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.
