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Saturday, March 03, 2007
Ind. Law - "Birth-control debate sinks abortion bill"
Billl Ruthhart of the Indianapolis Star has an interesting story today - some quotes:
A debate over the definition of contraceptives has killed a bill that would have made Indiana abortion law among the strictest in the nation.
As originally proposed, Senate Bill 135 would have required Indiana doctors to tell a woman seeking an abortion that the fetus might feel pain and that life begins at conception.But, while the bill was in committee, a sentence was inserted that defined contraception as the "use of a drug or device that has been approved to prevent pregnancy by the Federal Food and Drug Administration."
The federal government has defined contraception as anything that prevents pregnancy before a fertilized egg can attach itself to the uterine wall.
Indiana Right to Life and conservative Senate Republicans argue that life begins sooner -- at conception -- and that contraceptives should be defined as drugs and devices that prevent fertilization.
That difference became significant after Sen. Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville, persuaded a Senate health committee to include the federal definition of contraception in SB 135.
The change was opposed by the bill's author, Sen. Patricia L. Miller, R-Indianapolis, but she nonetheless agreed to it because the legislation would not have made it out of committee without the contraception language.
Miller's only other option was to try to gather enough votes in the full Senate to remove the contraception provision from the legislation. This week, she realized she didn't have enough votes from fellow Republicans to do so.
"We didn't seem to be able to get a consensus," Miller said. "The more I tried to work it out, the more complicated it got, so I decided the best thing to do for now was to not move the bill."
The legislation's death marks a major victory for Planned Parenthood of Indiana, which had lobbied aggressively against the bill. * * *
Senate President Pro Tempore David C. Long, R-Fort Wayne, said the contraception and abortion issues should be handled independently. "I would have liked to see this bill move forward," he said. "The contraceptive issue is a separate issue."
Simpson disagreed. "They are the same issue," she said. "When you start talking about when life begins in the abortion statutes, then you put women who use birth control into a situation where they may have created an abortion.
"I wanted to make sure that this abortion statute would never conflict with our access to contraceptives. That's all I was trying to do."
Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 3, 2007 10:01 AM
Posted to Indiana Law