LIFE DIGEST: Nebraska adopts strong ultrasound law
- Jun 2, 2009
Nebraska has enacted what is being described as one of the country’s strongest ultrasound bills for women considering abortion.
The single-chamber Nebraska legislature voted 40-5 May 29 for the legislation. Gov. Dave Heineman, a Republican, signed the measure into law the same day, according to the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star.
Also in this edition: Planned Parenthood asks California funds to be restored and Abortion rights leader rejects call for ‘common ground’ and Dutch euthanasia requests increase.
What sets apart the new Nebraska law from other states is its requirement when an ultrasound is performed that an abortion doctor display the image for the mother to see rather than requiring the woman to ask for the sonogram to be shown, according to the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC). Under the law, the mother can choose whether to view the image.
The law also requires an abortion provider to inform the woman considering abortion of the medical risks of the procedure and the estimated age of the unborn child. In addition, it mandates she be told she cannot be forced to choose an abortion and assistance is available if she decides to give birth.
“It is absolutely vital that a woman, at this most crucial life-and-death juncture, be provided all the information possible about the abortion procedure and the development of her unborn child,” said Mary Spaulding Balch, NRLC’s state legislative director. “Simply put, the abortion decision cannot be undone. Women deserve all the facts.”
Eighteen other states have ultrasound laws, according to NRLC.
Planned Parenthood asks California funds be restored
Planned Parenthood asks California funds be restored
The country’s leading abortion provider is calling on California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to restore $36 million in proposed cuts to family planning funds.
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) made the request of Schwarzenegger after the Republican governor proposed the cuts in response to the state’s financial crisis. PPFA said no family planning funds from the government pay for abortions. Pro-life advocates, however, contend government grants for family planning free PPFA to use other money for abortion services.
Planned Parenthood “is on the frontline in ensuring that those in need receive essential health care,” providing services for more than 700,000 women in California, PPFA President Cecile Richards said in a written statement. “These budget cuts will jeopardize our ability to provide essential health care.”
PPFA’s total revenue reached $1.04 billion in the most recent financial year, which extended from July 2007 to June 2008. More than $349 million of that figure came in government grants and contracts.
The organization’s affiliates recorded 305,310 abortions in 2007, the latest year for which statistics are available.
Abortion rights leader rejects call for ‘common ground’
Abortion rights leader rejects call for ‘common ground’
At least one abortion rights leader is having nothing of President Obama’s call for common ground on the issue.
In his May 17 graduation speech at the University of Notre Dame, the President encouraged people on both sides of the abortion issue to be open-minded in hopes of finding “at least the possibility of common ground.”
Many abortion opponents are skeptical of Obama’s call for common ground when he has already reversed some pro-life policies in his brief time in the White House, but Carlton Veazey is downright dismissive of the President’s appeal.
The president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice said “common ground” is “another term for compromise on reproductive choice. In other words, achieving common ground will be accomplished by diminishing the ability of women to make decisions about abortion, whatever the personal cost. That’s unacceptable.
“It’s unacceptable for even one woman to suffer in order for opponents of abortion to be appeased. . . . We should not sacrifice women’s lives in the service of calming controversy and tempering anger over an issue that has become political,” Veazey wrote on a web log for RH (reproductive health) Reality Check.
Dutch euthanasia requests increase
Official requests for euthanasia in The Netherlands totaled 2,331 in 2008, a 10 percent increase over the previous year.
The statistic was based on the yearly report from the European country’s five regional euthanasia monitoring committees, according to a DutchNews account based on a Nos TV report May 29.
The total of Dutch deaths by euthanasia is probably much higher, bioethics specialist Wesley Smith said.
“[S]everal studies show that about 40% of cases aren’t reported and that doctors sometimes intentionally overdose with morphine rather than formally euthanize with barbiturates and a [poison] like drug,” Smith wrote on his blog May 31. “Remember too that some doctors are now terminally sedating patients, meaning they don’t have to be present for” or report the death.
The Netherlands is one of three countries in which doctors can legally administer drugs to kill patients at their request. The others are Belgium and Luxembourg. In addition, Switzerland allows physician-assisted suicide, which involves a doctor prescribing but not administering the lethal drugs.
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