Regarding abortion, I propose a well-researched, comprehensive, widely appealing policy package centered around a federal exception law that resolves top concerns about abortion and pro-life laws, holds medical providers accountable for treatment delays, dispels harmful misinformation and offers small pro-life concessions with NO bans or interference with states’ set gestational limits/states’ rights. If implemented well, it would end the most polarizing aspects of this debate, and abortion would no longer be an effective wedge tool for future elections.
The content of my proposal shall follow after these disclaimer paragraphs, and my intro letter to the MAHA/MAGA team:
Disclaimers
Readers must understand that this proposal is specifically tailored for an inevitable Trump administration, and Trump has repeatedly said that he will NOT pass any abortion bans whatsoever, but that he does support exceptions for rape and the mother’s life. No law is permanent, and legislators are free to make changes or pass additional measures in future years.
A word about constitutionality of federal abortion laws
The Dobbs decision does NOT say anything about abortion being a “states-rights-only” issue. It merely ruled that the constitution does not grant a right to abortion, and even Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion said that it is now up to “elected lawmakers” in both the “state” and “Congress” to choose their laws. Leaders from BOTH the pro-life and pro-choice movement agree on one thing: Federal laws regulating abortion ARE constitutional, and in fact many federal, medical and insurance-related regulations exist, and were affirmed by Trump’s conservative-majority Supreme Court, such as the ACA and EMTALA, despite Republican challenges to those laws’ constitutionality. The 14th amendment allows the federal government to regulate inter-state commerce, and also to protect a PERSON’S right to “life, liberty or property.” In the context of abortion, “person” can include the pregnant woman and/or the unborn child.
Also, abortionists routinely avoid giving the fetal digoxin shot, or any fetal pain relief/fetal anesthesia, so thousands of viable, fully formed second-trimester babies, are dismembered while alive and awake to feel the whole thing, every year, and sometimes born alive, then left to die via medical neglect or worse. Women are not being told full information beforehand and suffer traumatizing consequences. Many states do not accurately or fully report their maternal/fetal outcome related data. Only federal legislation can prevent states from continuing these human rights violations, can offer exceptions that aren’t covered in certain states and dismantle any perception or localized barrier to women seeking life-saving pregnancy care.
TO AVOID MISUNDERSTANDINGS, BEFORE YOU MAKE A REPLY, PLEASE FIRST READ MY PROPOSAL IN ITS ENTIRETY, AND MY COUNTER-RESPONSES TO OTHER COMMENTERS.
Dear Mr. President, Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Shanahan, Senator Vance, Ms. Gabbard and EVERYONE on the MAHA team:
I am a pro-life, working-class, single mother and a welfare eligibility worker from California, advocating for viable, broadly appealing legislative measures based on data, facts, compassion and common sense. Due to my extensive research on all subtopics related to abortion, and my personal experience, I am extremely knowledgeable and personally close to ALL aspects of this issue.
My legislative ideas reflect my deep research and insight on the matter. It reflects all of the top re-occurring complaints I’ve heard about abortion laws, would remove needless barriers to quality maternal healthcare, confront the negative perception of pro-life laws, and offer small pro-life concessions, WITHOUT BANNING ABORTIONS, OR INTERFERING WITH STATES’ GESTATIONAL LIMITS/STATES RIGHTS AT ALL. If you were to announce support for these positions, you would amaze everyone from all sides of this issue and clench the popular vote.
There is so much misinformation surrounding these issues, and I’d be happy to arm you with ALL the facts of the matter and my strategic ideas.
I can tell you one fact: This misinformation is DELIBERATE, PERSISTENT, and DANGEROUS, and it will never go away until the Democrats pass abortion-until-birth in ALL 50 U.S. states. People continue to spread lies about pro-life laws harming women, the majority of Americans are completely falling for these lies, and “states-rights only” rhetoric is not enough to overcome the very real harms of these lies. We must take away the Democrats’ top wedge issue, so that everyone can re-prioritize other important issues.
I propose we call this new law, “Right to Maternal-Fetal Healthcare & Education.”
Mr. President, you said you wanted to be our protector. Senator Vance, you said you wanted to get our trust back. Mr. Kennedy, I was incredibly impressed and touched when you listened to pro-lifers on late term abortion and updated your position. And I’m begging you with my full heart, mind and soul. This is the way:
Right to Maternal Healthcare
Develop a federal exception law, in collaboration with OB-GYN’s, neonatologists, fetal anesthesiologists, state medical boards and lawyers, from both pro-choice and pro-life backgrounds, to allow clear, objectively defined exceptions to states’ abortion bans for:
- protection for the mother’s life and her life-sustaining body organs
- nonviable pregnancies;
- severe/non-viable fetal abnormalities;
- mothers under the age of 14; and
- incest or forcible rape, up to 15 weeks gestation (with either a valid police report or medical record)
These federal exceptions shall NOT include mental health, financial health or threats of self-harm.
