And the land we belong to is grand - unless you're pregnant.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010 at 5:57AM
posted by ANaturalAdvocate
Yesterday, the Oklahoma State Legislature overrode vetoes of two controversial bills dealing with abortion.
The first bill (HB 2780) requires women seeking an abortion to view an ultrasound image and listen to the physician describe - in detail - what she is seeing. Specifically, it requires that, at least an hour before the procedure is to be performed, the physician who will perform the abortion (or a technician working with the physician)
- performs an ultrasound “using either a vaginal transducer or an abdominal transducer, whichever would display the embryo or fetus more clearly;”
- explains simultaneously what the ultrasound is showing, including “the dimensions of the embryo or fetus, the presence of cardiac activity, if present and viewable, and the presence of external members and internal organs, if present and viewable;” and
- display the images in such a way that the woman may view the images (although - thankfully - nothing in the bill “shall be construed to prevent a pregnant woman from averting her eyes from the ultrasound images required to be provided and reviewed with her”).
Failure to comply with this bill is a felony, by the way.
The second bill (HB 2656) states that
“In a wrongful life action or a wrongful birth action, no damages may be recovered for any condition that existed at the time of a child’s birth if the claim is that the defendant’s act or omission contributed to the mother’s not having obtained an abortion.”
What this means is that an omission on the part of the doctor with regards to a potential birth defect or other condition cannot be held against him in a wrongful birth suit if he did not tell the woman about the defect in an attempt to prevent her from obtaining an abortion. Mind you, the bill is awful nice in stating that suits stating that an act or omission of the physician caused the defect (or could have prevented or lessened it) are perfectly fine. However, in Oklahoma a physician can now hide the fact that the fetus has a potential defect - or even lie about it - with no consequences if that prevented her from obtaining an abortion.
These bills have also been given “emergency” status, meaning that they are “immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health and safety” and therefore will be in immediate full force.
There has been, as you might imagine, some uproar about these actions, although not necessarily as much as you might imagine. The Center for Reproductive Rights and a physician and reproductive services provider have both filed lawsuits regarding the first bill requiring ultrasounds on the basis that the requirement interferes with the privacy rights of women and subjects them to unwanted speech, in addition to a couple of legal technicalities (such as void-for-vagueness and “impermissible special law”).
Frankly, though, I’m more concerned about the impact of the second law on the rights of pregnant and laboring women and, perhaps, the rights of women in general. HB 2656 is a clear acceptance of a physician’s right to keep information from a woman that would directly impact her healthcare decisions. Once a woman’s right to healthcare information from her provider is chipped away at, who knows where the chipping might end.
My only consolation here is that I cannot imagine that these laws - in clear violation of medical ethics and good practice - will stand for very long. However, their impact in the meantime, and the fact that there was enough support for the Legislature to overturn the governor’s veto in such quick measure, is a little disturbing to contemplate.
More reading:
NYT: Strict Abortion Measures Enacted in Oklahoma
Oklahoma Passes Strictest Abortion Law, Protects Doctors Who Lie To Women
Center for Reproductive Rights Files Lawsuit against Oklahoma’s Ultrasound Requirement
Reader Comments (41)
Ugh, this makes me feel sick. :(
I am from Oklahoma and I am appalled but what do you expect from the reddest state from the presidential election? I hate the bill and support Henry's veto but for the present I am worried about the added cost of having the ultrasound done. It would raise the already high fee for an abortion to at least $100 more. There is only one provider in Norman, OK where I live and he has to constantly fight off christian protesters and defend his right to practice. I hope this doesn't put him out of business. I would hate to see another needed right taken away.
Thank you for calling attention to this. It seems to me a very short trip between a law like this and one that says a woman desiring a home birth will be required to have an ultrasound before the doctor will sign off (don't worry! she can look away!) It not only subjects a woman to unwanted speech, it requires them to produce the content of the speech from within their own bodies. Do pregnant women lose the right to remain silent?
I don't even know what to say about the second one. OBs already have plenty of license to lie to women.
I wish a legislator would now and then think about what laws like this do to women who WANT their baby but need an abortion for medical reasons. Perhaps they should increase their depression/suicide prevention efforts too...
