Mississippi should pass the Life Equality Act: Commentary

In my 30-year career as an Ob/Gyn, I have delivered countless babies and dedicated my life to providing quality health care for women. As a doctor and an African American woman, I have always sought to treat every patient with respect for her inherent dignity and to partner with other doctors who share that approach.

Discrimination simply doesn’t belong in the practice of medicine. 

Tragically, one place where discrimination is still widespread is inside the womb, where babies can be targeted for abortion for reasons our society wouldn’t accept anywhere else.

Currently in Mississippi, it is legal to have an abortion if the family prefers a boy over a girl. Our state also allows abortion on the basis of race or genetic condition. The Life Equality Act is our state’s effort to end these lethal disparities. This piece of legislation passed in the state House of Representatives and is awaiting a committee vote in Judiciary B chaired by Sen. Brice Wiggins in the state Senate. 

Children with disabilities, little girls, and babies of color lose their lives to abortion at staggering rates. In some countries with advanced economies and robust social services, people with Down syndrome and other disabilities are nevertheless on the verge of being “eliminated,” even as their life expectancies and social opportunities grow.

Research by the Centers for Disease Control  found that, in the United States, abortion has reduced the population of individuals living with Down syndrome by approximately 30 percent. It is estimated that between 70 and 90 percent of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted. 

Too often, abortion is the first option presented to parents – along with outdated, worst-case scenarios of what parents can expect – when an abnormality is suspected in preliminary screenings.

Recent reports indicate that the expansion of new, noninvasive genetic screening tests leads some women to decide to abort without having the result confirmed with an invasive diagnostic test. Evidence suggests that as many as 95 percent of parents receiving a prenatal diagnosis of cystic fibrosis elect to terminate the child, even in cases when the condition would not be fatal.

Not only do these discriminatory practices not align with the ethics of our state’s medical community, they also are not medically necessary. As an Ob/Gyn who practiced in the Jackson metro area for 30 years, I never had to recommend an abortion as a remedy for a disability or genetic preference. It is simply wrong. In learning to better serve and treat all types of patients, we must never eliminate the patient. 

Instead of abortion, the medical community can and should provide hope and alternatives. Fetal surgery is reaching new frontiers as more doctors and parents realize the possibility, and even advantage, of surgery while the child is still within the womb.

Some conditions, including genetic abnormalities such as severe immune deficiencies and osteogenesis imperfecta, are now treated in the womb using adult stem cells or gene therapy. Life expectancies for patients with genetic disorders like cystic fibrosis are lengthening as new treatments and medications become available.

In cases where a child’s life may be brief, perinatal hospice is a compassionate response that allows the child to be tenderly cared for and the parents to be supported medically and emotionally as they treasure whatever amount of time they have together.

Even a brief life has eternal meaning.

Parents are often and understandably fearful when a doctor uses the term “incompatible with life” when informing them of a diagnosis. Doctors and patients alike must know: “Incompatible with life” is a value judgment, not a medical diagnosis. We ought to embrace the challenges diagnoses bring us, treating the “patient within a patient” as we would any other patient that came into our offices. 

Our medical community is ready to welcome diverse members of society. Our code of ethics as doctors compels us to serve each individual with equal inherent value.

We call on the Legislature to pass House Bill 1295, the Life Equality Act. It has passed the state House with flying colors. We need the state Senate to reflect the position of the majority of Mississippians and ban discrimination abortion, because the differences that make us unique can never diminish the value of our lives.

Freda M. Bush, M.D., is a retired physician from Jackson.