Gov. Sam Brownback kept true to one of his main missions this week by supporting two more pieces of legislation designed to restrict access by Kansas women to the health care they want and need.
Last Friday he signed a bill limiting abortion after the 21st week of pregnancy on the disputed grounds that a fetus can feel pain at that time. Tuesday he was preparing to sign another anti-abortion bill that requires a physician to get written permission from parents before performing an abortion for a minor.
A few observations: all legislation in Kansas that restricts access to legal abortion done in sterile conditions by accredited physicians primarily affects the poor. Women who have the means can travel elsewhere for the health care they want. This was also the case, incidentally, before Roe V. Wade made abortion legal in the United States. Rich women went to Sweden, or Thailand, or Norway for their care. Poor women went into back alleys — and a number of them died every year as the result of infections suffered in unsterile conditions at the hands of untrained abortionists.
As our own history tells us so plainly and in such painful detail, laws against abortion don’t stop abortion.
Item 2: Gynecologists dispute the theory that a fetus feels pain at 21 weeks. But that’s not the real point. Most optional abortions take place early in a pregnancy for obvious reasons. Later-term abortions are frequently ordered by physicians because the pregnant woman’s health or the health of the fetus is under threat. In any case, the decision should be made by the woman and her physician, not by a legislature guided by ideology rather than the health of an individual. No law can be written flexible enough to take individual circumstances and conditions into consideration.
Item 3: Requiring pregnant teenagers to get their parents’ written permission to have an abortion is both cruel and counterproductive. Some teen-agers are on firm enough emotional grounds with their parents to make this condition acceptable. Many are not and for those youngsters, the requirement either leads to a back alley abortion that could prove fatal, an early marriage that would be likely to fail or single motherhood that ruptures family relationships and often leads to disadvantaged lives for mother and child alike.
Item 4: No one should be surprised that Gov. Brownback’s election opened the gates to every piece of abortion-restricting legislation that wins a majority in the House and Senate. He is only keeping promises made; promises that the voters of Kansas ratified with their support for him. Those wanting to fix blame for the consequences should look in the mirror.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