Oh wait, that would mean thinking about women as human beings and not just baby incubators. Never mind, sorry.
I realize I'm probably pretty unwelcome here, but I was surprised to read this post and the attendant comments from a group of women who seem so pro-child.
What this bill means is that women can no longer kill their babies just because they have a defect--something that would be perfectly illegal were the child born for even a minute. Why do are we encouraging women to see their disabled child as something to be done away with? This bill is protection for disabled people, and since that is a group that has been historically discriminated against, I am proud that it passed.
A law that prevents a woman from killing her child is not taking away a woman's right to her body; it is recognizing that there are other rights that prevail over autonomy (another person's autonomy). I think legislators would have a harder fight mandating certain kinds of obstetric care from a facts stand point--that c-sections, hospital births, etc. do not produce healthier children or safer births than homebirth, midwifes, etc. But from a facts stand point, abortion kills a human child. It seems like this is something everyone should realize and support.
to Mandy, I live in Alaska, and my friend WAS required to have an ultrasound before her home birth!
I truly worry about the parents who wanted a child desperately and were given a terrible diagnosis, including a fatal diagnosis that would result in the child being born conscious but suffering and dying soon after birth. It's already an agonizing and awful decision, and laws mandating showing ultrasounds to these women have the sole purpose of increasing her agony, guilt and shame over something that is legal. Abortion ends the life of an embryo/fetus that would probably have otherwise gone on to be born, but the sad fact is that death is sometimes the better option.
And the second bill is just bizarre!
Frankly, though, I’m more concerned about the impact of the second law on the rights of pregnant and laboring women and, perhaps, the rights of women in general. HB 2656 is a clear acceptance of a physician’s right to keep information from a woman that would directly impact her healthcare decisions. Once a woman’s right to healthcare information from her provider is chipped away at, who knows where the chipping might end.
I could not agree with your concerns about this second bill more, Jill! Thanks for sharing!
MJ:
"What this bill means is that women can no longer kill their babies just because they have a defect--"
No, MJ, that's not what it means. It means a doctor can LIE to their patient--fail to inform her of a critical piece of information regarding her health--and get away with it.
Lying to someone to make you do what they want, in a way that can have a devastating impact on their life, is neither ethical, nor Christian. Shame on you for not understanding this very basic moral principle.
You have the right to have your beliefs regarding abortion, and even to state your beliefs in an attempt to persuade a woman not to have an abortion.
You do NOT have the right to lie to her, put her health in jeopardy, harass her, or imprison her in order to make her comply with your religious beliefs. That is the logic of the Inquisition, and it has no place in our democracy. It violates the principles of the Constitution and of human decency. Hiding behind your belief that the fetus's rights trump the woman's is not an excuse. Because women are people, and they have the right to determine what happens within their own bodies.
Argh..should be
"Lying to someone to make THEM do what YOU want..." etc.
/failure to preview
Mandy Bridges: Thanks for your comment, and I, frankly, had not even thought about the economic impact on that level. Is there any local commentary on the matter or is it not as much of a issue (because people just don't know)?
MJ: PIggybacking on emjaybee's comment, this bill allows a doctor to lie to a patient if *the doctor* thinks that the patient would obtain an abortion. What this means is that women who might continue the pregnancy regardless, but would appreciate some heads-up and the ability to plan and prepare for a not-entirely-healthy child, will not necessarily be given the opportunity to do so. Therefore, regardless of your opinion regarding abortion (and recognizing that regardless of your opinion it is a legal right), you should be appalled at this bill which strips a woman of her ability to make decisions regarding her care and, in fact, could cause more harm by not allowing preparation, both environmental and emotional.
Ob: Unfortunately, this post is not a joke or spoof. The governor himself released a statement disclaiming any responsibility and stating that the bills were "immoral" and "unconstitutional."
Would OK pass a law that said it was acceptable for providers to hide or otherwise not communicate positive HIV or cancer results because the person might commit suicide? Sure, providers lie sometimes for their own reasons, but when they do and it has catastrophic consequences, we can retaliate. Making lying not only legal but legally condoned not only makes all healthcare providers immediately suspect (how do you know who is lying?), but also takes away one of the tools patients have to protect our own rights.
