By Dave Andrusko
If you are a defender of abortion, how do you defend what is (when people understand what really takes place) absolutely indefensible? We have explored every angle many times, but it is helpful to be reminded how much they count on claiming association with legitimate medicine—i.e., life-affirming medicine—to bamboozle the public.
That’s why I was glad to read that when pro-life Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchins signed Act 139 this week, newspaper accounts noticed that he has carefully distinguished (as does the law itself) between webcam abortions and telemedicine—a distinction pro-abortionists refuse to acknowledge.
So what does passage of Act 139 do, besides represent an acknowledgement that an overwhelming number of House members (85-3) and members of the Senate (28-5) are in support?
It requires abortionists to be in the same room as the pregnant woman when she receives chemical abortifacients. So-called webcam abortions are premised around just the opposite.
The abortionist is in a hub miles (or even states) away and dispenses chemical abortifacients by remotely unlocking a drawer at her location. He never is in the same room as the pregnant woman, and obviously is not available if there is a medical emergency.
Act 139 specifically reads it “does not affect telemedicine practice that does not involve the use of mifepristone or another drug or chemical to induce an abortion.” (Contrary to what opponents said, there is no penalty against the woman if the law is ignored; the penalty is entirely on the abortionist.)
And speaking at a January 18 pro-life rally, Gov. Hutchison said, “As governor, I support telemedicine, but this is not the right application. It should be prohibited.”
As Dr. Randall K. O’Bannon, NRLC’s director of education, has clarified
“There is a fundamental difference between a situation in which a person is dealing with some serious illness or health risk in an emergency situation and has no immediate access to a doctor versus one [a woman seeking an abortion] in which there is no underlying health issue and the procedure is entirely elective. It is one thing to try to conduct a consultation over an x-ray or hold a counseling session over a video conference or even to try to perform some emergency life-saving procedure when medical professionals aren’t around, but quite another thing entirely to use a video teleconferencing system to sell more abortion pills to women in rural areas for whom you don’t want to train or hire or send the staff to adequately treat.”
Pro-abortionists simply merge the two uses of telemedicine (the latter is more accurately described as Web-cam abortions or Telemed abortions), and pretend not to understand why you could be favor of using the technology to save life but oppose its use to take life.
As one former Planned Parenthood employee put it,
“Telemed abortion doesn’t only result in the death of an unborn child; it strips women of their dignity by denying them the courtesy of an in-person visit from a doctor concerned for their health and well-being. It risks their lives by sending them away with no support and a drug that has led to massive bleeding and hemorrhaging, infection and even death.”
As we reported this week, Rose Mimms, executive director of Arkansas Right to Life, told NRL News Today, “We are thrilled to get this law in place, an effort that began when Planned Parenthood of the Heartland made a home in Arkansas.”
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland is a massive and very aggressive affiliate, whose headquarters is in Iowa. PPH has since moved into Arkansas, Nebraska, and part of Oklahoma.