Law will clearly explain that the inevitability of physical harm to the mother as the key qualifier for emergency pregnancy care, not necessarily its imminence. (This clause is necessary in order to defeat persistent false claims that life exceptions force doctors to wait until the mother is at “Death’s door.”)
The law will:
- Direct state medical boards to publish best practices and standards of care based on all hypothetical case scenarios presented by the OB-GYN’s in that state;
- Direct state attorney generals to publish their legal assessment of the medical board’s best practices and standards of care, the legal effect of a physician’s compliance with Board guidelines;
- Fund the construction and provision of maternal healthcare facilities & NICU’s in “maternity healthcare deserts;
- Require Medicaid and medical insurance companies to cover the cost of legal, medically-indicated abortion/miscarriage care services that meet a federal medical exception;
- Guarantee this narrow scope for funding and that NO COLLECTIVE FUNDS ARE USED FOR AN ELECTIVE procedure;
- Require the medical/abortion provider to maintain applicable documentation on file as part of his/her certification of the patient’s qualification for the federal medical exemption;
- Allow charges of fraud against those who purposefully falsify medical records to qualify for an exemption; and
- Mandate more accurate and comprehensive state data reporting and studies of pregnancy, fetal and maternal outcomes.
Accountability for Medical Providers
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Allow reasonable fines against medical providers who knowingly and unnecessarily delay or refuse to provide a medically necessary/life-saving legal abortion or miscarriage care treatment, or sending the patient away to another state against the patient’s location preference, for a medically necessary maternal healthcare service that the provider and/or facility had the capacity to provide safely and timely.
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Doctors who refuse to provide medically necessary maternal healthcare, must document & explain that decision to the patient in writing.
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Allow fines against hospitals and medical institutions who advise their employees and contracted medical professionals to knowingly and unnecessarily risk the mother’s life/physical health by delaying or refusing medically necessary maternal healthcare services, or turn their maternal patients to other locations or states, against the patient’s location preference, for potentially urgent or medically necessary maternal health services, miscarriage care or a legal, life-saving abortion, even in times that the facility had the capacity to provide it safely and timely.
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Allow fines against medical providers who violate the maternal patient’s informed consent prior to a procedure.
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Fund medical malpractice lawsuits against medical providers for women who were harmed by a medical provider’s unnecessary refusal or delays to provide medically necessary/life-saving maternal care, as explained above.
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Require medical providers to inform their maternal patients, and for high schools and colleges to inform their students, and for Medicaid and insurance companies to inform their recipients, about their maternal health care rights outlined in these proposed laws, and their adoption options.
Limitations on State’s Excessive and Ineffective Abortion Penalties
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Ban the criminalization against the maternal patient because of illegal abortions performed by the abortion doctor or taking an abortion pill illegally supplied to her.
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Limit the maximum amount of fines or sentences that states can order against abortion providers for illegal abortions. (Texas’ laws’ threat of lifetime imprisonment or a million dollar fines are simply overkill because they drive irrational fears among doctors & patients, feed narratives against pro-life laws and are simply unnecessary to enforce abortion bans.)
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Invalidate all “bounty hunter” laws, lawsuits against non abortion-providers for “aiding and abetting" the abortion provider’s illegal abortion, or any attempts to criminalize/litigate against anyone for providing information about legal and/or out-of-state abortions in cases where that service wasn’t available/legal to that provider. (Bounty hunter laws have proven to be ineffective and fruitless, except to allow opportunistic citizens to pursue excessive litigation. In addition, sometimes, medical professionals hesitate to assist a doctor legal, medically necessary procedure, for women meeting the life exception, or even avoid just talking about abortion with their patient, out of fear of being accused of “aiding and abetting.” Only people actually performing/supplying an illegal abortion or falsifying information should face criminal penalties.)
Right to Fetal Healthcare
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Require that abortion pills can only be dispensed directly to the maternal patient, in-person, and only after an ultrasound rules out ectopic pregnancy, verifies that her pregnancy is within the recommended gestational time-frame and that the patient’s informed consent was obtained.
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Require fetal pain relief/anesthesia for all abortion procedures occurring after 12 weeks gestation.