By the way, MJ, as far as I'm concerned, you are welcome here. Your comment might be something I disagree with, but you presented your thoughts respectfully, and I appreciate that. I do think you read the bill wrong, though. If anything, it may provide a woman considering abortion because of possible fetal anomalies with more information about the extent of the problem, since she is being forced into, not prevented from, having an ultrasound.
This is a horrible precedent to set, and I truly hope that the thinking people in OK can do something about it.
I love this blog, but I disagree with you on this one. I LOVE the first one and think women need to know the consequences of what they are doing before they kill their child.
I'm pro life, but even with this position...I don't like EITHER of these laws.
In the case of the first law, I would support a law that required abortion providers to OFFER an ultrasound to women considering abortion, and I support laws that require giving women considering abortion information about fetal development at their current gestation. I don't like at all that the women are being forced to submit to ultrasound, because I believe it is a violation of their ability to select their own medical care. While I don't really ascribe to the belief that ultrasound might be frying a woman's ovaries...I respect a woman's right to believe that, or hold to any other belief that would make her want to decline ultrasound.
In the case of the 2nd law...well it seems a bit contradictory to the first law...but then again, very in keeping with how many Dr's handle things...just give the information needed to get the patient to make the decision the Dr. wants them to make.
"Unfortunately," I highly resent that kind of withholding of information, and completely agree with the slipperly slope theory that if information can be denied in this area, it can be denied in other areas.
Christina, the problem is...they are not being told, honestly, of any consequences.
A woman does not have an abortion without knowing what it is.
You may abhor what she's doing, but it's completely dishonest to pretend that the reason for any of this legislation is anything but intimidation and harassment, not education. It's insulting to women, and like I said, blatantly dishonest. If you want to oppose abortion, do so, but supporting legislation that allows for the possibility of compromising women's health, and I must repeat, LYING TO THEM (you do realize that some abortions save the woman's life, right? Or that fetuses that die from their deformities in the womb pose an infection risk to the woman? Or that it's just massively wrong not to tell a woman her fetus is damaged??) is not moral in any way, shape or form.
The whole point of this blog is that We Trust Women. We trust them to know what they are doing in pregnancy and birth. We don't have to agree with what they do, but we defend their right to do it.
I think unassisted birth is a bad idea, generally speaking. But I respect women's rights to have them. You don't have to support abortion. But you are fooling yourself if you think it's morally OK to remove a woman's right to be treated with honesty and respect while pregnant because she might have an abortion. And you are doubly fooling yourself if you think this kind of practice doesn't contribute to restricting women's choices in birth, too.
I have heard heart-breaking stories of women who submitted to an abortion after being misinformed about what, exactly, was in her womb at the time of the abortion -- things like, "It's just a blob of tissue, sort of like a blood clot," when the reality is that the embryo/fetus had a beating heart, hands and fingers, legs and toes, etc. -- much more than "a blood clot." Later, when these women found out -- usually when they got pregnant again and went to a doctor for the first prenatal visit, and the doctor gladly pointed out all the baby parts -- they were sickened and heartbroken at what they had done, and would not have submitted to an abortion had they known how well-developed the baby was even at that early gestation. For some women, an u/s would not change their minds; however, if information is withheld that, had they known, these women would change their minds, then they need to know it -- just as much as if a woman is never told that VBAC has a known though slight risk of uterine rupture, or that with each repeat C-section her risk of future placental problems increases exponentially.
As regards the second law -- I think it is meant to protect doctors from being sued in "wrongful life" lawsuits -- the doctor did not diagnose their baby as having a deformity or abnormality, and the parents missed their opportunity to abort the baby before birth, and then are "stuck" with the baby after birth. I've heard of a lawsuit (not sure if it was successful or not, or still ongoing) in which parents declined any testing that would have shown their child's defect (Down Syndrome? spina bifida? not sure what), and then after the baby was born, they sued the doctor for not performing the test they had declined. I think they basically said that the doctor should have forced them to have the test/screen, rather than allow them to decline a procedure they didn't want. Crazy.
