The redundant law never should have been passed. Without it, Utah already had the toughest anti-abortion laws allowed by the U.S. Constitution. The legislators who voted for the new law were trying to cement their pro-life voter base in an election year by unnecessarily reiterating, once again, that they do, indeed, oppose abortion.

This law has no effect on illegal abortions that existing laws already address. Its largely unintended consequences, to force women who are carrying fatally deformed fetuses to abandon their own doctors and hospitals and go to clinics that do elective abortions, have caught up with the law's proponents in a big way, as they should have anticipated.

The law, which took effect in May, cuts off public funding to any hospital, doctor or clinic that performs abortions except in cases of rape, incest or severe damage to a "major bodily function" of the mother. Fearing they would lose Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program reimbursements, most Utah hospitals have started turning away mothers who, for sound medical reasons, must terminate their pregnancies.

This is abominable. These are not women who choose to abort their babies. Quite the contrary, they are facing the heartbreak of knowing the fetus they carry is unable to survive. Terminating such a pregnancy is a compassionate way to help end some of the emotional distress and in many cases protect the woman's mental and physical health. In a case of twins, it could save the life of a normal fetus.

Now the State Health Department is scrambling to redefine "public funds" so that doctors can end doomed pregnancies without fear of breaking the law. Hospitals would still have to prove under this misbegotten law that only "non-public" funds were used.

The law's sponsor, Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, did not bother to consult with medical professionals when his bill was being drafted. Later, when the law's predictably dire consequences became public, Bramble had the unmitigated gall to blame the medical community for not having tried harder to convince him that his bill, crafted for political gain, would inflict real pain on real people.

This utterly unredeemable law must be repealed immediately, in a special legislative session, before more families are forced to suffer for Bramble's bumbling.