The members of the Missouri House worked this week to amend and strengthen a piece of legislation sent over from the Senate to better ensure the health and safety of women by putting common sense safety requirements in place for abortion clinics.
The Governor called the legislature into a special session to enact the stronger safety regulations after a court ruling that struck down Missouri’s previous law requiring abortion providers abide by the same regulations as ambulatory surgery centers. The court also did away with a law that required a doctor providing an abortion to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
Senate Bill 5, handled in the House by Rep. Diane Franklin, makes many changes to current state law to address the issues created by court rulings. The bill allows the Department of Health and Senior Services to adopt rules governing complication plans to ensure patients undergoing abortions induced by drugs or chemicals have access to safe and reliable care. Abortion facilities would be required to provide affirmative evidence that each person authorized to perform abortions is a physician currently licensed to practice in Missouri. The health department will also be permitted to make unannounced on-site inspection of any abortion facility annually. Senate Bill 5 also requires that all tissue removed at the time of abortion be sent to a pathologist with seventy-two hours for examination.
While the version of Senate Bill 5 sent to the House provided a framework, the House wanted to strengthen the legislation even further. One of the provisions included by the House would prevent abortion clinic staff from requiring emergency responders to alter their normal response procedure by turning off lights or sirens. A second provision allows the attorney general to prosecute violations of state abortion laws with no obligation to wait on local prosecutors. Penalties for abortion clinics that do not comply with the requirements for submitting fetal tissue after an abortion were also strengthened by the House.
Components of Senate Bill 5 were also designed to address a city ordinance that has turned St. Louis into an abortion sanctuary city. The bill passed by the House protects the right of an "alternatives to abortion" agency to operate freely and engage in speech without governmental interference, and the right of a person not to be compelled by the government to participate in abortion contrary to his or her religious beliefs or moral convictions. In effect, the bill would pre-empt the St. Louis ordinance.
Senate Bill 5 now moves back to the Senate for further consideration.
Little men with tiny hands!
ReplyDeleteGood job; thank you for looking out for the unborn children
ReplyDeleteHarvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text
Pro Life sounds good in theory Harvey, but how many "Crack Babies" have you adopted?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 8:01,
ReplyDeleteYou advocate killing them just because they are crack?
Wouldn't a more humane approach be to try testing them, giving a good life, and they grow up to be productive members of society in God's image and s person of faith?
Harvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text
It seems like offering free birth control to the drug addicted (and anyone else who wants it) could prevent a lot of problems and suffering and save a lot of money at the same time. The pope and many of the god botherers tell us otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThey can get that via Medicaid or whatever plan they have,
ReplyDeleteAfter all wasn't Obamacare supposed to be the " be all, end all" and the greatest ever?
Of course it turned out to be a horrific disaster
Harvey Hutchinson voice&text
Harvey, let's roleplay for a minute.
ReplyDeleteLet's imagine your daughter has been raped, and now is pregnant. Are you really going to tell her she HAS to have this baby, that she MUST raise this non-stop reminder of the worst moment of her life?
Are you going to tell her, with no regrets, that it's her fault for having sex(rape), that she should've used protection(against rape? lol) if she didn't want a baby?
If so, you're more disgusting than I imagined, this kind of thing happens all the time. When that crack baby or that rape baby grows up to commit a crime, you're just as likely to call for the death penalty as you are for calling for no abortions.