Comments by "Theodore Shulman" (@ColonelFredPuntridge) on "Republicans Push Abortion Bills Through House, Proving They Learned Nothing From Midterms" video.

This bill is a trick! A sneaky, underhanded trick to add a huge, unjustified, stupid extra expense to the cost of doing an abortion. Here's the trick: it sometimes happens that a totally non-viable abortus (that's the medical term for an aborted fetus)-- aborted as early as eight weeks gestation, smaller than a hen's egg,-- emerges with a visible regular muscular twitching or pulsation, which can persist for several minutes. The law currently defines "born alive" to include any abortus which has a "visible heartbeat" (US Code Chapter one Section eight), so this non-viable abortus whose twitching cannot persist longer than around fifteen minutes at most no matter what anyone tries to do, qualifies as "born alive" under the law, even though it's really "alive" in name only. The bill (HR 26, 118th Congress) contains TWO separate mandates. Quoting the text: "[...] a health care practitioner who is present must (1) exercise the same degree of care as would reasonably be provided to any other child born alive at the same gestational age, and (2) ensure the child is immediately admitted to a hospital." Notice that the restriction, that the care given must be the same as would reasonably be provided to a wanted child born at the same stage of pregnancy, does NOT apply to (2), the mandate that the abortus be transported and admitted to a hospital. It doesn't apply to (2), because it is written only in (1). So it's not like "green" in "Green eggs and ham" which means that both the eggs and the ham are green; it's like if it were "(1) Green eggs, and, (2) ham". The doctor has to admit the aborted fetus to the hospital, even if no one would think of doing that for a wanted preemie born at the same stage of pregnancy. THAT's the problem with the bill: it would require that a doomed, non-viable eight-week abortus with a visible heartbeat but no chance of living more than a few minutes, must be transported to a hospital and admitted (if it's still twitching when it gets there) as a patient. Ambulancing it to the hospital would be hugely expensive, and admitting it would be a waste of hospital-workers' time. What are they gonna do for it at the hospital, give it some chicken soup??? It's smaller than a hen's egg, unable to breathe or swallow or think. Putting it in the hospital would be a huge, wasteful, useless, guaranteed-futile additional expense, for no purpose except as a sneaky stealth-mandate to increase the cost of doing, and getting, abortions, and, to give right-to-life zealots a criminal charge to bring against abortion-providers, in witch-hunts. It would be easy to fix: just copy the same language in (1) into (2), that the "child" must be transported to a hospital and admitted only if a reasonable health-professional would do the same for a wanted preemie born at the same stage of pregnancy. Republicans have refused to approve this change, because it would remove the trick.
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