This has been a week of retrenchment on abortion bans, as politicians realize the detrimental health effects of their “pro-life” stances. The punitive bills that have passed in many states have jeopardized the delivery of healthy babies because pediatricians, concerned about the possibility of criminal charges, have fled the profession.
A Wyoming judge temporarily blocked a state law that would make performing nearly any abortion in that state a felony, citing Wyoming’s constitutional amendment, passed by Republicans opposed to President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which provides that “each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions.”
Members of the New Hampshire House of Representatives on March 23 voted to put reproductive rights into statute, remove the criminal and civil penalties in the state’s 24-week abortion ban approved two years ago, and killed bills aimed at further limiting women’s reproductive rights.
This all comes after Bonner General Health, the only hospital in Sandpoint, Idaho, announced last week that it would no longer provide labor, delivery, and other obstetrical services, citing the inability to retain pediatricians because of the chance they would be forced to choose between violating the state abortion ban or federal healthcare laws. Sandpoint residents now are forced to drive 46 miles for the nearest labor and delivery care, the Idaho Capital Sun reported.
Even before the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to decide whether to implement abortion bans, hospitals were having trouble retaining physicians, among them the former Lakes Region General Hospital (now Concord Hospital-Laconia) which closed its birthing services. Fear of legal action has made it even harder to retain pediatricians.
Wyoming’s strict abortion ban does provide exceptions for rape, incest, or when either a pregnant patient or the fetus has certain medical conditions, but District Judge Melissa Owens cited the now-constitutional right to make one’s own health care decisions in the state to place the temporary hold on the law.
New Hampshire Representative Dan Wolf (R-Newbury) sponsored House Bill 224 which, if passed by the Senate, would remove the criminal and civil penalties against doctors and other providers performing an abortion after the 24th week of pregnancy, or violating other provisions in the law. “We need to do all we can to attract health care providers,” Wolf said, “and not deter them from moving here.”
He said his daughter had a cesarean section at Speare Memorial Hospital in Plymouth, and the baby’s umbilical cord was wrapped several times around its neck. The baby was saved, he said, because a physician was available and his daughter did not have to travel to Lebanon or Boston. “We do not need these Draconian threats hanging over doctors,” Wolf said. “We ought to be encouraging doctors to come to New Hampshire and do their work so more grandfathers and grandmothers can bounce a baby on their knees.”
The bill passed on a 205-178 vote in the House and now goes to the Senate.
Representative Alexis Simpson (D-Exeter) is the prime sponsor of House Bill 88, which would prevent the state from restricting a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy beyond what is contained in the 24-week ban. “We are now one step closer to protecting these rights for Granite Staters,” she said after the House approved the bill on a 199-185 vote.
A bill to repeal the 24-week ban died when House Speaker Sherman Packard cast a vote to make it a tie.
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