Abortion; right to informed consent. (HB212)

OPPOSE this bill that demeans people seeking abortion care and doctors alike. Doctors because it assumes that they don't comply with ethical and legal requirements to obtain informed consent for all medical procedures. And, people seeking abortion care because it assumes that people seeking abortions don't understand the procedure or need to be told by the state what information they need to make an informed decision.

Please vote NO on HB212.

Like all medical professionals, abortion providers are bound by the tenets  of medical ethics. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists states that providers are obligated to provide accurate, understandable information to patients, and that patients must be given freedom to ask questions and make intentional and voluntary choices.

HB212 would interfere with the trusted provider-patient relationship. Women should decide for themselves whether they want an abortion in consultation with their doctor or nurse practitioner and if they choose, with their spiritual or religious counselor. This bill is insulting to medical providers and patients and tramples on the decisions of conscience reached by women.

Women who have abortions are sure of their decision, as shown by numerous studies. Let's respect their decision and their conscience.

We need an informed consent bill: comprehensive, including abortion. Virginia medical professionals: be insulted, then change your ways. Richmond Academy of Medicine: retract the permission you gave in a newsletter in 2000 to revoke informed consent, allowing psychiatrists to induce electroconvulsive seizures coercively. These doctors without training in neurology disabled the EEG monitor, an integral component of the medical device they used. It was not even noticed (no medical evaluation) that this caused traumatic brain injury, cervical spine injury, and other diffuse electrical shock injury. What followed was coverup by the medical community, refusal of radiology and other testing, dereliction of duty, failure to comply with mandatory reporting of unexplained injuries, and eventually a campaign by the pharmaceutical/ biotech industry for professionals to consider these injuries collateral damage. An expedient way to save on healthcare costs? The marvels of the provider-patient relationship? A for-profit hospital with a board controlled by stockholder physicians promoting this, at the behest of the RAM? The analogies with abortion are considerable. Including that nurses compelled to assist at these procedures would have liked conscience protections. I, a perfect storm survivor, am posting this public comment without concern for confidentiality, which I have already waived in making complaints and allegations. Anyone concerned by this report or with questions may contact me at my e-mail address. If the Richmond medical community has a problem with this public comment, they have had fair warning, I have shown every consideration, and been transparent and accountable. There needs to be a takedown of deprivation of informed consent, failure to provide information about procedures, and allowing unsupervised experimentation in any form. I am also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. No mental illness, PTSD. Survivors of abortion coercion and injury, especially if you were abused or trafficked (enforcement of mandatory reporting?) you are in my prayers.

On Defending Life Day, I represented this bill when our district group met with our state senator's staff. To prepare, I reviewed everything available to me on the topic of informed consent, including the lengthy federal informed consent law 1981 related to FDA and HHS. "It is not for the medical profession to establish a criterion for the dissemination of information to the patient based upon what doctors feel the patient should be told." Could the incoming inmates of Auschwitz depend upon a doctor-patient relationship with Josef Mengele? Privileged, savvy professional women, are you just assuming no one could deprive you of informed consent? Would you go over to the unregulated Planned Parenthood clinic to be processed by a random provider? This way to the showers, ladies.
This morning I watched the recently released documentary Maafa 21, available on YouTube, link https://www.maafa21.com/. If you live in Richmond, former capitol of the Confederacy, hub of the slave trade, center for resistance to desegregation, and now destination point for unregulated abortion at the Planned Parenthood clinic, do you ever need to see this documentation. If you assume you understand informed consent, choice, and abortion, and you aren't concerned about the legacy of eugenics and Nazi attitudes, think again. Those who do not remember or are in denial are doomed to repeat errors and atrocities.
I am going to publish my e-mail address with my comment: lisaknighthill@gmail.com. I welcome any questions about my experience, or what I have researched about informed consent. I am not concerned about receiving profanity. I will not be intimidated by the medical community. Please, anyone who reads this, watch the documentary. RVA, we can do better, and seek healing together. The Planned Parenthood clinic is another pedestal that needs to be taken down.

I am extremely disappointed with the outcome of the senate vote on this bill. I don't understand the attitude of female democrat senators. It doesn't seem to me their hearts are with protecting vulnerable women; this has to do with abortion industry ideology, and maybe medical politics. I might have hoped from the efforts I made I would have gotten some response, even disagreeing. The issue of informed consent/ right to know is one which should not be passed over. It should be possible to reach agreement about complete, objective information supplied by Department of Health. For the 'paternalistic' idea (even if relayed by 'feminists') that women must not, at all costs, be 'scared away' from abortion procedures, I have no sympathy whatsoever. I hope I have sown some seeds of conscience and awareness, even if I am not seeing fruit in this outcome. Too many Americans are forming opinions on abortion without knowing what an abortion is, and forming opinions on choice without knowing what a choice is. I don't want anyone proposing to do something to me and trying to make sure I will agree. That is called coercion. I am not a fan of generalized consent forms, with a shaky signature a sign of informed consent. The patient could be drugged up or otherwise impaired, and their hand guided? They could feel they have no choice? There is coerced abortion all over the world, but not in this country? This country should prioritize promoting abortion, not stopping sex trafficking?
The Pregnancy Resource Center will continue to provide complete, factual information for informed consent. It is a basic principle of ethics, which has been developed further recently, that vulnerable persons need to be safeguarded from abuse of power, which takes many forms. There are many reasons a pregnant woman may feel desperate. If she has been victimized in some way, being processed through an abortion mill will not solve her problems.
About some things, it is difficult to come to grips with reality, denial seems easier. See the Live Action website.