SB 371 passed the Senate Health committee on a 7-5 vote.
One provision requires clinics supplying abortion-inducing pills to have the same facilities as those providing surgical procedures; e.g. surgery and resuscitation equipment and defibrillators. (The requirements go into some detail – including a reception desk, a waiting area, a lavatory, and a drinking fountain among other things.) This is widely seen as being directed at the Lafayette Planned Parenthood that provides RU-486.
According to one supporter of the measure, the requirement that these pill dispensaries have this stuff is justified because there might be complications and they’ll need follow up care. But why stop there? Having an abortion might prompt deep questions about the nature and meaning of the universe. So maybe the legislation ought to require that these clinics have particle colliders — just in case. Or a pizza oven – someone might get hungry. Or the tears of a virgin — just to screw with them.
The other measure getting a lot of attention is that it determines that ultrasounds are so nice a woman has to get them twice.
SB 371 also requires the physician providing such a prescription to provide the patient with materials–colors specified!–oversee ultrasound imaging, and document efforts to have the woman return in two weeks for a follow-up examination and ultrasound.
As Sheila Kennedy notes – “this bill has nothing to do with women’s safety. It has everything to do with limiting the availability of safe and legal abortion.”
Karen Celestino-Horseman noted some irony at the imaging requirements. This bill was introduced by Sen. Holdman who has also introduced SB 373 which makes it illegal to take video of agricultural operations with the intent to harass; the message apparently being: video tape lady parts – not livestock!
One of the things that drives me crazy is the zeal that Republicans have to prevent abortions and protect a fetus … but as soon as a child is born, Republicans seem to stop caring. This bill is the perfect example. Republicans want to impose very strict facility guidelines on a clinic that does nothing more than dispense a pill. But when the issue becomes facility guidelines for “childcare ministries” that look after actual real life living children, Republicans aren’t willing to consider safety. http://blog.wallack.us/2011/02/proof-of-hypocrisy-or-that-sign-was.html As the saying goes, “If you want a Republican to care about you, remain a fetus.”
I’ve always seen the fight as more about sex than about children. If you view sex as negative and pregnancy as divine punishment, the various positions seem more coherent.
A Democratic senator made that very point. From Niki Kelly’s story today in The Journal Gazette:
Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, said the bill amazes him because he has fought for years to require church child-care centers to follow the same rules as other child-care facilities. Republicans have fought the bill because it would require structural changes for some entities.
“It disturbs me to the core,” he said. “We have a job here and it is to protect every child – born and unborn.”
Dog,
Michael’s point is valid and is a powerful political argument.
Your analysis is very interesting, however. I have never considered it in this context. But it seems coherent when looking at the two largest antiabortion factions-Catholics and conservative christians. They both see sex as a low-tech breeding technology. It is only sanctioned in a marital relationship. And except for the Amish, did not think it could be fun.
I am not sure at this early point of my thinking on this point how it will play out. But it gives me far more insight into the reason that Baptists do not have sex standing up. It may lead to dancing.
So I’m confused. Just how is all this related to creating jobs? Sure sounds like a Pence right wing agenda to me, diverting the public’s attention to a bunch of self-righteous hypocritical demagoguery, messing over women as well as children (pro-birth, not pro-life). If they really wanted to lower the abortion rate, they would organize good family planning centers, provide good sex education and make birth control available, but I guess that would be too effective.
It’s hard to get too concerned with the nuisances abortion practitioners must endure. Everyone knows abortion is wrong; we just keep it barely legal.
No morally decent person ever tells an expectant mother in Greenwood Park Mall: “I’m so sorry for you. Can I give you an abortion clinic referral?” Perhaps the Left should try this. It might be fun to observe how the locals react to the exhortation.
Really Freedom – you’re comparing an “expectant mother” (aka someone who is visibly pregnant) to a woman who is less than 10 weeks pregnant?! That’s comparing apples to oranges. I would also say that over 40 years of legality is a little more than “barely.”
And the “everyone knows abortion is wrong.” I’m also taking you to task. Morals are a continuum in every person. Am I out there promoting abortion as the next best thing? No, of course not. But I am also not so vain and self-righteous to believe that it wouldn’t be more wrong to bring an unwanted or unable to be supported child into the world. I would rather the woman in question decides what is best for her and her family without inserting my feelings into the situation.
