Every time I assure myself that America is a democracy, something happens to prove otherwise.
This time the perpetrator was Georgia Sen. Ben Watson.
Sen. Watson arbitrarily cut off the microphones of dissenting legislators and curtailed public comment during his committee’s hearing on SB 456, the bill that would limit access to abortion-inducing drugs.
As chair of the Health and Human Services committee, Sen. Watson gave very short shrift to a bill of great importance to the women of his district of childbearing age. SB 456 has since passed the Senate along party lines. It now goes to the House for consideration.
More on the issues in the legislature:Georgia bills to watch include abortion pill access, transgender sports ban, parents bill of rights
This legislation makes telemedicine for abortion medication illegal.
It also imposes impediments to obtaining a prescription for abortion-inducing medication, including requiring a physician to be present when the drugs are administered, even though the medication won’t take effect until the patient is at home.
And it requires an ultrasound before medication can be prescribed, which is an expensive, unnecessary and, most of all, an emotionally manipulative procedure.
I speak from experience here, having had four miscarriages; they seemed much like a heavy period.
The authors of SB 456 disingenuously use safety as its raison d’être.
Never mind that the Food and Drug Administration deems the pills to be safe and delivery via telemedicine legal, or that the rest of the western world does too.
Facts are facts. When administered in early pregnancy, medication-induced abortions are 98% effective and safe.
Nina Altschiller, Savannah