LIFE DIGEST: Ultrasound bill in Senate provides hope
- Oct 2, 2007 - comment
Every abortion-minded woman in the United States would have the opportunity to see an ultrasound image of her unborn baby if Sen. Sam Brownback has his way.
The Republican from Kansas has introduced a bill that would require a doctor to perform an ultrasound on a woman and display the images for her before he aborts her child. The measure also would mandate the doctor describe the ultrasound results. The woman is not required to view the images.
The legislation sounds like a non-starter in a Congress controlled by the Democrats, whose party endorses abortion rights, but a pro-life, legislative expert thinks it may have a chance.
“This is not an issue that’s come up in Congress before, but, based on past votes we’ve had on issues like informing a woman of the capacity of the child to experience pain, I’d say that this might well command a majority in the House and Senate,” Douglas Johnson told Family News in Focus. Johnson is legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee.
Brownback, who introduced the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act, S. 2075, Sept. 20, said in a written statement a woman desiring an abortion should have “all the available information so that she may make the most informed decision possible.” He said he hopes the bill will help women have “a deeper reflection on the humanity of unborn children.”
Pro-life pregnancy help centers increasingly are adding ultrasounds to the services they offer women considering abortion. They report dramatic results when a woman is able to see images of her child in the womb.
“Approximately 88 percent of the women who are at risk for abortion, who go into a pregnancy center for counseling and to see an ultrasound, indicate they end up changing their minds,” Carrie Gordon Earll said, according to Focus on the Family CitizenLink. Earll is senior analyst for bioethics at Focus on the Family Action.
Twelve states have enacted laws requiring an abortion-minded woman have the opportunity to view an ultrasound image of her unborn baby, according to the Pew Research Center.
Georgetown Law
The country’s oldest Roman Catholic university will provide funds for law students who work as interns for abortion rights organizations.
The Georgetown University Law Center announced the policy change after it came under criticism earlier in the year. The Law Center had refused funding for a student who was seeking an internship with Planned Parenthood, and 360 students signed a petition in the spring calling for the policy’s reversal, according to The Hoya, the university’s newspaper.
While the Roman Catholic Church is opposed to abortion, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America is the United States’ leading abortion provider. PPFA affiliates performed more than 260,000 abortions in the most recent year for which statistics are available.
Law Center Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff disclosed the policy revision in a Sept. 7 letter, saying the school would no longer weigh an organization’s mission when deciding on grants for interns, The Hoya reported.
Joy Welan, president of Georgetown’s Law Students for Choice, praised the decision as “fantastic news,” but Daniel Hughes, president of the Law Center’s Progressive Alliance for Life, called it a “dishonest, legalistic ‘compromise.’”
“Aleinikoff has a radically secular, morally relativistic vision for the Law Center,” Hughes said, according to The Hoya.
Georgetown is located in Washington, D.C.
Closed in Jersey
An abortion clinic in Atlantic City, N.J., has surrendered its license rather than make the changes required after a state inspection in June.
The Alternatives clinic is closed for good, a New Jersey Health Department spokesman told The Press of Atlantic City Sept. 25. The department had shut down the clinic after the inspection found numerous problems, including blood-stained operating tables, drugs past their expiration dates, the absence of a sterilization sink and the lack of hot water for more than a year, The Press reported.
The health department had not inspected the clinic in six years, though such examinations are required every other year. The department has been unable to keep up with the inspection schedule because of a staff shortage and the increase in the number of abortion clinics in the state, a spokesman told The Press.
Alternatives was not the only clinic that failed to receive timely inspections – 83 percent of New Jersey’s walk-in clinics are not checked on time, according to the newspaper.
Marie Tasy, executive director of New Jersey Right to Life, recently was rebuffed in her request of the state’s public advocate to intervene to require the Health Department to inspect abortion clinics on time. Public Advocate Ronald Chen said in a letter his office would monitor the situation but gave no indication he would act to bring the department into compliance, The Press reported.
“This is very disappointing. It’s certainly not, I feel, an adequate response,” Tasy said, according to The Press.
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