The latest scheme of the anti-life abortion industry is to encourage lawsuits against states that have largely banned the procedure with the apparent claim seriously at-risk women who reside in those states are being denied allowable emergency medical care because providers are afraid of professional and criminal consequences.
As The New York Times reported Monday, five women are suing the state of Texas with the claim they were denied emergency medical care, despite life-threatening risks to themselves and their unborn babies, because their medical providers refused to give the care necessary for their dire situations due to possible punitive consequences resulting from the state’s abortion ban.
In a press release Thursday, Texas Right to Life’s Kim Schwartz wrote the lawsuit, led by the Center for Reproductive Rights, is “misdirected” and only seeks to “add loopholes” to Texas’ pro-life legislation:
Pro-Life policies already plainly allow doctors to intervene if the life of the mother is in danger; however, the lawsuit claims the law is to blame for practitioners being misinformed. The fact is that based on the doctor’s reasonable medical judgment the medical threat could be foreseen and thus Texas law allows them to act immediately to protect the woman. Pro-Life policies do not require physicians to delay necessary care until the danger is imminent in order to treat a mother.
“Doctors in at least two of the stories cited in the case misunderstood the law or were misled by pervasive, inaccurate, and irresponsible reporting from the media,” Schwartz noted.
Texas OB/GYN Dr. Ingrid Skop, who also serves as senior fellow and director of medical affairs at the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, explained in the video below what the Texas law stated and how doctors could provide compassionate care for both mothers and their babies.
In a statement, Skop said:
As an OB-GYN who’s spent nearly 30 years caring for women and babies, I am saddened and troubled by reports of mothers not receiving the care they require. Under the laws of Texas and all other pro-life states, doctors are advised to exercise their reasonable medical judgment to determine if a woman needs to be delivered of her unborn child in order to protect her life. Texas law allows this intervention and does not require delay in necessary care for ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, or a life-threatening complication. Yet no matter how many times we correct the record, pro-abortion activists continue spreading misinformation, confusing physicians and the general public. The solution they offer is abortion on demand until birth, which is wildly out of step with most Americans. These rhetorical games put women’s lives at risk and need to stop.
Joe Biden also used his substantial platform to spread the misinformation about states with pro-life abortion bans during his State of the Union address in February.
One of Biden’s invited guests was Amanda Zurawski, one of the five women bringing the lawsuit against the state of Texas.
The White House made the following claim:
Amanda was 18 weeks pregnant when her water broke. She and her husband Josh were devastated, as they had been trying for a baby for over a year. Her doctors were unable to intervene to help her because they were concerned that providing the treatment she needed would violate the Texas abortion ban, which prohibits abortion care unless a woman’s life is in danger. She was sent home with instructions to come back if she developed signs of a life-threatening infection, which she did, three days later. Zurawski developed sepsis and nearly died because of the delay in receiving treatment. She continues to suffer from medical complications due to the delay.
The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), a network of over 7,000 pro-life medical practitioners, issued a statement and tweet thread about Biden’s inclusion of the misinformation in his address.
“Our hearts go out to Amanda and Josh Zurawski, who were featured in tonight’s State of the Union Address,” AAPLOG stated. “There are no laws in any state that prevent timely and compassionate care for a miscarriage — which is the exact care Ms. Zurawski needed. Denying proper healthcare to patients facing miscarriage complications is not complying with the law. Miscarriage care is not abortion.”
Our hearts go out to Amanda and Josh Zurawski, who will be featured in tonight's State of the Union Address. There are no laws in any state that prevent timely and compassionate care for a miscarriage — which is the exact care Ms. Zurawski was in need of.
— AAPLOG (@aaplog) February 7, 2023
“Unfortunately, there are many abortion activists eager to exploit difficult situations like these and the people involved, in order to preserve the ability to kill preborn humans at any stage of pregnancy and for any reason,” AAPLOG stated, asserting its organization is “dedicated to continuing education on excellent miscarriage care and providing women with fully informed consent, while supporting both of our patients – woman and child.”
As Schwartz explained, two of the women bringing the lawsuit “faced heartbreaking circumstances in which their doctors neglected to follow the standard of care, declining to intervene until they became so sick that they could have died.”
“This was not required by Texas law,” she asserted. “The harm these mothers suffered is not due to legislation but the failure of medical associations and government agencies to provide proper guidelines to physicians.”
The physical condition of the other three mothers was reportedly non-life-threatening, but the lawsuit concerns the prenatal diagnoses of the babies’ severe disability or illness, Schwartz noted.
“Preborn children with critical health conditions are just as worthy of the Right to Life as any other human being,” she stated. “Each baby is uniquely beautiful, and they should continue to be honored and protected in law no matter how long or short their lives may be. Texas Right to Life has long promoted perinatal palliative care as the compassionate and Pro-Life response to many of these heartbreaking fetal diagnoses.”
CNN reported Vice President Kamala Harris praised the lawsuit in a statement that said it shows that the fears regarding “the harm” patients “would experience due to Texas’ extreme laws” had turned into reality.
“The lawsuit includes devastating, first-hand accounts of women’s lives almost lost after they were denied the health care they needed, because of extreme efforts by Republican officials to control women’s bodies,” Harris reportedly said.
Paige Willey, a spokesperson for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, told CNN he “is committed to doing everything in his power to protect mothers, families, and unborn children, and he will continue to defend and enforce the laws duly enacted by the Texas Legislature.”
Willey also noted that Paxton issued guidance, following the Supreme Court’s decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, that stated the Texas trigger law “protects women facing life-threatening physical conditions resulting from pregnancy complications.”
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America posted a thread on Twitter reflecting the leftist media’s complicit relationship with the abortion lobby in providing false information to the public: that pro-life laws are preventing women from obtaining emergency medical care for high-risk pregnancies.
Let’s be very clear: every pro-life law in the country allows necessary and timely medical treatment to save the life of a pregnant woman in an emergency.https://t.co/5fzvsovpK3
2/9— SBA Pro-Life America (@sbaprolife) March 7, 2023
Tara Sander Lee., Ph.D., a Harvard-trained scientist who serves on the Biden administration’s Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Infant and Maternal Mortality, said in a press statement regarding tragic situations in which an unborn baby’s prognosis is poor that the need is to be “searching for treatments and cures for these conditions, not discriminating against babies with disabilities and destroying them before birth.”
“Do we say that a person diagnosed with cancer is ‘incompatible with life’ and then destroy the patient?” Sander Lee asked. “Most certainly not. We find hope amidst the storm, seek medical care, and treatment when available.”
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Susan Berry, PhD is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Abortion Protesters” by Becker1999. CC BY 2.0.
