A New Bill Could Let Doctors Withhold Crucial Information From Pregnant Women

From Redbook

And now, for your daily dose of messed up news: A bill in Texas was passed onto the Senate that essentially will let doctors lie to pregnant women by omission, Why, you may ask? So that they don’t get abortions, because this is America, land of the free – if you’re a heterosexual Republicanman.

Senate Bill 25, which was unanimously (!!) advanced by the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs, according to The San Antonio Current, says that it would be a woman’s doctors’ call to decide if she should know if her child is showing signs of having any defects or that it will be disabled. Should this bill get passed, it would also forbid Texas women from suing their doctors. It seems like the scary intermediary stage before Donald Trump gets his wish and sends abortion decision-making back to the states by overturning Roe v. Wade.

Not all Texans are for this. “This bill places a unreasonable restriction on the constitutional right of a woman to make an informed decision about whether or not to have an abortion,” Margaret Johnson of the Texas League of Women Voters said in a testimony before the Texas Senate Committee. “SB 25 is a not-so-subtle way to give medical personnel the opportunity to impose religious beliefs on women.”

People for the bill argue that it protects and respects disabled children. But the Current points out that many people who are for the bill are also against state-funded Medicaid, meaning that women who don’t make a lot of money could have a hard time getting affordable healthcare – which would be necessary to care for a child with disabilities or any abnormalities. Cutting off their access to affordable care certainly doesn’t respect disabled children, does it?

And pro-life women could be affected as well: One woman spoke to the Current to explain just how troubling it can be to not know about a fetus having birth defects, and her story suggests that doctors withholding information from pregnant patients just because they presume they want abortions can be harmful in the long run – even if they want to keep the baby.

“It’s not a doctor’s right to manipulate the family by lying, and it is not doctor’s right to decide whether an experimental therapy is worth trying,” Rachel Tiddle, who unknowingly carried a fetus with birth defects and later gave birth to a stillborn, said to the Texas Senate Committee.

This bill should be a bone-chilling reminder that women are always at the risk of losing agency of their own bodies. Pro-choice or not, just let that sit with you for a moment.

(h/t San Antonio Current)

Follow Redbook on Facebook.

You Might Also Like

• 15 Face Masks That Will Seriously Save Your Skin
• Ina Garten’s Go-To Weeknight Dinner Recipes
• 22 Fun Christmas Activities for Kids (That You’ll Get a Kick Out of, Too)