Pro-Life Perinatal Hospice Bill Faces Additional Hurdle; Please Urge Appropriations Committee Approval!
The pro-life Perinatal Hospice Bill, HB 2685, was approved by the Health Committee week before last, but faces an additional hurdle – the Appropriations Committee – before it can be considered by the full Senate.
Please contact the members of the Senate Appropriations Committee and urge their support for the pro-life Perinatal Hospice Bill, HB 2685. The committee meets on Wednesday morning.
Please send just one email to reach the committee members at senateappropcom@okforlife.org. Their support is critical to the bill’s passage. If you sent a message previously, please send another email. This is a different committee with different members.
The bill addresses the rare but tragic circumstance where a pregnant woman is told that her unborn child has a fetal anomaly incompatible with life. Often in such cases the mother is encouraged to consider abortion the “logical” or “humane” response to such a diagnosis.
Under HB 2685, the mother would receive information about public and private agencies and services available to her which offer perinatal hospice and palliative care if, instead of abortion, she decides to carry her baby to term.
The least we should do when a family faces the heartbreak of such a diagnosis is provide them information about the positive alternative of perinatal hospice, comfort care, and family counseling. Please ask the committee to support the humane, compassionate, life-affirming approach embodied in HB 2685.
Your message to the Appropriations Committee could be as simple as:
Please support HB 2685. Or, you could point out that even if the prediction of an anomaly incompatible with life is proven true, and even if the baby lives only a short time, there is an infinite difference – emotionally, psychologically, ethically – between losing a child and killing a child.
Our throw-away culture today too often exhibits a coarsened attitude toward the intrinsic value of each individual human life – especially the life of a child with a diagnosis of severe or lethal disability – and too readily regards killing as an acceptable “solution” in such a case.
Intentionally taking the child’s life is no answer – any more than killing any other individual with a disability would be justified. “Perfection” is something none of us can claim, and using “quality control” as grounds for aborting a baby is unworthy of a society that respects the sanctity of human life. HB 2685 does not – cannot – prohibit abortion; it simply suggests a positive alternative.
Thank you for defending babies with disabilities, and upholding a Culture of Life!
Tony Lauinger, State Chairman, Oklahomans for Life
Kevin Calvey, State Vice Chairman, Oklahomans for Life