Texas, Texas, Texas, is all I have to say. It blows my mind that the government finds it appropriate to at all tell women what they should and should not be doing with their bodies. But of course, they obviously feel it is appropriate with the government trying to cut Planned Parenthood funding and now with their two most recent bills.
The first of the two bills prevents second trimester abortions. Supporters of the bill say this is a “barbaric” practice. However, second trimester abortions are not very common to begin with considering 92% of abortions happen within the first 13 weeks. Second trimester abortions are much more expensive, and usually not in the ideal situation of anyone. Typically, if you are going to abort you would have within the first trimester, so finding yourself in the predicament to abort after 13 weeks, the reason is typically extenuating. That being said, there are so many children, more than 16 million, that live in poverty, this number is more than any other age group. If the mother knows that is the path that her and her child will be heading down, maybe it doesn’t seem so far fetched to not put them through that. Not to mention if this is the path the child goes down they will likely find themselves in the same position come their teen/adult years. In addition to all of those reasons, sometimes defects are found in the second trimester which may lead the mother to decide to abort to save her baby from the future pain he/she will have to endure.
The second bill prevents women/parents from suing their doctor if their baby is born with a defect. Now, through this bill, doctors are technically not legally bound to tell their patients whether or not their baby will be born with a deficiency which will sometimes lead mother to choose abortion to be an option. Sen. Jose Rodriguez of El Paso said this legislation “seems to be about restricting and further limiting a woman’s right to exercise her choice about what she is going to do in case of serious defects to the fetus.” I for one agree with Sen. Rodriguez. If you were told that your baby was going to be born seriously defected, with no chance at a happy childhood or life, as a mother that would likely bring you so much sorrow in your heart that might lead you to not put your baby and your family through that pain. Loss is so incredibly difficult, especially a mother losing her baby, regardless of their age, therefore it should be a mothers right and personal choice to proceed as she sees fit for herself, her baby and her family. This bill is just going to lead Pro-Choice doctors to withhold information from their patients, essentially lying to them about the health of their fetus the rest of the duration of their patient’s pregnancy. Now imagine a mother’s distraught when her baby is born with a serious disability and she could have known about it in advance? In addition, some women won’t pick abortion to begin with. Some women will spend the rest of their pregnancy preparing themselves and their families, educating themselves about their baby’s future deficiency so they can be fully ready for when that baby comes into the world. This bill has the capability of withholding that information from these mothers, the ones who want to try, who want to be prepared from doing so as well.
Withholding information from patients has and always should be illegal, it in other words called lying and thus is immoral. I cannot even fathom how a doctor could live with themselves knowing they are lying to their patient each time they converse with them. Especially because there are so many roads the mother can choose to take after hearing all the information. Secondly, I think that lawmakers need to stop restricting women and making their decisions for them and rather work on improving family life in general. Help get people out of poverty, help educate people on other options, like adoption. There are so many loving families unable to reproduce yet there are so many kids going in and out of foster care, this is where intervention is needed. If mothers knew all of the options, maybe just maybe, they would choose to keep their baby and choose to give he/she to a loving home. Talk of cutting medicaid funding scares people, it scares people, we need to change the conversation to be the change everyone wants to see. No one likes abortion, no one is excited to choose abortion, but sometimes it can seem like the only option. Let’s change the conversation, quit scaring and threatening people and maybe we will see a change in culture.