what the FUCK Kansas (GOP, duh)???

Really pissed off early - morning rant (with information from the American Civil Liberties Union). Kansas is currently discussing House Bill 2598 — “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” which includes the following (more or less in order of increasing bullshit).

- Adding a layered (read: repeating 6.5%) sales tax on abortion services

- Requiring providers to tell women seeking abortion that it causes a risk of breast cancer, which IT DOES NOT according to organizations such as NCI (National Cancer Institute), Harvard, Oxford, and ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists). Supporting data here.

- “No health care services provided by any state agency, or any employee of a state agency while acting within the scope of such employee’s employment, shall include abortion.” So this means that OBGYN residency programs at state hospitals such as KU Medical Center can no longer provide their trainees with abortion training. This in effect will not only continue to train inadequate providers, but will cause the program to lose accreditation because the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education requires in an absence of moral opposition on the part of the resident (not the government),  ”access to experience with induced abortion must be part of residency education.”

- Patients seeking abortions must receive (and pay for) an ultrasound (likely TRANSVAGINAL). These are invasive, uncomfortable, but most importantly often not medically indicated. But why let a trained provider decide that?

- Require the patient to hear the fetal heartbeat of any fetus beyond 10 weeks, even if the patient doesn’t want to.

…and last but most certainly not least…

- If a provider does not want their patient to have an abortion, they can impart their own beliefs onto the patient (autonomy anyone?) by omitting test results and information if they suggest an undesirable outcome. they are then protected from malpractice suits. So a patient could not sue a provider from lying to them after discovering they have carried a fetus with a devastating defect to term. I wonder who has to deal with and pay for the life - changing suffering? the doctor, the government, or the patient?

I cannot imagine this bill will pass as it is written. however even bits of pieces of it are far reaching and invasive. Not too surprisingly that arizona recently discussed a similar bill. you can say what you want about abortion, my views are not too masked here, but dictating what a provider can and cannot do is obscene. This violates almost everything we have learned about having an ethically balanced patient - provider partnership.