The Omaha World-Herald points out the obvious: Refusing to care for pregnant women, including those who have come into the country illegally, ultimately only punishes the future child and the taxpayers.
“Now we know how far some Nebraskans will go to make a political point.
“They’ll not only support, as a general rule, the blocking of prenatal care for pregnant women in Nebraska if they aren’t U.S. citizens. They’ll even support blocking care for such women who are already pregnant and need the care now.
“That’s the remarkable signal that a large contingent of the Nebraska Legislature, as well as Gov. Dave Heineman, have sent State Sen. Kathy Campbell. They’ve told that lawmaker — one of the few in the Legislature to stand up resolutely on this issue — to forget about her proposal for Nebraska to cover part of the prenatal care costs for these women.
“But on top of that, they even told her to forget about her modest fallback alternative, which would have helped cover the prenatal costs for such women who are pregnant now and need the help…”
By refusing prenatal care for the women, the legislature is not only endangering the pregnancy, but gambling with taxpayer dollars. That is, the moment a child is born, that child is a U.S. citizen who has his/her own access to Medicaid. If the lack of prenatal care has resulted in a premature delivery and long stay in a neonatal unit, Medicaid (i.e., the taxpayers) will cover the bill.
What makes the stance even more distasteful is the fact that the Nebraska legislature is currently debating a bill, the “Abortion Pain Prevention Act,” that would ban all abortions after 20 weeks unless they were being performed to save a woman’s life or “avert serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”
For those readers who know the circumstances surrounding my own late-term abortion, it will come as little surprise that I find this proposed legislation to be significantly disturbing because no exceptions are made for fetal anomalies — even those, like anencephaly, which almost always result in the death of the child minutes or hours following birth.
(Ironic note one: Because of the brain absence associated with anencephaly, the children that are born alive are typically blind, deaf, unconscious and unable to feel pain.)
The Nebraska legislators who support the measure, as well as those individuals pushing for its passage, want to appear as protectors of the children that would eventually be produced from the pregnancy. They want to write a law on faulty science that claims there is a certain point in time when a fetus can feel pain, and, therefore, abortion should not take place.
Yet at the same time they are arguing this faulty “compassionate conservative” viewpoint, they are also unwilling to care for women who are pregnant, or protect the children they carry.
(Ironic note two: According to the Centers of Disease Control, Hispanic infants have an increased risk of anencephaly.)
It is clear that the Nebraska legislators who support these bills have absolutely no interest in either caring for or protecting women, children or families. They do not care about women, because neither of these bills does anything to advance the plight of women in society or to provide health care services. They do not care about children, because if they did, they would want to provide each child the best prenatal care possible. They do not care about families, because they are willing to write their own “death panel” legislation that would take one of several horrific choices away from families who experience a devastating pregnancy.
They care only about further restricting access to abortion and feathering their political nests prior to the next election.
If you don’t believe that statement, then please explain why a Minnesota law professor, originally from Oklahoma, is one of the key strategists involved in pushing for additional abortion restrictions in Nebraska. Did I mention she’s running for U.S. Congress?