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Ban the use of a feticidal agent/feticide (such as dismemberment, the digoxin shot, intra-uterine instillations and umbilical cord transactions) against viable babies, determined likely to survive outside of the womb based on the child’s current medical/developmental circumstances and available medical measures. (Does not ban inducing delivery/terminating pregnancy at any stage; does not ban the use of feticide for legal abortions of pre-viable/nonviable babies.)
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AMEND/pass the “Protect Babies Born Alive Act” to mandate full medical treatment for viable babies born alive who are likely to survive with available measures.
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Mandate full criminal investigations, autopsies and justice for suspected violations of the “Born Alive Act,” and/or violations of anti-partial-birth laws (starting with the 5 late-term aborted infants found in DC by pro-life activists and believed to be victims of an illegal “partial-birth” abortions).
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Informed consent for every elective abortion requires, among other things, that abortion appointment may not be scheduled any earlier than 48 hours from the time that the pregnant woman was given an ultrasound; an explicit description of her child’s developmental stage, the abortion procedure & the risks involved; her right not be coerced into abortion; her available options/resources, and (if applicable) a warning about false positives for fetal abnormalities. The 48 hour waiting period shall be waived when it would place the abortion appointment outside of the state’s gestational time limit or the mother’s medical emergency (if applicable). (Disclaimer: this paragraph was not added until 10/14/24 evening, after getting 32 votes.)
Alleviate fear and apprehension of choosing life for mothers of disabled babies
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Fund healthcare services, surgeries and treatments necessary for patients with Trisomy 18, and track/study their progress/health outcomes, in order to uncover their survivability when receiving full medical interventions that are often denied to them, and improve standards of care.
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Fund the adoption legal fees for pre-screened families for babies with major disabilities (such as Down Syndrome). Give birthmothers a federal right to choose adoption for newborns & visitation rights in adoption agreements.
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Commit to policies and regulations to help protect disabled and seniors from abuse and neglect. Fund and authorize increases in caregiver and nursing staff to patient/resident ratios in group homes, nursing homes and long term care facilities. Assign a social worker to check in with disabled and senior patients/residents and ensure they are connected with their best available options and resources. Allow Medi-Care to fund in-home caregiving in cases in which the patient qualified for nursing or long-term care.
Right to Education and Coaching on Management of Pregnancy and Parenting
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Require high schools to offer an awareness class, taught by a non-ideological, independently contracted source, regarding: fetal & child development; abortion procedures; physical/psychological risks/experiences of pregnancy & abortion; resources/options available to low-income families; the maternal/fetal healthcare rights; adoption; parenting skills & perspectives; primary attachment theory; child’s need for routine, care & attention; causes/examples/harms of: toxic stress, absent fatherhood, counter-parenting, all forms of abuse, coercion & exploitation; biological sex differences between men & women; various disabilities and disorders (including Down Syndrome, ADHD & Autism).
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Mandate that Medi-Caid and health insurance offers parents of newborns, as well as recently separated parents, access to an in-home parental coach (independently contracted and selected by the mother), to provide direct, real-time information, advice and assistance to the parents, at their homes, regarding all of the above mentioned topics. These (limited allowable) visits may be free or have a co-pay based on each parent’s income. The parenting coach can also advise separated parents on developmentally appropriate parental custodial schedules. (Disclaimer: This paragraph was not added to my proposal until 10/14/24 evening after having received 32 votes.)
TO SEE A SAMPLE OF MY RECCOMENDED SOCIO-ECONOMIC POLICIES, VIEW THEM HERE: Federal Paid Maternal Leave, Unpaid Intermittent leave & College flexibility**
TO SEE A DETAILED SUMMARY ON THE BACKGROUND ISSUES, COUNTERING THE WIDESPREAD MISINFORMATION, THE REASONS WHY THESE POLICIES ARE NECESSARY, ALONG WITH MY SOURCES/LINKS/SCREENSHOTS, VIEW THIS GOOGLE DOC:
TO VIEW MY INFORMAL ONE PAGER ENTITLED “MY TOP 16 DISCOVERIES ABOUT THE ABORTION DEBATE,” CONTAINING ALL THE FACTS I WANT YOU TO KNOW, THEN PLEASE GO HERE. (At the end of that one-pager google doc, there is another link taking you to my super-detailed abortion factsheet with all my links/sources/informal videos.)
TO SEE MORE DETAILS/STIPULATIONS THAT I WOULD SUGGEST FOR THE ABOVE LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS, VIEW THIS GOOGLE DOC:
Thank you!