The governor of Utah has signed the bill, which says that the doctors should give anesthesia to the woman who are undergoing abortion and are passing through the twentieth week of gestation.
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Yes, the state said Monday, when it became the only state in the nation to require doctors to give anesthesia to women undergoing abortions at 20 weeks or later.
As the Associated Press pointed out, the measure “is based on the disputed premise that a fetus can feel pain at that point”.
While other states have bans on abortions 20 weeks or later into a pregnancy, Utah is the first state to mandate anesthesia before fetal surgeries.
This bill would be the first of its kind in the United States, after a similar law introduced in Montana a year ago was vetoed by the Democratic governor. But doctors in Utah and elsewhere say there’s no proof that fetuses are able to feel anything at that point in pregnancy, and that sedating women during the procedure puts them at risk of complications. But supporters of the law point out that a fetus must be protected from pain, and that even convicts on death row and animals facing euthanasia are given anesthesia. It requires a doctor performing an abortion at this stage to “administer an anesthetic or analgesic to eliminate or alleviate organic pain to the unborn child”.
The governor of Utah is considering whether to sign a bill this week that would make Utah the first state to require doctors to give anesthesia to women having an abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy or later. On top of that, state law prohibits the procedure after the fetus is viable, which tends to happen as early as 22 weeks.
Bramble stated that if a woman doesn’t want to have anesthesia before an abortion for whatever reason, “then that individual patient might not want to decide to have that abortion in Utah”, he said.
“You’re talking to a woman who is being told that Curt Bramble, a CPA, is better at practicing medicine than the physician I have chosen”, Karrie Galloway, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Utah, told the Tribune.
But it could affect women in many other medical situations. These common procedures could now require general anesthesia, he said.
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According to anti-abortion group Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, gestating babies at 20 weeks old can be observed “flinching, jerking, and recoiling” from sharp objects, such as scissors, used during an abortion. The association convinced Bramble to change its language from saying a fetus “is capable of experiencing pain”, to it “may be capable of experiencing pain”.
