Multiple bills address abortion in Indiana Senate, House

With four bills in the Senate and one in the House, the topic of abortion is hotly contested in the Republican-controlled Indiana General Assembly. An Indiana House Committee approved legislation Wednesday that could mandate abortion clinics to be licensed and inspected once a year. Another introduced bill states a fetus can survive outside of a womb at 20 weeks and seeks to change the time of viability from 24 weeks to 20. Other legislation also would require health care providers to give pregnant women information about ultrasound images and heart tones of a fetus before performing an abortion.\nFor the first time since 1996, Republicans control both the House and Senate and are introducing some of the most regulatory legislation in the area of life sciences.\nTheresa Browning, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Indiana, said this is the most troublesome legislation ever to come through the General Assembly. "This legislation session is the worst yet, in terms of abortion legislation, in our opinion," Browning said. \nJason Gray, former IU student and pro-life advocate, said he feels abortion suffers from a lack of health care guidelines regarding patient treatment.\n"One of the real problems with abortion clinics anywhere is that a lot of times the health care aspects of the service is the least of their concerns," Gray said. "There are a lot of cases where something can go wrong during the procedure and instead of looking to the health of the patient, they look at the negative publicity they will get."\nGray also said more regulation from politicans will create more accountability. \n"I totally believe that if something needs to be regulated by the government, it should be," he said. "I would love to see abortion providers held more accountable. I think the guidelines aren't strict enough."\nBrowning said one of the most problematic bills is Senate Bill No. 76, which states health care providers must offer pregnant women information about their ultrasound and heart tones before administering an abortion. She said this practice is already being done at all three Planned Parenthoods in Indiana that administer abortions, so the bill would change nothing except the regulation level there. Browning also said a heart tone often cannot be detected at the time the majority of abortions are given. The Indiana State Department of Health's Web site shows that in 2001, 94.9 percent of abortions were terminated before the fetus was 12 weeks old. \n"Abortion providers already provide ultrasounds to patients; they are performed to determine the gestation of the fetus. Patients are offered to see them as part of informed consent," Browning said. \nSen. Michael Young, R-Indianapolis, the author of Senate Bill No. 76, did not return repeated phone calls.\nAnother Senate bill proposed this session involving abortion would define an abortion clinic and impose regulatory procedures.\nSen. Jeff Drozda, R-Westfield, one of the co-authors of Senate Bill No. 393, which defines an abortion clinic and allows the State Department of Health to adopt rules concerning management, said he feels more regulation on abortion clinics is needed based on testimony. \n"There has been testimony in the House and Senate, where I have heard there is not regulation on the abortion clinics in the state. In the nine clinics, we've heard testimony that abortion clinics are not as regulated as veterinary clinics or tattoo parlors," Drozda said. "We need to find a balance between good regulations and women's health. I think it's important to make sure the nine (abortion) facilities are capable of handling emergencies; to not regulate would be a disservice to protecting women's health."\nBrowning disagreed with Drozda, saying clinics are already under strict regulations by the state and federal agencies.\n"To say they are not regulated is untrue," Browning said. "I cannot speak of tattoo parlors, but it is offensive to compare women's health to treatment of animals in a veterinary clinic. Abortion clinics are a highly regulated agency, and public discussion is fine as long as it is factual. The General Assembly is singling out nine abortion providers in the state to impose more government regulation. The complication rate with aborting is so small. It's one half of 1 percent -- that's .05 percent -- and in Indiana it's less than that." \nDrozda said he believes it is good to have public discussion on important topics that concern the state.\n"The bottom line is this is an open forum and discussion on important public policy issues," he said.\nDrozda also said bills concerning abortion have been introduced in the Senate before. \n"If you look at it, many of these bills have been introduced in prior sessions. So I think to try and pin it on the unique control in the General Assembly is not correct. I don't think that argument has merit," Drozda said. "I think that the House has been void of this discussion, and the Senate is a good breeding ground for it." \nSen. Vi Simpson, D-Bloomington, said she feels discouraged by the legislation and the direction the General Assembly is moving. Simpson also said the General Assembly is imposing too many of their own personal beliefs upon the rest of the state.\n"The government should stay out my bedroom and my doctor's office," Simpson said. "There is a whole number of differences in opinion when viability begins and people who think life begins at birth -- the law ought to allow people to make their own choice."\nAnother controversial abortion bill passed the House of Representatives Public Policy and Veteran Affairs Committee Wednesday and stated a human fetus can survive outside of the womb at 20 weeks of gestation. The bill is stirring controversy because no state has tried to establish viability after the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe. vs. Wade that stated no viability could be established before the 24th week. \nMarch of Dimes spokesperson Tim Arndt said determining how old a fetus must be to survive outside of the womb should be left to the physician and the patient. \n"The March of Dimes position is that decisions about life-saving measures must be made by families and their physicians. The role of the March of Dimes is to fund research into the causes and prevention of premature birth and the treatment of its consequences," said Arndt.\nSenator Anita Bowser, D-Michigan City, is staunchly opposed to the legislation regarding abortion and said the bills are redundant.\n"It's restrictive, and people are this doing for political reasons, and I'll probably vote against them. There is no originality with this legislation," Bowser said. "We are rehashing issues that are passé and have restrictions, and we don't need more restrictions. I will fight this tooth and nail."\n-- Contact Senior Writer Lindsay Jancek at lmjancek@indiana.edu.