Kyle City Limits
by BRENDA STEWART
Don’t look now but I’m pretty sure we’re devolving. After a summer of ramming through their “emergency” sonogram legislation and the mandate which scripts physician’s private conversations with their female patients, these same block-headed Texas pols have now thrown their support behind a bill nationally dubbed the “Let Women Die” Act. This gem, sponsored by that bastion of good will, Orrin Hatch, absolves publicly funded hospitals and their health care providers from any responsibility in treating a woman if an abortion is warranted in saving her life. These medical professionals could, in effect, watch a woman die, on principle.
Twenty-five years ago, to combat this hypocrisy on other levels, a law was created which stated that any hospital receiving federal funding (Medicare or Medicaid) is obligated to provide life-saving emergency medical care to every patient regardless of race, religion or ability to pay. If by chance the facility does not have the resources available to treat the patient, it is the hospital’s legal responsibility to arrange a transfer to another medical facility that can meet the patient’s needs. It was the least they could do. Or so we thought.
Hatch’s S877 “Protect Life Act” moves to alleviate any responsibility that hospitals incur when treating a woman whose life is threatened by a pregnancy gone awry. We’re not talking scheduled, elective abortion here (which, by the way, is still absolutely legal). We’re talking car wrecks and falls and miscarriages and hemorrhaging that result in a woman’s life being threatened by the continuation of her pregnancy. We’re also not talking just minorities or sluts or poor white trash – the expendables so routinely denied basic health care.
The targets of this legislation are you and me, our sisters and daughters and neighbors – all American women – from every walk of life and with every form of medical insurance. And these political idiots maintain that it is somehow justifiable to watch us die if ending our pregnancy is our only saving grace. Honestly, does it matter if it’s a tracheotomy, a hysterectomy, an appendectomy or abortion? When a woman’s life is on the line wouldn’t you imagine that every possible measure would be taken to ensure that she lives? Does the family she already has in place get tallied in this equation?
Twenty-two male Texas legislators and Cowtown’s Kay Granger (shame on you, Kay) voted in full support of this bill which would deny emergency medical care and protection to Texas women state-wide and give hospitals and physicians the legal option of watching a pregnant woman die. This legislation has passed through the U.S. House and is headed for the Senate. I cannot image that any political gain these pandering cowards may curry from these theatrics could be worth the heartache and bloodshed they will have on their hands.
And they have the audacity to call this pro-life legislation. The hypocrisy is staggering.
