Abortion

Georgia “Fetal Pain” Ban Author Ok With Forcing Women Into C-Sections For Unviable Pregnancies

What exactly does "most likely to save both lives" mean?

Rep. Dough McKillip. [img src]

When “fetal pain” bill sponsor, Republican Rep. Doug McKillip introduced a ban to outlaw abortion in the state of Georgia after 20 weeks post-fertilization, he gleefully noted the “thousand babies” the bill would allegedly save. As part of the bill, McKillip mandated that once the fetus is past 20 weeks, every effort must be made to deliver it in a way that would be most likely to save the fetus’s life.

It’s that rule that has doctors the most concerned.

Via Online Athens:

Ruth Cline, an obstetrician and gynecologist, asked McKillip what she should do when a woman comes to the hospital 22 weeks pregnant and her water is broken.

“You deliver the baby in the way that’s most likely to save both lives,” McKillip said.

Delivering a baby in that scenario means using a fetal monitor to check its condition, which requires a cesaerian section, Cline said. The baby would be almost certain to die, and in addition to the mother’s pain and suffering, she’d have to have C-sections for any subsequent pregnancies, Cline said.

“That is what is creating a lot of the controversy over this legislation, having to deal with that situation,” she said.

Of course, according to McKillip, most of the later term abortions performed in the state are “convenience abortions, many of them,” and done up until the day before delivery, so his medical “expertise” is probably not the soundest.