People who care about basic American freedoms should be grateful to the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, for one thing: He has given liberals another good reason to flock to the polls in November.
Mr. McConnell is set to hold a procedural vote this week on a bill that would ban abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy. The so-called Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, sponsored by Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, is part of a long-term legislative effort by the anti-abortion movement to gut Roe v. Wade and severely curtail abortion access nationwide.
Twenty-week abortion bans, enacted in more than a dozen states and struck down in two, violate the Supreme Court’s standard that abortion can be restricted only when a fetus is viable outside the womb. Many, including the one being considered by the Senate, are based on claims not supported by most scientists about when a fetus feels pain.
White House Puts a Bible in Doctors’ Offices
Tamesha Means had been pregnant for just 18 weeks when her water broke in 2010. In pain, she rushed to a hospital near her house in Michigan. But because it was a Catholic health center, doctors there did not tell her that continuing her pregnancy could threaten her health and that abortion was her safest option. Instead they sent her home. They did so again when she returned the next day, bleeding, with painful contractions. They were preparing to send her home for a third time when she miscarried at the hospital.
Cases like this, in which a provider’s religious beliefs take precedence over a patient’s needs, could become more common because of a series of recent White House decisions that please the anti-abortion movement. The decisions may make it more difficult for teenagers wanting to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases, for gay men looking to prevent HIV and even for women seeking breast exams or pap smears.
Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the creation of a “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division” to enforce laws protecting health care providers’ right to opt out of certain procedures, including post-abortion care or gender-affirming surgery, because of religious objections. (The website displays what appears to be a female Muslim doctor in a hijab smiling enthusiastically — a twist on the administration’s usual attitude toward Muslims.)
