“Protect Life Act” would allow doctors to let pregnant women die

I know Samhita linked to this in the What We Missed on Friday, but I think this deserves a little more attention. The proposed legislation, H.R. 358, introduced by none other than Re. Joe Pitts, would allow doctors to override the requirement to treat a person who is in danger of losing their life — that is, if that treatment would destroy the fetus. Via Jill at Feministe:

In other words, it gives doctors the green light to let pregnant women die if they have a life-threatening condition and need an emergency abortion. We know that women’s lives have been saved by abortion (and that some number of people don’t approve of the whole life-saving thing). It’s not surprising that a few religious blow-hards think it’s better for women to die instead of receiving therapeutic abortions, but to encode the view that you don’t have to save a pregnant woman’s life into federal law? That is truly sick — and shockingly cruel, even for the usual “pro-life” suspects who regularly use their ideology as a tool to punish women.

Also? It’s not like letting the pregnant woman die saves the fetus, so there’s no “protecting life” here. When the woman dies, the fetus dies too. The entire purpose of this bill is to allow ideologues to refuse necessary, life-saving care to patients, if those patients happen to be pregnant. It’s disgusting. I hope, at the very least, that this will be widely publicized, and will show the rest of the country what a far-right “culture of life” really looks like — it’s not particularly life-affirming to anyone with a uterus.

“Protect Life” my ass. We’ll keep you posted on this legislation and ways to take action.

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