Because that’s just it – they are MY FEELINGS. And my feelings don’t, and shouldn’t, mean squat to another person’s health choices when those choices clearly don’t affect me, but impact that person quite a lot.
Reba, Murder is not justifiable because one does not want a dependent.
We have childless couples heading to Russia to find children to raise. With such a ready market for parents, we are far from having our unborn be truly “unwanted.”
Nine months of carrying a child is a comparatively small burden to bear when juxtaposed against murder.
At a minimum, before any abortion is allowed, we should require affirmative assent by both parents. If a father is willing to raise the child, abortion should be forbidden.
“Murder” is an actual legal term which does not include terminating blastocysts, embryos, or fetuses.
Freedom – I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you are either 1.) a man or 2.) a woman who has never been pregnant and/or had a child. I am leaning toward #1 – yes?
Who the hell are you to deem yourself judge and jury for what is a “small burden” for another person. Carrying a child for TEN months (not nine) is NOT a comparatively small burden. You likely have no idea what it entails. Being pregnant is difficult and time consuming and very expensive. It irrevocably changes your life.
What about those women who are so financially strapped for cash that they cannot afford to go to the doctor nor have the ability to take time off work? And what about giving birth?? Ever been through that? It’s also difficult. And time consuming. And really freaking expensive. And that’s if you have a support system and insurance. How about you ask Governor Pence about that Medicaid expansion? You are oversimplifying the matter to such a large degree.
And by the way, according to the law of the land, abortion is not murder. It’s disturbing that you use such judgmental language. Maybe that’s how you feel, but you need refer back to my first post about the continuum. Not everyone views it that way and more importantly, the law doesn’t.
Indiana is moving to the top of requiring that medical battery be performed on abortion patients. http://indianalawblog.com/archives/2013/02/ind_law_indiana_113.html
Women seeking abortions (still a fundamental right, Freedom), must no undergo not one, but two batterys in the form of unneccsary ultrasounds. But it is good for the medical equipment industry, right.
Well, reading Freedoms illogical and unreasonded excreations, a thought occured to me. Paranoics, people with untreated borderline personality disorders with halluncinatory features and oppositional defiant disorder that contines into adulthood should undergo two forced treatments.
1. An anal EEG to determine the location of brain activity.
2. A cranial MRI to determine if the head is the site of urination.
This would be important research to confirm the pathologies of internet trolls, the militia movement, and most Republican house members.
Carlito, abortion is nowhere a fundamental right. The inverse is true, actually.
Further, are you able to make an argument that isn’t composed entirely of obstreperous ad hominem that plays to the noisome leftist amen corner you have here?
Calling yourself “freedom” is so campy.
Hey Freedom … why do you want to limit Freedom?
Yo Freedom, let’s require you get an anal probe the next time you want some antibiotics. Just because we think you might be using them for something we don’t like, so we’d like to probe you first, to make sure you *really* want them. Is it necessary? No. But we want you to have it.
When would that be okay? This bill is NO DIFFERENT. It’s state mandated rape. Let’s rape the men too, and see how they like it.
If the virus afflicting me is capable of sentient and independent life but for my ingestion of Amoxicillin, sure, probe away.
One caveat: you have to do it naked, and then I get to reverse the field.
There really are a lot of legitimate ethical issues involved in abortion, sexuality, and modern medical practice, but this just avoids facing them. However, it IS an indication of one thing :: lots of men (and a few women) in this country are still very Calvinistic and Puritanical, and they hate the idea that some woman, somewhere, may be having sex — and enjoying it.
“Everyone knows”? Everybody used to “know” with a certainty (conveniently provided by their clergy) that the world was flat. A meaningless over-generality proving nothing of worth, save perhaps that you don’t really have as much of an argument as you’d like us to think you do.
And, just what are you insinuating about people who shop at Greenwood Park Mall? “The locals”? Do you go down there so you feel superior to someone? At home with others of your kind? Please explain more.
“Morally decent” is redundant.
I think they should amend that bill to require members of the House of Bubbas who want a prostate exam to submit to their doctor inserting his/her whole hand up there to grope around.
Why trust just one finger when you can use all 4 and a thumb?