Lawmakers discuss perinatal palliative‑care bill to expand supportive services for families facing fetal anomaly or perinatal loss

House Bill 414, presented for discussion only in the Committee on Health Services, would encourage health care providers and birthing centers to refer pregnant patients who receive a serious fetal‑anomaly diagnosis or face perinatal complications to perinatal palliative‑care programs and would ask the Cabinet to keep a list of available programs.

Representative Nancy Tate, sponsor, described the proposal as an effort to provide “perinatal palliative care” or “Love Them Both” services that wrap counseling, genetic testing, bereavement support and spiritual and financial counseling around families facing a diagnosis that may not end in a healthy delivery. Adia Wushner, executive director of Kentucky Right to Life and a registered nurse, described the approach as multidisciplinary and compared it to hospice while emphasizing differences: “Every one of this multidisciplinary team knows that they have two patients. They have the expectant mother, and they have the fetus or the unborn child,” Wushner said.

Sponsors stressed the program would be entirely optional for patients and families; it would not…