Fascinating. You don't want women to have all the information and you do want women to have all the information. If a woman is so on the line that a sonogram makes her change her mind about an abortion, isn't that a good thing? Isn't that empowerment? Having the Truth is always good. (Women truly dieing from being pregnant is so rare that Planned Barrnhood had to have women LIE about it in order to have anyone who "needed" a third trimester abortion in the hearings over the partial-birth abortion ban. And sonos have been horribly wrong about the condition of the baby. I have read stories of women told their babies were deformed but who chose to carry them to term anyway, only to have the baby born perfectly healthy. I have read the stories of nurses who assisted in the abortion of a "defective" child only to watch a perfectly healthy baby die on the table from being forced out his mommy's womb prematurely. the same doctor's you take to task for not having all the answers when they are trying to force a mommy into a c-section still don't have all the answers when he diagnoses a defect.
The second law should not have been passed and sets a dangerous precedent.
OB: Here I am! And I completely agree with you (and with ANaturalAdvocate) that the second law would basically allow doctors to hide negligence behind an agenda sanctioned by the Oklahoma legislature. Mighty convenient, right? This, and the idea that a doctor should be able to either negligently or willfully hide information about a woman's pregnancy, is highly troubling.
MJ: These laws do not, as you say, take away a woman's right to have an abortion. Rather, they take away her right to decline a medical procedure. This is a precedent I don't want to set, because, as emjaybee points out, the idea that we can somehow tell the difference between women who are refusing procedures in the "good" "questioning the technocratic paradigm" crunchy sort of way versus the "bad" "want to have an abortion without understanding the consequences" baby-killing sort of way (which I think is largely myth) is a pipe dream. Honestly, the law is NOT equipped to make these distinctions, and the people who know the best are the ones who have gone to the hospital and tried to refuse interventions only to be told "fine, we'll get a court order because you're endangering a fetus." (Joy Szabo, anybody? I'm sure everyone here e-knows someone who has had some sort of threat like that, especially if they read through Jill's coverage of that case in NJ.)
Also - I just wanted to address the issue of being "pro-child." I think you could definitely characterize all of us that way. To my understanding, all of the Unnecesarean contributors are moms. But the idea that to be pro-child you have to be anti-choice, or even that you have to be pro-choice to be very concerned about the issues that these laws raise, is specious at best. We're all, I imagine, pro-woman, and it's women's dignity and personhood under the law that is at issue with these laws.
To those who reference my opinion of the u/s bill:
My problem with this is that it does not allow a woman to opt out of the procedure altogether. Certainly, she can turn her head and sing "la la la" as loud as she wants, but she's not being allowed to exercise her right to say, "no thanks, I know what I'm doing." I, personally, tend to think that an u/s should be required before an abortion, but not for "the changing of the mind" but for the purpose of checking the approximate gestational age and location quickly to make certain that the procedure/method chosen is appropriate and safe as quickly and precisely as possible. Here, however, the bill goes far beyond that and potentially requires the physician to deny the woman the right to deny informed consent (or exercise informed refusal). Of course, I also wonder what, exactly, the legislature was thinking, given that the vast majority of abortions take place in the first trimester, often early enough that "uhm, yeah, so that's there" would be about as much information as the physician could give regarding the fetus.
Kathy: I was quoting the bill itself up above, with regards to the intent, but I understand your statement. I don't know what case you're referencing (but I'd love more info if you have it) but I would find it appalling that the parents were able to sue for wrongful life on the basis of a declined test.
BettySue: I'm not sure if by "you" you are referencing me (as opposed to the legislature), but I'll answer just in case. I want women to have all of the information that they are entitled to AND desire. If a woman chooses to decline informed consent, and have an abortion, or a C-section, or any other test or procedure without the information available to her, that's her choice. However, if a woman says, "I know what I am doing, I know what my choice is, and I decline your narrative of the u/s," well, I think that should be respected. Similarly, with regards to the second bill, formal recognition of a right to deceive patients is unacceptable, although we agree there, I believe.
@Kathy: I think it is pretty obvious the intent of the law has nothing to do with protecting doctors from "wrongful life" due to clinical errors and everything to do with protecting them from "wrongful life" due to intentional omission.