Abortion

High school students could get a more graphic explanation about abortion procedures, including whether a fetus would feel any pain during the procedure, under a bill that passed the House.

More from the Kansas City Star:

The 77-48 vote Friday on the measure, which started out dealing with reporting abortion statistics, returns the bill the Senate to consider the House changes.

When the bill was debated Thursday, Rep. Jan Pauls amended it to say any discussion about abortion must include a description of all methods of abortion, including what state law calls partial birth abortion. The information must include “the probable physical sensations of pain a fetus feels or detects” during the various procedures.

The bill also says that when schools offer pregnancy-related instruction, it should include information about fetal development and gestation, including pictures or drawings of the fetus at four-week increments from fertilization to full term.

“It’s important that when children are being taught sex ed, they be aware of what the fetus looks like,” said Pauls, D-Hutchinson.

Pauls said she didn’t consider the measure an anti-abortion bill.

“If a girl might choose an abortion at some point, they would be informed,” she said. “For me, it’s just a disclosure. Students need to know what fetuses look like and the methods of abortion.”

The bill also says the method of implementing the requirements should be left to the schools and that parents or guardians can refuse to have their child attend such instruction.

The original intent of the bill was to generate more information about abortions performed after the 22nd week of pregnancy, including details about the specific fetal anomalies, although abortion rights supporters say the true goal is to burden doctors and clinics.

Kansas Department of Health and Environment statistics show the number of reported abortions decreased from 12,327 in 2000 to 10,542 last year.

Kathy Ostrowski, a Kansans for Life lobbyist, said the bill will result in additional information about abortions so that Kansans know whether the law is being followed.

She and her fellow anti-abortion activists believe clinics violate openly violate restrictions, particularly on late-term procedures.

But the clinics have said repeatedly that they comply with Kansas law.

And Sen. David Haley, D-Kansas City, an abortion rights supporter, said the bill is vague about when additional information is required.

“This ambiguity would allow a zealous prosecutor or a zealous attorney general or the like to conduct further fishing expeditions,” Haley said.

Haley and other abortion rights activists also criticized the requirement that human sexuality courses discuss abortion methods.

“Those are not things that most parents are going to want their 12- or 13-year-old kid to know about,” Rep. Paul Davis, D-Lawrence.

But Ostrowski said girls as young as 13 and 14 regularly receive health services because they’re sexually active.

“They should know what the facts are of the pregnancy, rather than have the girl discover a few years later,” she said.

The Idaho Senate is set to debate an informed consent bill that requires women to wait 24 hours before having an abortion and be told by doctors about their fetuses and the procedure’s potential complications.

More via Boise’s KBCI:

The Senate State Affairs Committee voted unanimously Friday to send the amended informed consent bill to the floor for debate.

The changes are meant to allow doctors to skirt the waiting period and information requirements in the case of medical emergencies.

That exception was missing from the original law, which the Idaho Attorney General says is likely unconstitutional.

Deputy Attorney General William von Tagen signed off on the proposed changes, saying they’d likely pass judicial scrutiny.

Anti-abortion advocacy groups praised the measure, sponsored by Sen. Hal Bunderson, (R) Meridian.

Barbara Gough with Generation Life told senate committee members that when she had an abortion at age 17 in 1985, not much information was made available to her.

“They just highlighted the surgery procedure,” Gough told Local 2 News. “There was no information on alternatives to abortion, emotional effects, it was all very superficial. Basically it left me in the dark.”

Meanwhile, abortion rights advocates said the package shores up laws that interfere with access to abortions and encroaches on the doctor-patient relationship.

“This bill forces health care professionals to provide women with information that is intended to discourage them from having abortions,” said Marty Durand with ACLU of Idaho.

In a related development, a proposed new law requiring minor girls to get their parents’ consent before having an abortion has stalled and may not get a hearing this year.

The Idaho attorney general has concerns about its constitutionality.

Idaho has spent $360,000 dollars since 2000 fighting separate abortion-related litigation, including a 2005 parental-consent law that’s on appeal in the U-S 9th Circuit.

That has state lawmakers leery about passing another law that’ll just cost the state more money in legal fees.

According to a March 28 opinion from the state’s top law enforcement agency, provisions of Representative Bill Sali’s bill for a girl to bypass her parents’ permission by going through a judge still face legitimate challenges in court.

