Conspiracy Sites Once Again Insisting Dems Want To Legalize Murder Of Newborn Babies
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Conspiracy Sites Once Again Insisting Dems Want To Legalize Murder Of Newborn Babies
No one is doing this.
Back in February, California Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks introduced AB 2223 , a bill meant to protect pregnant people from being investigated or thrown in prison for having a miscarriage, stillbirth, or other unfortunate pregnancy outcome. While we'd love to believe that such a bill would be entirely unnecessary, according to the National Advocates of Pregnant Women, more than 1,200 people were arrested, jailed or otherwise deprived of liberty for exactly these kinds of things between 2006 and 2020.
We'd also like to believe that this is the kind of bill anyone could get behind, because what kind of person wants to see someone who has just endured a tragic life event sent to prison? Alas, there are a lot of terrible people out there.
Over the past two weeks, rightwing media has been breathlessly reporting that this bill is actually a secret plot to "legalize infanticide," because they truly think we all just really want to murder babies ( probably for the purposes of harvesting their adrenochrome ).
But how could they possibly think this? Glad you asked. The claim comes from one sentence in the bill, which states:
Notwithstanding any other law, a person shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability or penalty, or otherwise deprived of their rights, based on their actions or omissions with respect to their pregnancy or actual, potential, or alleged pregnancy outcome, including miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death.
Anti-choice Life Site News even found themselves a lawyer from the Thomas More Society to explain how this paragraph means that parents could even possibly post-birth abort their toddlers.
According to LiMandri, the proposal “exposes the false narrative that the abortion lobby has been peddling for over half a century: That no one knows when life begins, and babies in their mothers’ wombs feel no pain. No sane person can deny that a newborn infant is a fully developed human being, one that is capable of feeling intense pain. Yet, by including ‘perinatal’ in its provisions, [the bill] would authorize the brutal murder of these infants even after they are born.”
LiMandri, an author and lecturer who has appeared and been published nationally and internationally, noted that the definition of the term “perinatal” varies, spanning weeks or even years after an infant is born.
He cited MedicineNet which puts the definition of “perinatal” at ending “1 to 4 weeks after birth,” as well as the government definition of the phrase via PubMed.gov, which states : “The perinatal period, broadly defined, encompasses the time frame from … 18 to 24 months after the birth of the child.”
“Hence, [AB 2223] leaves one to ask: ‘What kind of depraved monsters would justify the killing of innocent and helpless children between one week and two years after their birth?’” LiMandri said.
Literally no one . No one is justifying that or calling for that. Even full-on serial killing cannibals are not calling for that — probably because it would lead to them getting caught, but still. No one is calling for that, except in the imaginations of anti-choice conspiracy theorists who just desperately want it to be true.
Lawyers from the Thomas More Society, by the way, also filed a lawsuit last year claiming that children in California schools were being forced to pray to Aztec gods . Just to be clear about who we're dealing with here.
Focus on the Family, a notably very normal group of fundamentalist Christians who just really, really hate gay people, also found a bunch of lawyers with unfortunate reading comprehension skills to tell them that, yes, this bill definitely supports the legalization of infanticide.
READ MORE: Will Someone Please Explain To Anti-Choice Idiots That Nobody's Killing Born Babies?
The unfortunate thing is that if these people were at all "focused" on families, they too would support a measure preventing anyone from being arrested for having such a devastating thing happen to them. Of course, if they really cared about babies, they'd probably be so upset about the infant mortality rates in red states that they'd start calling for universal health care and maternity/paternity leave just to ensure that every pregnant person and newborn baby gets the care they need. Sadly, that seems unlikely to ever happen.
“Anti-abortion activists are peddling an absurd and disingenuous argument that this bill is about killing newborns, when ironically, the part of the bill they’re pointing to is about protecting and supporting parents experiencing the grief of pregnancy loss,” Assemblymember Buffy Wicks said in a statement. “No person should face prison time for a tragic pregnancy outcome, and this bill will ensure that prosecutions and investigations have no place in reproductive health care.”
