This bill fails to show any compassion or consideration for families who find out near or after 20 weeks that their unborn baby has an anomaly. It is standard obstetrical practice to perform a fetal anatomy scan at 20 weeks gestation. Before that time, it can be difficult for doctors and ultrasound technicians to be able to clearly visualize fetal anatomy in order to make a diagnosis. Also, many anomalies (chromosomal or not) require follow-up testing in order to make a definite diagnosis, which can take several weeks to complete. Putting a ban on abortion at 20 weeks will force many families to either, A) Carry a pregnancy to term with a serious anomaly, resulting in large financial, physical, and emotional hardship, or B) force families to abandon additional diagnostic testing and interrupt pregnancies before they know for sure how serious their baby's condition may be.
Supporters of this bill point to the horrors of Dr. Kermit Gosnell and the substandard care he provided to low-income women in his clinic in Philadelphia as a reason for this ban. Dr. Gosnell took advantage of low-income women who felt they had no where else to go to obtain later abortion care. Those women didn't end up in Dr. Gosnell's clinic because of lax abortion laws. They ended up there because, A) other abortion providers in their area were charging much more than they could afford, B) other abortion providers in the area were not willing to perform procedures due to the advanced gestational age, or C) the women were tricked into believing that the care they'd receive safe and appropriate care at Gosnell's clinic.
What happened at Gosnell's clinic was horrific, unsafe, and unacceptable. He put women's lives and health in serious danger, and he did not show compassion to the moms or the unborn babies who ended up in his clinic. His clinic does not represent the vast majority of clinics (and abortion providers working out of hospitals) which provide safe, quality abortion care in sanitary environments with an infinitely low risk of complications.
The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act will not prevent doctors like Gosnell from subverting the law or ignoring accepted medical practices. But it will make it more difficult for women to obtain the abortion care they need post-20 weeks gestation. If doctors in good-standing who follow the law and accepted medical practices are not allowed to provide abortions post-20 weeks, where do you think the women who get poor prenatal diagnoses after 20 weeks will go for abortion care? Birth defects and chromosomal anomalies will not stop occurring, and women will not cease to believe that interrupting a doomed pregnancy is their best option. This law will create a niche for doctors like Gosnell who are willing to ignore the law in order to provide later abortion care. This law will create more harm, and more pain to families, not less.