The Kuna Republican, who is running for Congress, said he wasn’t certain if he’d be able to resurrect the measure this year.

He says “the bar has been set pretty high.”

A handfull of abortion-related bills passed the Georgia State Senate Thursday. The measures require doctors to offer women seeking the procedure a look at an image of the fetus and give amnesty to pharmacists who don’t want to give out abortion pills they say go against their beliefs.

The Columbus Ledger-Inquirer has more:

A third bill would create a murder charge any time a fetus is destroyed in an attack on a pregnant woman.

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act expands Georgia’s current law, which says a fetus must have a chance to stay alive outside the womb for its destruction to be considered a murder. The new bill would call for a murder charge at any point in the pregnancy.

Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, said the bill is similar to federal law passed in the wake of the highly publicized 2002 death of Laci Peterson, whose husband was convicted of murdering both her and their unborn son.

“If both of them are killed, then you’re actually killing two people - the mother and the baby,” Unterman said.

That measure passed on a 37-15 vote, with some critics arguing the bill was an abortion-related effort to expand legal protection of fetuses.

“It’s ironic that what you say does not mirror what you do,” said Sen. Regina Thomas, D-Savannah.

The pharmacist bill would allow any pharmacist who files an objection to abortions in writing to refuse to fill a prescription for a drug that terminates pregnancy.

The bill’s scope is limited, since drugs like RU-486 - which induces abortions - may only be handed out by doctors. It would not impact emergency contraceptives, such as the so-called “morning after pill.”

The bill, by Sen. Jim Whitehead, R-Evans, passed 35-15, after senators voted down an amendment by Sen. Steen Miles, D-Decatur, that would have given pharmacists a similar exemption if they object to giving out “sexually enhancing drugs” like Viagra.

A third bill, by Sen. Nancy Schaefer, R-Turnerville, would require doctor who perform abortions to make a sonogram image of the fetus and offer to show the image to the woman seeking the procedure.

Schaefer said she thinks many women who see the sonogram will reconsider their decision to have abortions.

“This sonogram will save lives,” she said of the plan, which passed 35-17.

Senate Democrats, even those who supported some of the measures, complained about the priorities of majority Republicans in the chamber.

“We need to focus on what’s important,” said Sen. George Hooks, D-Americus. “Kids who live on dirt roads can’t get to school when it rains, we’re rock-bottom in the nation in education and we’re up here hollering about abortion.”

Tags: Abortion,, Georgia,, Georgia, Senate,, Pro-Choice,, Pro-Life,, Anti-Abortion,, Abortion, Legislation,, Abortion, photos,, Abortion, pill,, Morning, After, Pill

Republican Gov. Matt Blunt and Missouri’s largest anti-abortion group expressed reservations Thursday about newly proposed legislation seeking to ban most abortions in the state.

KMBC Kansas City has more:

Blunt said he feared an abortion ban could lock the state in a legal battle, which Missouri Right to Life said may not yet be winnable.

Their comments came a day after Sen. Jason Crowell introduced a pair of ballot measures asking voters to prohibit abortions except to save the life of a woman.

Blunt, who has supported other efforts to restrict abortions, told reporters: “I’m not convinced it’s necessary” to pass a general abortion ban.

“I think we need to really focus on the legislation that will reduce the number of abortions in our state — not just set up court battles,” Blunt said.

Crowell has said he hopes his measure — if passed by lawmakers and voters — would result in a legal challenge that reaches the U.S. Supreme Court.

A similar abortion ban recently passed the South Dakota legislature, and Republican Gov. Mike Rounds has said he is inclined to sign it. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, also said he probably would sign an abortion ban bill under consideration in the state House.

Crowell’s pair of proposals — one a constitutional amendment, the other a change in law — would go directly to Missouri’s ballot if passed by the Legislature, without need of the governor’s signature.

“I just consider myself a pro-life legislator … and ending abortions is the most pro-life anyone can be,” Crowell said Thursday. “I think the time is now to end abortions in the state of Missouri.”

But not everyone in Missouri’s anti-abortion movement, which historically has received strong bipartisan support in the Legislature, agrees.

“We’re obviously in favor of a ban on abortion; that is our ultimate goal. But we are concerned about the timing,” said Patty Skain, executive director of Missouri Right to Life.

