Editor’s note: This commentary is by R.S. Heilman, MD, a retired member of the UVM College of Medicine, where he worked from from 1970-2001, retiring as a professor of radiology. Before that he was a fellow, resident and intern at Mount Auburn College, UVM, Mary Fletcher Hospital, respectively. He earned his MD from University of Pennsylvania and undergrad degree from Amherst College.
[I] believe that H. 57 is terrible legislation that should never be turned into law.
It explicitly allows abortion to be done by non-trained and non-licensed people — including, astoundingly, the pregnant woman herself. That 84 legislators could be found to support this initiative which would effectively return Vermont to the dark days of back alley abortions suggests to me that either they never actually read the bill or they are hopelessly ignorant of abortion prior to Roe v. Wade.
Don’t believe this contention? Read Page 4 lines 7-8 of the bill, H.57, and see for yourself. Since not everyone may have access to the bill here is the exact wording of those lines: “No State or local law enforcement shall prosecute any individual for inducing, performing, or attempting to induce or perform the individual’s own abortion.” There is no other way to read these lines. Abortion by anyone would be legal in Vermont.
I was a medical student in Philadelphia rotating through the ER of the Philadelphia General Hospital 14 years before Roe, and weekly saw the consequences of abortions by untrained people including the grotesque, mechanical efforts (think coat hangers) by the patients themselves — often teenage girls. All the patients were infected with peritonitis or septicemia or both; many needed emergency hysterectomies closing the door to future childbearing, and many died. How many died at home will never be known but I suspect that it was many times more than died after seeking proper care.
Decriminalizing abortions done by untrained people in unsterile environments guarantees that these terrible attempts will become common again, 46 years after Roe.
As I read the law it is ambiguous about the stage of pregnancy that would be allowed but late-term abortion — even up to term — seems likely as seen in other states now also rushing to pass new extended abortion laws.
While a student, I was witness to the termination of a late-term pregnancy. I was on my OB rotation in the flagship OB hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, when a woman in advanced labor was found to have a baby with hydrocephaly resulting in impaction in the pelvis.
An emergency meeting of all the available senior OB faculty and several other specialists was convened. Together, they agreed that the mother was in peril of her life and that extraction from below was necessary and allowable by the statutes of the day. All the student nurses were escorted from the delivery room and by the end of the procedure several seasoned OB nurses had fainted dead away.
I will will not describe the horrors that unfolded save to say that any law that countenances late-term abortion for any reason other than to save the life of the mother and only after thorough and legitimate consultation by at least two fully trained (and licensed) medical experts is anathema to me.
H.57 describes no limitation requiring the mother to be a Vermont resident before offering abortion services. Offering elective abortion services to nonresidents except in the case of legitimate emergencies I think should not be offered. Abortion “tourism” is not in Vermont’s best interests or those of the out-of-state patients who might have post-op complications which do happen even in abortions done by skilled, trained personnel.
In summary: Passage of H.57 uniquely manages to anger all sides of the abortion debate. Proponents of abortion services will be angered when they realize that H.57, by decriminalizing back alley, coat hanger abortions, one of the pillars supporting Roe will be kicked to the ground which could well imperil the uneasy present status of abortion rights.The Right to Life movement, enraged since 1973 will become even more incandescent if late-term dismembering extractions become legal. I have yet to find a single person who is an advocate for present abortion rights in Vermont who is in favor of extending the limits to term.
