Expand the Patient Safety Act to include abortions

I never can understand the stridency of the abortion debate in the United States. In India, where I come from, where the culture is conservative and society is traditional, abortion has been legal for 50 years. There, The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act was passed in 1971. The emphasis of that act was on safe abortions. Women can get abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, and abortions are 100% covered by national health insurance funds. The U.S. states that will ban abortions, when the Supreme Court overturns Roe Versus Wade, will stand shoulder to shoulder with countries like Congo, Nicaragua, Egypt, Laos, El Salvador and Senegal — not a reason for pride or joy.

The emphasis in all countries should be on access to safe abortions to prevent maternal mortality. This is the stance that the World Health Organization has taken. When abortions are not legal, historically women seek unsafe abortions. They die from sepsis, or they hemorrhage under the crude care of an abortionist in some back alley. If Roe versus Wade is overturned by the conservative zealots and extreme textualists of the Supreme Court, and if at least 23 states criminalize abortion and some impose a ban on travel for abortion and others make abortion a felony murder for abortion providers and their patients, chaos will rule in the lives of pregnant women who want abortion and of their doctors. Even sanctuary states for abortion cannot save these women from the sadistic laws of the anti abortion states in which they live and work. (“If Roe v. Wade is ultimately overturned, Maryland must become a sanctuary state for abortion,” May 3)

I believe the federal Patient Safety Act of 2005 should be expanded to include abortions. That act already aims to ensure safe surgery and reduce the risk of health care associated infections, both of which will be unavailable to women in states where abortion is criminalized. Health care safety is a human right and a civil right. Absolutist states that will ban and criminalize abortion, should be sued by the U.S. Justice Department for violating the Patient Safety Act, the HIPAA Law, and the human and civil rights of pregnant women who seek abortions.

As deaths mount from unsafe abortions, the families of women who die from back alley or self induced abortions will sue the states that have made abortions unsafe. To every thoughtless and cruel law there is a remedy in the law and an equal and opposite reaction.

— Usha Nellore, Bel Air