However, because people are ridiculous, Wicks is filing a motion on Monday to clarify the language in the bill so that anyone out there seriously believing that it "legalizes infanticide" can feel confident that it does not.
The bill will then read:
Notwithstanding any other law, a person shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability or penalty, or otherwise deprived of their rights under this article , based on their actions or omissions with respect to their pregnancy or actual, potential, or alleged pregnancy outcome, including miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death due to a pregnancy-related cause.
"The overall intention of the bill is to ensure that no one in the State of California is investigated, persecuted, or incarcerated for ending a pregnancy or experiencing pregnancy loss," a spokesperson for Wicks explained, citing the examples of " Chelsea Becker and Adora Perez , two California women who were recently prosecuted and imprisoned for their stillbirths."
There are far too many more examples of this from across the country, and we should all be as horrified by the idea of people going to prison because something went wrong with their pregnancy as we would be about an imaginary bill making it legal to drown your kids in a bathtub should the mood take you.
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Conspiracy Sites Once Again Insisting Dems Want To Legalize Murder Of Newborn Babies
Thank you. From the outside, everything to do with pregnancy, birth and caring for young children in the US looks utterly horrific. As in, absolute neglect would actually be an improvement; because every aspect is shaped by sexist and theocratic attempts to force everyone with a uterus back into the bloody 16th century.
Your fucking employer can block you getting contraception, what the fuck. Abortion expensive and becoming steadily more difficult to obtain. Getting pre-natal care and being able to give birth in a fucking hospital dependent on income. A minimum wage that was unlivable a decade ago. No maternity leave. Shitty access to childcare. No social safety net. No affordable housing. Shitty schools that are steadily becoming nothing but indoctrination centres.
And then a bunch of arsehole politicians and social commentators want to bitch that Millennials aren't having children. Fucking really??? AFAB people wanting children are enduring treatment that would quite literally be prosecuted as cruelty to animals if it was inflicted on a fucking dog, and you wanna know why the birth rate is for shit? Fuck off.
I am so angry on behalf of American AFAB people, I swear. I check Wonkette every day expecting that you've all just said "Fuck it" and set the whole fucking place on fire.
You've basically described Australia's Medicare system. Everyone who earns over a certain amount pays a Medicare Levy of a certain percentage, and that funds the public health care system. Public hospitals are free. Seeing private GPs and specialists is subsidised (some "bulk bill", ie accept just the Medicare payment, especially for low-income patients. But that's up to the individual practitioner). Most prescription medicines are also subsidised. Pathology and imaging are free or subsidised.
It's known as a "two tier" system, because you can also buy private health insurance. This is useful for (a) services Medicare doesn't cover, like private physiotherapy and the dentist (b) upgrading stuff, like high-tech hearing aids instead of basic models or a private instead of a shared room; and (c) paying for a private hospital or specialist to "jump" the waiting list. Of course you're still fully eligible for Medicare, and it's 100% up to you how you balance using Medicare and your insurance.
What's a waiting list, you ask? If you need something but it won't literally kill you to wait for it, Medicare will put you on a "waiting list". It won't cost you anything to get The Thing but you have to queue up for it, and if someone else comes along who needs The Thing more urgently than you they'll be bumped ahead of you. How long you have to wait depends on a lot of things, but can be anything from a few days to a couple of years. For some reason, there is a ridiculous wait for joint replacement surgeries; so when my Dad needed his knee done, he used his private health insurance to go to a private hospital and got it done immediately.
But there is none of this bullshit where a doctor has to convince your insurance to cover the procedure. First, the insurance policy clearly states upfront what it will and won't cover. Second, most people use Medicare for complicated stuff like emergency care, cancer treatment and getting a diagnosis, and Medicare trusts that doctors know what they're doing. Occasionally you'll come across an unusual and mega-expensive treatment that you have to jump through hoops before Medicare will pay for it; but most people will never encounter that.
I cannot imagine how I would live without socialised health care.