Abortion Everyday (a wonderful resource for keeping up with the anti-woman agenda of the GOP nationally, to which I subscribe, and encourage others to do so…) by Jessica Valenti, noted:
The Arizona Senate passed [Ed. on a party line vote with all 16 Republicans voting YES] a ‘born alive’ bill—legislation that is more a political stunt than anything, yet could have horrific consequences for families and their fatally-ill newborns. We know that there are no ‘born alive’ situations in abortion, yet what this bill would do is force doctors to perform invasive, painful procedures on premature babies with no chance for survival. If a baby is born too early to survive, for example, families will most often be given the chance to hold their child while it peacefully passes away. Under legislation like this, that opportunity would be taken from mothers and fathers, while doctors are forced to perform pointless resuscitation procedures. It’s awful.
Awful is mild. Wicked or evil would better suit this bill. It is wholly unrelated to any actual medical practice or circumstance: there is no such thing as a fetus surviving an abortion (and no baby that can survive outside the womb is EVER aborted except to save the mother from imminent death – it just doesn’t happen otherwise, despite the claims of the fetus fascists). The actual purpose of the bill is wholly mysterious to me (red lettering added):
A. ANY INFANT WHO IS BORN ALIVE, INCLUDING ONE BORN DURING THE COURSE OF AN ABORTION, SHALL BE TREATED AS A LEGAL PERSON UNDER THE LAWS OF THIS STATE AND SHALL HAVE THE SAME RIGHTS TO MEDICALLY APPROPRIATE AND REASONABLE CARE AND TREATMENT. BIRTH AND DEATH CERTIFICATES SHALL BE ISSUED FOR THE INFANT, AS APPROPRIATE.
B. ANY HEALTH PROFESSIONAL WHO IS PRESENT AT THE TIME AN INFANT IS BORN ALIVE SHALL TAKE ALL MEDICALLY APPROPRIATE AND REASONABLE ACTIONS TO PRESERVE THE LIFE AND HEALTH OF THE INFANT WHO IS BORN ALIVE.
C. A HEALTH PROFESSIONAL MAY NOT DEPRIVE ANY INFANT WHO IS BORN ALIVE, WHETHER OR NOT THE INFANT IS LIKELY TO SURVIVE, OF MEDICALLY APPROPRIATE AND REASONABLE MEDICAL CARE OR TREATMENT.
…
G. ANY HEALTH PROFESSIONAL WHO INTENTIONALLY OR KNOWINGLY VIOLATES SUBSECTION A, B OR C OF THIS SECTION IS GUILTY OF A CLASS 6 FELONY.
Why is a violation of Section A designated a felony? The section doesn’t forbid or require a medical professional to do or refrain from doing anything other than issuing a birth and death certificate. It doesn’t actually DO anything, other than perhaps to assert that something that NEVER happens is actually happening? It might perhaps reinforce somehow the personhood of an aborted fetus? It’s nonsensical.
Section B requires nothing that a medical professional wouldn’t already do.
Section C, however, imposes on medical professionals a legal duty, enforced by criminal penalties, to perform wholly futile and medically unnecessary procedures on infants in violation of their professional oaths. This is the truly wicked part to which Valenti refers.
Doctors are bound by the ethics and discipline of their profession to save lives, minimize suffering, and use their best medical judgment to help families in the midst of some of the most traumatic times in their lives. This bill would require wholly unnecessary and cruel medical rituals that violate the doctors’ oaths and put the priorities of religious zealots in our legislature above the rights of parents. This won’t save a single infant’s life; it will just require doctors to torture dying babies. Why? I can’t begin to imagine. Really. If you have any idea why, please leave a comment.
We don’t need or want the zealots of the AZGOP to stick their sanctimonious, lying noses into these matters. We want families and their doctors to be free from coercion and state threats of jail to do what is best for their babies and their families.
The GOP just doesn’t seem to get the concept of living in freedom from government oversight and the coercion of criminal laws when it conflicts with their own religious dogma.
This is a heartless bill when taken strictly. The recent article in the WaPo illustrated how difficult this could be for families with a non viable baby. Let them grieve and prevent the pain and horror of CPR and wasteful medical procedures that will not save the child.
If I was unsure of the heart and souls of these legislators, I know now they have none.