The Louisville Courier Press has an article on HB 1172. This is the ‘informed consent’ bill on what physicians have to tell their patients about abortion. I put the term ‘informed consent’ in ‘scare quotes’ because that’s the name given to these sorts of regulations, regardless of the quality of the information being provided to the patient. Among other things, the bill will require the physician to tell the patient that human life begins at conception, theological, philosophical, or medical evidence to the contrary be damned. It also requires the physician to advise the patient of various negative consequences of abortion without providing any sort of context.
The Courier Journal article compares Indiana’s proposed law to other laws in the country and, as it turns out, ours is the wingnuttiest. South Dakota is the only other state that has legislated human life as beginning at conception. And no other state requires a physician to tell a patient that a fetus might feel pain before 20 weeks of gestation. But who cares about “evidence” and “medical facts.” As long as we value life until birth and after brain death, we can feel good about ourselves and ignore what happens to children and other people between those events.
actually, i don’t believe that’s true. I believe that Michigan passed a law last year(although it was vetoed) that would have required doctors to tell patients that the fetus feels pain. I thought I read that the veto was overridden, but I could have imagined that part.