Hooray, Nebraska is looking out for those poor pitiful women who couldn’t possibly decide for themselves to have an abortion:
Nebraska lawmakers on Monday gave final approval to a first-of-its-kind measure requiring women to be screened for possible mental and physical problems before having abortions.
The measure is unusual, however, in spelling out what factors doctors must consider when doing the screenings. [Greg] Schleppenbach [of the National Catholic Conference] said that’s because doctors otherwise would turn to other abortion providers to set the standards for the medical community.
The bill requires a doctor or other health professional to screen women to determine whether they were pressured into having abortions. The screenings also would assess whether women have risk factors that could lead to mental or physical problems after an abortion.
This is more than run-of-the-mill denial of women’s moral agency, which I can explain in a somewhat, erm, male-centered way. First of all, as someone who lives with a nontrivial mental illness (bipolar disorder), I can readily attest that nothing is so demeaning as to be told that my decisions are “just the disease talking.” Perhaps so, but that doesn’t mean it’s not me making the choice. A doctor who tried to deny me the power to determine the course of my care because of my illness would be lucky to escape a poke in the nose, let alone a lawsuit. I certainly would not take kindly to the suggestion that I was susceptible to pressure from my wife to take a certain course because I was bipolar.
It’s the same when considering “mental or physical problems” that may arise as the result of a decision. While it’s obviously a doctor’s responsibility to advise patients not to do anything rankly stupid or dangerous, abortion is not in the same category as playing with loaded guns or driving drunk. It is a perfectly legal, extremely safe clinical procedure. Complications can result, yes. So can problems in other areas, as well as regrets.
But people take reasonable, well-informed chances with their health all the time. A doctor acquaintance elected to treat his testicular cancer with surgery alone, since radiation or chemotherapy would have damaged his immune system, putting him out of work for a considerable stretch. He lost the bet, and the cancer came back. I’m sure he would have been more than a little surprised to hear that his oncologist was required by state law to evaluate him for “physical, psychological, emotional, demographic, or situational” risk factors before removing his cancer. What he would have made of his doctor asking him if anyone had pressured him to have surgery, I don’t know.
This doctor’s decision may very well kill him, though I hope not. But no one would dream of inserting the state legislature between him and his physicians. Nor would anyone think to put him or his physician through a rigorous battery of delays, barriers and hurdles to protect him from the consequences of his own decision. And certainly no one would question his ability to make the decision for himself. Perhaps, at the very most, the oncologist might ask him to reconsider were his wife not on board with it.
With abortion, it’s another story. These laws are dressed up in care and concern for women, but really they’re about taking the choice out of their hands. There’s really no other explanation.
