State Senate panel kills Virginia abortion bills

By LARRY O'DELL
Associated Press Writer
Published: February 28, 2008

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A Senate committee known for killing anti-abortion legislation lived up to its reputation Thursday, rejecting several such proposals passed earlier in the session by the House of Delegates.
Most of the Education and Health Committee votes were split 10-5 along party lines, with Democrats prevailing.
One of the bills would have required licensure and inspection of abortion clinics. It was a scaled-down version of legislation requiring clinics to meet the same standards as outpatient surgery centers - an idea the committee has rejected several years in a row.
Others pertained to mandatory ultrasounds, information about fetal anesthesia, coerced abortions and a pregnant woman’s deliberate killing of a fetus by means other than a legal abortion.
Proponents of the bills said their goal was to protect women’s health, but opponents suggested the aim was to make abortions more expensive and less accessible.
“This is just another thinly veiled attempt to deny women their constitutional right,” Wendy Klein, deputy director of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Women’s Health, said of the clinic licensure bill.
Del. Matthew Lohr’s bill originally was the same as the previously unsuccessful clinic regulation measures. Lohr, R-Rockingham, recognized the futility of presenting the same idea to the committee and offered the less sweeping substitute bill.
Along with requiring licensure and semiannual inspections, the legislation would have required clinics to have emergency equipment on hand.
“This is good, commonsense legislation,” said Steve Rossie of the Family Foundation of Virginia. “No one can say with a straight face this substitute is too far-reaching.”
The fetal anesthesia bill was also a weakened version of legislation previously rejected by the committee. Instead of mandating an injection of painkillers for a fetus at least 20 weeks old, Del. Ben Cline’s bill would have just required doctors to offer the shot.
Ann Hughes of the Medical Society of Virginia said the organization does not take stands on abortion issues.
“But this goes beyond that,” Hughes said. “Legislators should not legislate medical standards of care.”
Opponents of legislation requiring an ultrasound to determine the gestational age of a fetus before an abortion raised the same objection.
“I’m not sure who is more demeaned by this legislation, the doctor or the patient,” Klein said. “It’s an inappropriate intrusion into the physician’s role.”
She also said ultrasounds already are standard practice before an abortion.
“If it was the standard of care, we wouldn’t hear about botched abortions and women being rushed to the emergency room because somebody misguessed the gestational age,” said Del. Kathy Byron, R-Campbell and sponsor of the bill.
Del. Robert C. Marshall, R-Prince William, said legislators should support his anti-coercion bill regardless of their position on abortion. The bill would have made it illegal for anyone to force or coerce a woman to have an abortion.
Sen. Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, said a person could violate the proposed law with a statement as simple as “If you have this child, you’re going to have to raise it on your own.”
Saslaw also spoke against legislation by Del. C. Chris Jones making it a felony for a woman to terminate her pregnancy by means other than a lawful abortion. Jones, R-Suffolk, said a woman in his area shot herself in the stomach, killing the fetus, but could not be prosecuted.
“Had she delivered and abandoned the baby and the baby died, she could have been charged,” Jones said.
Saslaw suggested a woman who shoots her fetus needs help, not punishment.
“Can you imagine how desperate some woman has to be to do this?” he said. “There has to be something wrong with her state of mind.”