Pregnant women already facing risks due to insane new state laws

Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, state abortion laws are in flux. With the procedure now either “illegal or heavily restricted” in at least twelve states, more bans are expected as states seek to take advantage of the nation’s new law. Straight Arrow News contributor Rashad Richey cites several examples showing that since Roe v. Wade was overturned, pregnant women have already been put at great risk:

Okay, I said this would happen: Insane laws being passed by state legislatures all over the United States of America, because of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. I’m going to highlight some of these insane laws and I want you to tell me at the end of this: Do you still believe that overturning Roe v Wade was something that was constitutionally necessary and required?

Let me first take you to legislation in North Carolina. North Carolina has proposed a bill that would actually make it legal to kill a woman who is seeking to abort a fetus.

Now, many lawmakers and some legal scholars, they say the terminology, the wording, is vague and vague enough to imply that if you kill a pregnant woman who’s attempting to abort a fetus then you are within the reading of this legislation — now this is just legislation, it is not yet law.

But there are some things that are. Let me first take you to Wisconsin. In Wisconsin a woman bled for ten days straight because of their misreading of actual law. So a Wisconsin woman bled for more than ten days from an incomplete miscarriage. Now, what does that mean? That means there’s a miscarriage and there’s still fetal tissue that’s pulsating.

Well, according to the medical staff, they thought that the state would have said, “Well, that’s a heartbeat. So you can’t do anything because there’s a heartbeat.” That has already happened in Wisconsin. Now, let me remind the people of Wisconsin, there’s a federal statute, a federal law, that says you must save the life of the woman even if you have to abort a full fetus. At the end of the day that federal statute preempts any state dynamic.

The Department of Justice had to release a memo to remind states that the federal law still applies, if a woman is at risk of losing her life, then preemption takes over, the statute is preemptive, it overrides whatever state law you have passed about a woman’s right to choose.

There’s more. So the emergency room staff in Wisconsin refused to remove the fetal tissue amid a confusion over the legal landscape about a heartbeat or pulsating tissue.

Then in a Texas hospital, the Texas hospital literally refused to save the life of a woman until her ectopic pregnancy — which is a fetus that is situated or positioned in a way where it cannot be born…Okay…they said they refuse to do anything to help this woman until it ruptured, because they say the fetus had a heartbeat. Once again, another misapplication of the law, and not adhering to the preemption law of the federal government.

Now, these states are going to keep doing this until or unless the Department of Justice decides to prosecute those who do not adhere to this particular federal law.