A Roundup of Abortion/Marriage Legislation Around the Country
As the Kermit Gosnell trial has led to a renewed surge in pro-life regulations, the abortion lobby and its allies on the political Left are suing to overturn the will of the people, on often confusing grounds. And California leads the way with multiple laws to expand abortion, punish those who object to homosexuality, and distribute condoms more widely.
Montana
Planned Parenthood of Montana has filed a lawsuit to strike down two parental notification laws – one of which was passed by more than 70 percent of state voters during a ballot referendum. Montana voters overwhelmingly backed Legislative Referendum 120 in 2011, when Republicans in the state legislature put the question to them rather than see then-Governor Brian Schweitzer veto their own bill. It required parental notification if a minor girl sought an abortion. House Bill 521, which would take effect on July 1, required parents to consent. Planned Parenthood says the bills violate the constitutional rights of unemancipated minors.
Arizona
The NAACP and an Asian women’s group have sued to block Arizona’s law banning women from having abortions because of a baby’s race or sex – on the grounds that the 2011 law is racist and sexist. The ACLU filed the case, which left many puzzled, on behalf of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum and Maricopa County’s chapter of the NAACP. Miriam Yeung, executive director of NAPAWF, told the media, “We hope the judgment in this case will expose the true intentions of the politicians behind these abortion bans and show unequivocally that they discriminate against women of color, Asian-American and African-American in particular.” Arizona is the only state to bar women from aborting babies because of the baby’s race. Five other states — Illinois, Kansas, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania, — have passed bans on sex-selective abortions. Arizona Congressman Trent Franks introduced a similar bill in U.S. Congress last year, but it could not clear the legislative hurdle House leadership placed in front of it.
California
The California Assembly has approved a bill to allow non-physicians to perform abortions. The bill, introduced by Toni Aktins, D-San Diego, would allow midwives and nurses to carry out early abortions without the supervision or participation of a trained physician. Its sponsors note the bill is inspired by the lack of medical professionals willing to terminate the unborn. The bill now heads to the State Senate.
The State Senate on Tuesday passed S.B. 323, a bill intended to revoke the tax-exempt status of youth organizations like the Boy Scouts that “discrimiante” against homosexuals. Legislators made clear the BSA’s decision to admit homosexual scouts while barring adult homosexuals from serving as scoutmasters was not enough State Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, said, “We’ve given the Boy Scouts ample time to solve their discrimination problem and they have chosen a path that still leads to discrimination.” But critics like Karen England, Executive Director of Capitol Resource Institute, said the bill echoes the Obama administration’s use of the IRS to punish its political enemies. “This bill is about government vilifying our values and abusing its power to penalize, through taxation, those who hold different beliefs and values,” she said. “SB 323 is an unprecedented intrusion by the government and a far reaching assault on freedoms of association, speech, and religion.”
A bill that would have required pornographers to use condoms in all films shot in the state of California died in the Appropriations Committee last Friday. The measure would extend a local L.A. County ordinance, passed after numerous STD and AIDS outbreaks within the adult film industry, statewide. Assemblyman Mike Gatto, who represents the heart of the nation’s porn industry in the San Fernando Valley, said, “A legislator has about as much right telling a performer to use condoms as we have telling Rush Limbaugh to wear a dunce cap during his radio shows.”
Meanwhile, Democratic Assemblyman Rob Bonta of Oakland had better luck with his bill to distribute condoms in state prisons. The Appropriations Committee gave his AB 999 unanimous approval.
Illinois
Illinois has one day left in its legislative session to pass a bill redefining marriage. The Assembly’s African-American Caucus has demonstrated strong opposition to the Orwellian-named “Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act.” Attorneys from the Thomas More Society warn “Senate Bill 10 provides the worst religious liberty protections of any same-sex marriage bill in the country.” S.B. 10 “would make Illinois the most hostile state in the country to the religious freedoms of people of faith,” said Peter Breen, vice president and senior counsel at the Chicago-based society. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama has a different view. He has weighed in on the bill numerous times, including at a fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee held Wednesday night at the home of his friends Bettylu and Paul Saltzman. “I just want to say for the record it’s something that I deeply support,” Obama said. “I am absolutely convinced it is the right thing to do.”
Louisiana
Telemed abortions may have a limited future in the Pelican State. The state House passed a ban on the procedure by an overwhelming vote of 99-3. S.B. 90, introduced by Republican State Senator Fred Mills of Breaux Bridge, is intended to assure that women who swallow the cocktail of pills that lead to forceful contractions – and often result in an incomplete expulsion of the unborn baby – have adequate supervision. It now goes to the State Senate for final passage.
Wisconsin
Lawmakers in Wisconsin are considering three pro-life bills introduced by one state representative. The measures would respect the consciences of religious employers not to cover abortifacient drugs or contraction in their insurance plans; ban sex-selective abortions; and end taxpayer funding of elective abortion in state employees’ insurance plans. Rep. André Jacque, R-De Pere, introduced all three bills last week. The Assembly Committee on Health held a hearing on the bills Wednesday. In response to an objection from Rep. Erik Severson, R-Star Prarie, Jacque said he would be willing to discuss adding an exception for birth control that was prescribed for non-contraceptive reasons. Many religious employers already have such an exception.
