![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"Protect Life" Act - Please Act
Oct. 13th, 2011 11:12 amFrom Huffington Post
WASHINGTON -- The House is scheduled to vote this week on a new bill that would allow federally-funded hospitals that oppose abortions to refuse to perform the procedure, even in cases where a woman would die without it.
Under current law, every hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid money is legally required to provide emergency care to any patient in need, regardless of his or her financial situation. If a hospital is unable to provide what the patient needs -- including a life-saving abortion -- it has to transfer the patient to a hospital that can.
Under H.R. 358, dubbed the "Protect Life Act" and sponsored by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), hospitals that don't want to provide abortions could refuse to do so, even for a pregnant woman with a life-threatening complication that requires a doctor terminate her pregnancy. This provision would apply to the more than 600 Catholic hospitals governed by the Catholic Health Association, which are regulated by bishops and prohibited from performing abortions.
The Diocese of Phoenix sharply condemned the hospital's decision to abort the baby, saying in a statement that the mother's life should never take precedence over the baby's.
In addition to changing the rules for hospitals, H.R. 358 would deny federal funding to any health care plan that includes abortion coverage, something that might cause insurance providers to stop covering abortions.
"We will bring to the floor a bill to ensure that no taxpayer dollars flow to health care plans that cover abortion and no health care worker has to participate in abortions against their will," he said.
The Hyde amendment, which has been in place for 30 years, already bans taxpayer dollars from being spent on abortions and allows anti-abortion doctors to opt out of performing them.
"This is just a demolition derby for women's health care," said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president for communications at Planned Parenthood. "To first say, 'We won't even treat you if you show up needing a life-saving abortion,' and then to eliminate health insurance that might have saved your family from bankruptcy is a real one-two gut punch to women in these tough economic times."
*** *** ***
I was trying to post this yesterday, and kept getting the Scary Goat Error Picture. They're going to vote on it today.
Please contact your reps and let them know this is not acceptable. Especially since this is going to affect women who are already in a hellish circumstance, and make it that much worse. This cannot happen.
This is also one of the reasons I see myself never going back to the Catholic Church. To stand there and say that my life means nothing when it's stacked against a potential new life is horrifying. When the mother dies, there's a good chance the potential new lie is going to die also. Why add to tragedy? Why take a mother away from children who are already born? Why make a woman's life count for nothing?
I'm sorry, but if I ever have to face this situation (which I really hope will be never), I'm going to choose my life, and the chance that I could have another child. I'm going to choose my five-year old daughter, who needs her mother. I'm going to choose my partner, my parents, my family.
And this bill would take that most basic choice away.
Don't stand by and think it won't happen...because at the rate things are going, it very well could.
DV
