Read the week's best commentary from bloggers at Care2, Slate's "XX Factor" and more.
CRIMINALIZING PREGNANCY:
"Victory for Purvi Patel, but still a loss for reproductive rights," Robin Marty, Care2: While an Indiana appeals court's decision to reverse the 2015 feticide conviction of Purvi Patel "almost feels like a victory ... the decision is by no means a victory for reproductive rights and bodily autonomy -- and it definitely does not resemble justice," Marty writes. According to Marty, "Patel, who was accused and convicted of both feticide and felony neglect of a minor after giving birth to what doctors claim was a live fetus ..., will now have the feticide conviction thrown out and the neglect charge reduced." Marty explains that "feticide was never, ever intended to be applied to the pregnant woman herself," but "Indiana has a history of applying unreasonable charges to pregnant women in order to jail them for harm they may have caused to their pregnancies." She writes that both the lawsuit against Patel and against Bei Bei Shuai, an Indiana woman who was prosecuted after attempting suicide while pregnant, make obvious the state's "attempts to undermine legal abortion" by endowing fetuses with legal rights. Marty concludes, "The lesson that can be taken from the court's decision to strike the feticide charge but leave the neglect charge appears to be a simple one: Indiana will continue to pursue ways to punish and jail those who may possibly have induced their own abortion. The state just needs to decide exactly which charge will be the most successful" (Marty, Care2, 7/26).
ZIKA VIRUS:
"The CDC says doctors should screen more pregnant women for Zika," Christine Cauterucci, Slate's "XX Factor": CDC in new guidance has suggested that U.S. physicians "should proactively screen at-risk pregnant women for the Zika virus," Cauterucci writes. Cauterucci explains that the guidance is "the most aggressive recommendation yet to come from the CDC" regarding Zika, noting that while "[i]t doesn't mean that doctors must test all pregnant patients for Zika ... they should discuss risk factors -- travel to a Zika-afflicted area, a symptomatic partner -- to determine the need for further testing." As it could take some time to develop a vaccine for the virus, Cauterucci concludes that "thorough conversations and vigilant screening are the best doctors can do to prevent the devastating effects of the virus on pregnant women and their fetuses" (Cauterucci, "XX Factor," Slate, 7/26).
ABORTION RESTRICTIONS:
"Patients deserve their doctor's best medical judgment, but Texas bureaucrats think they know better," Leslie Johnson, American Civil Liberties Union of Texas/ACLU's "Speak Freely": Johnson, a student at the University of Texas Southwestern medical school and president of the school's Medical Students for Choice chapter, discusses a booklet that Texas requires a woman to receive prior to abortion care. According to Johnson, the booklet is one of several ways "Texas politicians are working to corrode ... trust" between doctors and patients "by interfering in the doctor-patient relationship." She explains, "The booklet has long contained biased and intentionally misleading and inaccurate information about abortion," and seven embryological and fetal development specialists have determined that "nearly 49 percent of the booklet's statements concerning the first trimester are medically inaccurate." Moreover, Johnson writes that in the latest proposed revision of the booklet, the Texas Department of State Health Services plans to "ad[d] more scientifically inaccurate information about embryologic and gestational development." Citing research showing the safety of abortion care, Johnson concludes, "Quality, peer-reviewed information is what should be disseminated to our patients rather than politically charged and biased pseudo-science" (Johnson, "Speak Freely," American Civil Liberties Union of Texas/ACLU, 7/28).
