Doctors weighing legal challenge to new abortion law

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A legal challenge is likely against a measure mandating that doctors try to do everything possible to save the life of a baby born alive.

Dr. Julie Kwatra, legislative chairwoman of the Arizona chapter of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said she cannot imagine the legislation won’t be taken to court because it conflicts with current standards of care – and misses its target.

“It was meant to target abortion providers, but in reality, this will affect abortion providers less than one percent of the time,” she said. “It passes over abortion providers and comes to interfere in very complicated and delicate obstetric situations.”

Planned Parenthood Arizona, for example, is not affected by the bill because it does not perform abortions beyond 20 weeks. Still, spokeswoman Tayler Tucker said, her organization stands in solidarity with SB1367’s critics.

The law expands on existing regulations, though not substantially in the view of its champion, Cathi Herrod, president of the Evangelical Christian lobby Center for Arizona Policy.

Current law already requires doctors to use “all available means and medical skills” to save the life of a fetus delivered alive during an abortion. Doctors have not interpreted the law to require such efforts if the baby has no reasonable chance of survival. That may be the case in children born with lethal anomalies like anencephaly, a birth defect in which a baby is born without parts of its brain and skull.

But Herrod said current law is too broad and is not being followed by the medical community, justifying the changes proposed by SB1367.

Read more at AZ Capitol Times

Corrie O'Connor