrine of law with the aim of distorting legal doctirnes to serve their purpose. What happened to legal judgement being instilled in lawyers by law schools? Logic alone does not define the law; logic must be guided by judgement.

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