Skopped

My conservative friend Paul gave me hell the other day for focusing so much on abortion. "Why don't you write about the leaky border or something else for a change?" I will definitely get to that subject, it irks me and pisses me off to no end that the Cleveland, Texas shooter had been deported four times previously. 

We, like every other sovereign nation, have a right to a secure border and I have no respect for those that would break our laws and then demand residency or amnesty. 

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Back to the abortion thing for a second. I believe that the right to choose is at the core of my political belief system, for a variety of reasons, including individual liberty and freedom.

I wrote about Amanda Zarowski the other day, the Texas woman who went into septic shock and gave birth to a stillborn baby after Texas physicians refused to abort her fetus. She wanted to have a baby and now may never be able to have one again.

Zurawski was reportedly denied an abortion following pregnancy complications 18 weeks into her pregnancy. Her water broke, leaving her at a high risk of contracting a deadly infection and fatally threatening the life of her baby. Because the child still had a heartbeat, Zurawksi's doctors refused to terminate the pregnancy, citing Texas law.

Her doctors only administered abortion care after she went into septic shock, she told the committee, adding that she may have been one of the first Texas patients affected by the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

She is also one of five women currently suing Texas for pain and suffering after being denied abortion care amidst dangerous pregnancy complications due to the state's restrictive and aggressive abortion laws.

Dr. Ingrid Skop

The pro life movement trotted out a pet doctor to the hearing, Ingrid Skop, who blamed everybody in the world but the justice system for Zarowski's problem.

Dr. Ingrid Skop, a Texas obstetrician-gynecologist and GOP witness hailed to give her opinion on Zurawski's experience by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., apologized to Zurawski for her loss and her doctor's misunderstanding.

"And I am so sorry that your doctors misunderstood Texas law," she said. "Every single law allows an exclusion for a doctor to use their reasonable medical judgment to determine when to intervene in a medical emergency, which is usually defined as a threat to the life of the mother or permanent irreversible damage to an organ or an organ system."

She added that even prior to the Supreme Court decision, doctors knew how to assess medical emergencies and offer abortions when needed, citing the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology's guidance on how to do so for patients in Zurawski's situation.

Sen. Cornyn, R-Texas, later weighed in, suggesting that Zurawski should consider pursuing a medical malpractice suit against her doctors.

"Dr. Skop is not my physician. She has never been my physician. She has never treated me. She has not seen my medical records," Zurawski said later in the hearing, addressing both Skop and Cornyn's comments.

Skop's message here is false and it is disingenuous. She has trotted out the same palaver across the country, as more and more of these unfortunate incidents take place. 

Every single state does not have an exclusion for doctor's to save the life of a woman, or if they do they are totally ineffectual. In the real world women are getting very sick after being shut down by medical ethics boards that are afraid of being second guessed and jailed in these types of situations. 

Doctors go to school to practice medicine, not spend their lives navigating felony murder charges. And now they are afraid to make a decision for fear of prosecution and risking patient's lives in the process. The pro life movement is directly responsible for these women's hardships. Is maternal mortality simply god's will?

There were two similar incidents that came to light this week, in a similar vein.

Because of Florida's draconian abortion laws, this woman had to carry her baby to term, knowing he would die. The mother had Potter Syndrome, which is sadly, not that uncommon.

A Florida woman, unable to get an abortion in her state, carried to term a baby who had no kidneys. Deborah Dorbert’s son Milo died in her arms on March 3, shortly after he was born, just as her doctors had predicted he would.

“He gasped for air a couple of times when I held him,” said Dorbert, 33. “I watched my child take his first breath, and I held him as he took his last one.”

She said her pregnancy was proceeding normally until November, when, at 24 weeks, an ultrasound showed that the fetus did not have kidneys and that she had hardly any amniotic fluid. Not only was the baby sure to die, her doctors told her, but the pregnancy put her at especially high risk of preeclampsia, a potentially deadly complication.

Her doctors told her it was too late to terminate the pregnancy in Florida, which bans nearly all abortions after 15 weeks. The only options were to go out of state to get an abortion or to carry the baby to full term, and Dorbert and her husband didn’t have the money to travel.

Florida law demands the signatures of two medical doctors in order for Deborah to terminate her pregnancy. She could not secure the second signature in the political minefield.

A woman in Alabama has a similar tale, a fetus detected with down's syndrome along with other complications including a heart defect and a gigantic tumor, with little chance of survival.

On Jan. 20, Shannon's specialist called her and informed her that while one committee had approved the abortion, a higher-level committee denied permission, telling Shannon this was the hardest phone call she had to make in her professional career, Shannon said.

"That was probably the lowest, maybe the lowest or second lowest point of the whole traumatic experience," Shannon said. "I was sitting in my car talking to her and I couldn't form words. I just sat there and sobbed. I was in a parking lot and I pulled out my phone, and I texted my husband, I was like, 'I need you to come see me and I need you to bring our daughter.'"

"This has been the single most painful and traumatic experience of my life and our lives, and anybody who wants to stand up and say that abortions are wrong or that people shouldn't be able to make their own decisions about abortion care just need to recognize that it's not a black and white issue," Shannon said. "It is complicated and I wouldn't wish this on anybody."

All of these women wanted children, they were all married and none of them were able to receive treatment in their state. They could not successfully navigate the legal system and many endured and still endure physical problems as a result. And they and their doctors did not want to be sued or prosecuted. Can you blame them?

But according to Dr. Ingrid Skop's website, none of them should have had a problem.

Abortion restrictions will not prohibit medical interventions for maternal life-threatening emergencies. Every state has an exemption allowing abortion when necessary to save the life of the mother if her pregnancy poses a severe risk to her life.  These laws specify that a physician may use his “reasonable medical judgment” to determine if intervention is necessary in a “medical emergency”.  With the exception of treatment of an ectopic pregnancy, the necessity for an abortion, defined as “action intending to end embryonic or fetal life”, to save a mother’s life is extremely rare, because usually these heartbreaking situations do not occur until the second half of pregnancy, when a woman’s obstetrician can deliver her in a safer, medically standard way, by induction or cesarean section, and often the baby’s life can be saved also. 

Obviously, Dr. Ingrid Skop is completely full of shit. In the real world that these poor women live in.