Skain said she fears there aren’t enough votes on the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling establishing a right to abortion. If an appeal of a state abortion ban reaches the court too soon, it could backfire by resulting in a ruling that reaffirms abortion rights, she said.

Alison Gee, political director for Planned Parenthood in St. Louis, said Crowell is seeking to impose extreme limitations.

“His proposals would also not take into account at all the health and safety of women,” she said. “The really unconscionable piece about all this is this is the same body trying to make it harder for women to access legal contraception.”

Crowell also is the sponsor of legislation that would prohibit pharmacies from disciplining employees who refuse to fill prescriptions to which they have objections, such as Plan B emergency contraception, also known as the morning-after pill.

Crowell’s abortion legislation would make it a felony to perform an abortion when not saving a women’s life, punishable by a prison sentence of five to 15 years.

When asked about Crowell’s bill, Blunt noted that Missouri law already states that life begins at conception.

“I’m not convinced anything is necessary to add to that,” the governor said.

Tags: Abortion,, Missouri,, Roy, Blunt,, Missouri, Right, To, Live,, Missouri, Abortion,, Pro, Choice

In the wake of similar legislation passing in South Dakota last week, The Mississippi House Public Health Committee has approved a bill that would prohibit most abortions on and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) has said that he plans to sign the legislation if both houses of the Mississippi Legislature approve it. The bill, which only allows exceptions to save a woman’s life, would tighten Mississippi’s already strict abortion laws that mandate a 24-hour waiting period, counseling, and consent from both parents for a minor.

Jurist has more.

The Missouri Supreme Court has upheld the state’s 24-hour waiting period for abortions, a decision that turns the focus of the legal battle to federal court.

AP has more:

The unanimous ruling Tuesday by Missouri’s highest court focused on whether the 2003 law ran contrary to the state constitution. The judges rejected arguments that it was overly vague and deprived people of liberty and privacy rights.

“It’s a victory for the women of Missouri who find themselves in a crisis pregnancy but need the information and time to consider what’s best for them,” said Patty Skain, executive director of Missouri Right to Life.

Although considered a victory for anti-abortion groups, the ruling may not be the end of the matter. That’s because Planned Parenthood affiliates, which filed the state case, also have challenged the law in federal court.

Last year, a federal judge allowed the 24-hour wait to take effect but issued a preliminary injunction against the law’s language describing what physicians must discuss with patients. That injunction is to expire 10 days after the state Supreme Court decision is made final.

Planned Parenthood officials plan to decide soon whether to continue pursuing the federal case, said Peter Brownlie, president of Planned Parenthood for Kansas and Mid-Missouri.

The Missouri law requires physicians to wait 24 hours after conferring with women before performing abortions. It requires that consultation to cover such things as the “physical, psychological and situational” risk factors associated with abortions.

Twenty-four states require women to wait a specified amount of time _ most often 24 hours _ between counseling and the abortion procedure, according to The Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group that researches reproductive health issues.

Planned Parenthood claims the consultation requirements are so vague they place physicians under the threat of prosecution for something they may not understand.

But the Missouri Supreme Court said that the law places no further duty on abortion physicians than they already have under common law, and that the 24-hour waiting provision did not violate the state constitution.

“There is no reason to construe the language in the Missouri constitution more broadly than the corresponding language of the federal Constitution, and the United States Supreme Court already has determined that such a waiting provision does not violate the federal Constitution,” the court wrote.

Violators of Missouri’s abortion consent law can face the loss of their medical licenses and misdemeanor charges punishable by up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

The ruling is the latest blow to abortion rights supporters.

A Mississippi House committee voted Tuesday to ban most abortions in the state. The only abortions allowed under the bill would be if the life of the pregnant woman were in danger.

It’s similar to a bill that South Dakota lawmakers passed last week that would make it a crime for doctors to perform abortions in the state except to save a pregnant woman’s life. The bill went to Republican Gov. Mike Rounds on Tuesday, and he has 15 days to act. Rounds has said he’s inclined to sign the bill into law.

And in Kentucky, legislation requiring women to receive face-to-face counseling before undergoing abortions was passed by the Senate on Tuesday, an effort to end the practice of some clinics to use recorded messages over the telephone.