Pa. considers another cruel — and unneeded — restriction on women
Ah spring in Pennsylvania … truly the silly season in state politics.
It’s that time of year where politicians hurry to pass useless, costly and even harmful bills so they can brag about them back home and in their never-ending emails begging for money.
“Well, we tried,” they’ll say, “but those damned Commie liberals just won’t let us impose our prejudices and religious beliefs on everyone else, so please vote us back in and give us money so we can keep trying.”
There are several silly season bills wending their way through the Pennsylvania General Assembly and Senate, but this year’s top prize may go to House Bill 2050, the “Down Syndrome Protection Act.”
House Speaker and farm country rightwing nut who hopes to be elected governor in 2022 Mike Turzai sponsored the bill which is being rushed through the Legislature without so much as a single public hearing.
It sounds good and that’s all that counts.
HB 2050 would add a provision to the Abortion Control Act – the state’s “criminal statute” governing abortion – that says a woman’s doctor must determine whether an abortion is “necessary.”
The bill goes on to say “no abortion shall be deemed necessary if sought exclusively for either or both of reasons:
(i) The sex child.
(ii) A prenatal diagnosis of or belief that the unborn child has Down syndrome.”
The language is interesting. What constitutes necessary? Why do doctors have to render that judgment? What happens when a woman gets an abortion that is not “necessary?”
Under current Pennsylvania law, a woman can safely and legally abort a healthy fetus up to 24 weeks and she doesn’t have to give a reason because abortion is a constitutionally protected medical procedure.
But if that same woman so much as thinks she may be having a child with Down syndrome and then has that same abortion within that same 24 weeks, that is illegal?
The two-page amendment says nothing about how the state intends to enforce this massive intrusion between a woman and her doctor when she and her family may be making the most fraught decision of their lives.
How does the state enforce the “a doctor must deem it necessary” or “not solely for gender” part now? the of following the unborn
Does the woman go to prison if someone somewhere decides her abortion wasn’t really necessary? Does her doctor? Not that I’ve ever heard of.
The bill made it through the House on 139-56 vote Monday and is now in the Senate.
Some rural Democrats even voted for it, in an apparent effort to once again prove James Carville’s adage that Pennsylvania is Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Alabama in between.
In Delaware County all of the Republican representatives (Steve Barrar, Alex Charlton, Jamie Santora, Nick Miccarelli and Chris Quinn) voted for it and all of the Democrats (Maria Donatucci, Joanna McClinton, Margo Davidson, Leanne KruegerBraneky and Brian Kirkland) voted against it except for Greg Vitali who was absent.
Gov. Tom Wolf will veto the bill. This is why we need a Democrat in the governor’s mansion.
A Republican governor, like say, that nice man next door who hopes to be president, John Kasich, would happily sign it into law, as he has done with dozens of other abortion bills, without a thought to the misery they may cause women and their families.
But fortunately, not Ohio. Not yet.
I asked a woman who has a much-beloved adult Down syndrome son for her perspective on the bill. She asked not to be named to protect the privacy of her son.
“I was shocked when I read about it,” she said. “I was offended and appalled.”
“Why did they single out Down syndrome when there are a gazillion genetic conditions that can be detected (early in pregnancy)?
“It puts people with Down syndrome and their families into an ugly conversation they should not be having.
“It’s as if they are saying some people are worthy of being born and others aren’t and we’re going to make sure people with Down syndrome are going to be born. It’s very we are unfair.”
There is in fact a very long list of genetic disorders that can be detected during pregnancy. Some are more severe than others. Some can be treated and some can’t, creating lifelong health and financial problems.
Many women test positive for fetal abnormalities and go on to have perfectly healthy, normal babies and some abort their pregnancies when confronted with the possibility of a problem.
One of my extended family members, who is a Protestant minister, chose to have an abortion when she contracted German measles early in her pregnancy and faced the real, but not certain, possibility of having a child who would be deaf, blind and profoundly retarded.
That decision was sensible and compassionate and I’m glad she and family got to make it.
Many people with disabled children say they would make the same decision to have those children if they had known during their pregnancies.
But, of course, many people choose abortion because of potential genetic defects and they too would make that same decision again without regret.
The last thing any of them needs is a state Legislature that tells them they cannot make the choice that makes sense for them and their families. her
There are several silly season bills wending their way through the Pennsylvania General Assembly and Senate, but this year’s top prize may go to House Bill 2050, the “Down Syndrome Protection Act.”