Furor over GOP abortion bill shows how common sense can lose out to purity politics | Opinion
On Tuesday night, Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed Republican-backed House Bill 90, which clarifies some situations in which doctors could use a medically necessary abortion to save a woman’s life.
It makes sense. Planned Parenthood supports the veto, saying it won’t do enough and might even make it harder for doctors to help their patients. Also, the unsavory political side of things is that Beshear is planning a presidential run and wants no daylight between himself and pro-choice advocacy groups, especially when it comes to fundraising.
But this is not a simple situation. I’ve talked to a lot of people about it, and feel that I need to clarify some of my thoughts about the bill and its possible effects, both on women in this state and politics writ large.
Last week, I applauded the GOP House members for coming up with a very small step forward in helping women facing pregnancy loss.
I was taken aback by the reaction from Planned Parenthood and Democratic House members, who said this bill is actually worse than the current abortion ban statutes, which allow doctors to intervene to save the life of the mother, without saying what that actually means. The current statute also involves felony charges for those who break the law.
I greatly respect Planned Parenthood for tirelessly fighting on behalf of women and doctors, as well as their day-to-day reproductive health care in places where it’s most needed. But I still don’t understand how this bill could be worse than what is happening right now, and I think it’s an interesting case study about why progressive politics is often its own worst enemy.
Kentucky is still a women’s health care hellscape, banning reproductive rights for women and their doctors and it will stay that way for the foreseeable future. Kentucky Republicans are not going to budge on an overall abortion ban, especially not with supermajorities in both houses.
However, they have also read the stories of women dying in other states with abortion bans because they couldn’t get lifesaving care for pregnancy complications. That scenario hurts the GOP brand.
That’s why Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville sat down with Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg, a gynecologic oncologist in Louisville and legislative advocacy chair for the Kentucky Chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, to draft a bill.
No one can approve of the process used to pass the bill; the language was attached to a bill on birthing centers without time for study or much consideration. It’s full of dumb, non-medical language, like “separation” of baby and mother, instead of the correct medical term of abortion. It requires doctors to document why the abortion is necessary.
But it also lays out what can be done in the “reasonable medical judgment” of doctors including:
▪ “Lifesaving miscarriage management, which includes medically necessary interventions when the pregnancy has ended or is in the unavoidable and untreatable process of ending due to spontaneous or incomplete miscarriage.”
▪ “Sepsis and hemorrhage emergency medical interventions required when a miscarriage or impending miscarriage results in a life-threatening infection18 or excessive bleeding.”
▪ “A medically necessary intervention, inducement, or delivery for the removal of a dead child from the uterine cavity, when documented in the woman’s medical record along with the results of an obstetric ultrasound test confirming that fetal cardiac activity is not present at a gestational age when it should be present.”
▪ The removal of an ectopic pregnancy or a pregnancy and the removal of a molar pregnancy.”
Doctors would not face felony charges in using “reasonable medical judgment,” Rep. Nemes said.
“Bottom line is that we wanted to protect pregnant women and their doctors by not having a prosecutor looking over doctors’ shoulders,” Nemes told me.
Planned Parenthood collected signatures from 85 doctors around the state condemning the bill because of its language and effect on their work and autonomy.
Of course, this whole scenario is offensive to doctors and the work they are trying to do. I understand this. This legislation does not restore abortion access, and that is an important goal.
In the letter, they wrote: “By codifying language that distinguishes abortions from so-called “procedures that require separating the pregnant woman from her unborn child,” House Bill 90 advances misleading and dangerous anti-abortion propaganda. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has acknowledged that this phrase is ‘used by abortion opponents to justify or to mandate performing medical procedures that carry more risk for the patient, such as cesarean deliveries or inductions of labor, rather than abortion.’ It is out of line with medical standards.”
But if this bill could save one woman’s life from bleeding out in a parking lot, is it not worth it? Do we really care if they use the wrong words?
In the end, this is all academic. Beshear’s veto is sure to be overridden later this week, and House Bill 90 will become law. Then we will see if it is indeed worse than the reality we are in right now — if hospital lawyers won’t let doctors act, if women die and OB-GYNs continue to leave the state.
At that point, let’s hope Rep. Nemes and others will change it again. Actually, let’s hope Nemes and company will do even more the next time around by addressing fatal fetal anomalies before they become an emergency.
I am extremely critical of Kentucky’s GOP supermajority — their dumb culture wars, and their attacks on women, Black people, trans children, or anyone who is gay. I oppose their mindless devotion to Donald Trump, and many of their policies that hurt working Kentuckians.
But it would be hypocritical not to recognize when they take one small step in the right direction. If one woman’s life can be saved by this bill, then it’s common sense to support it.
One reason progressive causes have lost in recent elections is that progressives refuse to recognize common sense when it’s right in front of them.
