Life & the Government

In my February 13, 2012 blog I told you about a Texas (TX) federal judge upholding a law that required abortion providers to show or describe to women the ultrasound of the fetus and have them hear the heartbeat before allowing an abortion. On February 16 I heard that there are a couple of bills pending in Virginia (VA); one follows the TX law and the other requires that if a heartbeat is not heard a trans-vaginal ultrasound is required which is extremely intrusive. The right of a woman to have an abortion is the law of the land (Roe v Wade) and although I realize states have the right to make laws that make it difficult to get an abortion I wonder if these state laws should be able to make it as uncomfortable as possible for women to get them. In the case of VA the question is whether or not other medical treatments for medical conditions such as cancer, diabetes and more are mandated or if this will be the first. Of course I went looking for an answer to this question and the only thing I could find that was mandated was the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act that requires hospitals to accept patients regardless of their ability to pay for emergency room care. The act does not provide access to non-emergency room care for patients who cannot afford to pay for health care or provide the benefits of preventive care which are generally less expensive than emergency care. I found no evidence of a treatment being mandated. We know parents have the option of vaccinating their children, cancer patients have the option of radiation and chemotherapy, and the list goes on. Although parents are to get their children life saving care (on February 17 an Ohio couple was sentenced to 8 years in prison for their son’s cancer death – a case where religious beliefs are not considered), the type of care given by doctors is not mandated. I find it interesting that the people who don’t want abortion are the same ones that don’t want medical care for everyone and yet want to add to the cost of care with the proposed trans-vaginal ultrasound.

The US Health and Human Services Department says of each dollar spent on health care 31% goes to hospital care, 21% goes to physician/clinical services, 10% to pharmaceuticals, 4% to dental, 6% to nursing homes, 3% to home health care, 3% for other retail products, 3% for government public health activities, 7% to administrative costs, 7% to investment and 6% to other professional services (physical therapists, optometrists, etc). Although the US spends more on health care than any other nation (on January 10 it was reported that the rise in health care costs was its lowest in 51 years), the CIA World Factbook ranked the US 41st in the world for infant mortality and 46th for total life expectancy. The data available to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that the US’ health care for women ranked just above Mexico and Hungary and fifth from the bottom for men (Slovakia and Poland were worse). I was going to go into some of the reasons I found for our medical care costing so much but that’s not the point of this blog.

On February 16 I heard that Oklahoma passed a law saying that life begins at conception. I believe this is another attempt to circumvent a woman’s right to an abortion but this brought up a series of other thoughts as well. I wonder if birth certificates and social security cards will be issued when a fetus is discovered and will death certificates be issued for miscarriages and abortions. This could fundamentally change our thinking (to that of the Chinese) and ultimately increase the cost of care. I think we should concentrate more on keeping babies and people alive once they enter the world than on wasting time bringing unwanted babies into it.

I have always been confused by the fine line between state and federal government and think overall we waste a lot of time and money with unclear lines. I think because a clear line is not drawn that we are not treated equally as intended by the Constitution and the separation between Church and State is being distorted. The federal government has made a woman’s right for an abortion the law of the land and needs to put an end to this foolishness by no longer allowing states to hinder this right with a continued barrage of laws that blur the right to a separation between Church and State; a view that Santorum does not have clear. He seems to think that everyone should be a Christian with religion more specifically being in accordance to the bible. This has me perplexed as I read Samuel 1 and 2 the other day to find out more about David and Goliath and the events that followed; at King David’s death he had 10 wives which is a concept consistent with Mormonism that we don’t allow.