Missouri State Representative Brian Seitz (R) has introduced HB 2810 which would criminalize “trafficking abortion-inducing devices or drugs” as well as any attempt to prescribe, administer, or dispense any means or substance to perform or induce an abortion. In toto, women’s healthcare and the work of physicians, pharmacists, and chemists would be criminalized. In an attempt to be pro-life, this bill is anything but.

While outlawing a woman’s choice to access medications and medically-sound treatments is bad enough, Rep. Seitz’s bill would, in part, make it a class A felony if “The abortion was performed or induced or was attempted to be performed or induced on a woman who has an ectopic pregnancy” and if “The abortion was performed or induced or was attempted to be performed or induced on a woman who is a victim of trafficking.”

Medical consensus maintains that an ectopic embryo is not viable. While the embryo may grow outside the uterus, it ultimately dies due to insufficient hormone and nutritional supply. Left to grow without the use of Rep. Seitz’s proposed-criminal medical treatments, the pregnancy will rupture, causing abdominal hemorrhaging – often fatal to the woman. Criminalizing medical treatments and medications used for aborting unviable ectopic pregnancies will lead to death. The language in this section of Rep. Seitz’s bill is not pro-life.

A girl or woman who is the victim of trafficking carries with them both visible and invisible scars. She faces physical and sexual violence, homicide, torture, psychological abuse, and the deprivation of food, water, and compassion. She carries anxiety, depression, self-injurious behavior, substance addiction, PTSD, an dissociative disorders. She suffers from neurological and gastrointestinal issues, chronic pain, STI’s, uro-genital problems, skeletal fractures and traumatic brain injuries. She has suicidal ideations, often attempting and often succeeding. She carries the fetus of the sadistic and vicious man who caused the violence, abuse, and rape. Rep. Seitz’s bill would ensure that, beyond carrying a lifetime of physical and emotional scarring, the woman would have to carry the child of the man who took her life. The language in this section of Rep. Seitz’s bill is not pro-life.

Human life is valuable and beautiful, a miraculous gift from a generous Creator, but there is nothing in Rep. Seitz’s proposed bill which is loving nor life-giving. Criminalizing medically-proven, life-saving treatments is not pro-life. Denying a girl or woman access to her own healthcare for her own body is not pro-life. Refusing care and love for the life that is so as to protect the life that may be is not pro-life. Make no mistake: Rep. Seitz’s bill is not pro-life.