NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota : Get Involved : Act Now!

As the 2009 Legislative Session heads into its final days we are looking at the period in which anti-choice Legislators try to introduce amendments that are aimed to impede reproductive health care for women, place roadblocks before providers, and attempts to restrict medical decisions that are best left to a woman and her doctor.

Here’s the 2009 anti-choice legislative wish list:

SF 904/HF 1057: Admitting Privileges Requirement for Abortion Providers

This legislation would require physicians who perform abortion services in Minnesota to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 20 miles from the clinic in which services have been provided.

This legislation not only impedes a woman’s access to comprehensive reproductive health care and a physician’s ability to perform it; it is unnecessary as every abortion clinic in the state has emergency admitting privileges at a nearby hospital to ensure that patients receive the utmost care and treatment.

Requiring AMA and Board certified physicians to procure admitting privileges to specific hospitals is a barrier to comprehensive reproductive health care services for both patient and provider.

This is yet another unnecessary regulation, as this procedure is no longer used in Minnesota.

In addition, medical providers are better able to establish what procedures to use in their practice of medicine. Should a particular procedure become outdated, or newer and safer procedures are available, the physician and Medical Associations are better equipped to determine proper course of treatment.

SF 906/ HF 1059: Challenge to the Minnesota Supreme Court re: Medicaid Funding for Abortion Services

The proposed legislation conflicts with the 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court decision in Doe v. Gomez, which ruled that state officials cannot selectively cover pregnancy-related services by funding prenatal care and childbirth expenses while simultaneously refusing to cover abortion services.

The proposed legislation conflicts with the Gomez decision on a constitutional level, inevitably forcing the courts to re-examine this issue and forces judges to go on record with regard to abortion policy. This would lead to a politicization of the Minnesota judiciary, limiting its ability to remain independent, maintain integrity and provide due process.

The purpose of SF 216/HF 290 is to impose unnecessary and burdensome regulations on abortion providers—but not other medical professionals—in an attempt to drive doctors out of practice and make abortion care more expensive and difficult to obtain. Such proposals are known as TRAP laws: Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers.

Additionally, this legislation offers no significant improvement over existing law and in fact is redundant and extraneous. Existing Minnesota Statute 145.30 – 145.32 and Rule 4642.1000 provide a clear guideline for the retention of medical records. We can not envision benefits to a patient or the healthcare industry by requiring an additional eight year retention period as outlined in these bills.

The purpose of SF 1073/HF 1196 is not to reduce the number of abortions in the state. Rather, this bill is designed to identify legislative targets for electoral defeat, place one more impediment in front of women considering whether to terminate a pregnancy and force doctors to meet impossibly vague and highly bureaucratic standards. This is an attempt focus on divisive wedge issues and propose unconstitutional measures that do nothing to improve the lives of women and their families, or to reduce the rate of unintended pregnancy.

Not only is this legislation unnecessary, it could, unfortunately, increase the risk of harm to women rather than prevent it. In the state of Minnesota, all abortion providers go to great lengths to ensure that patients are voluntarily terminating a pregnancy and are not being pressured in any way to do so. Pre-procedure counseling sessions address this question specifically.

Additionally, a posted sign like the one proposed would actually further endanger women who are experiencing domestic violence. As the dynamics of domestic violence are based in control and power, such a posted sign serves only to further empower the abuser while simultaneously weakening the resolve of the victim.

Please take this time to contact your Legislators and tell them to vote NO on any anti-choice amendments. To contact your Legislators simply go to http://www.leg.state.mn.us/leg/faq/faqtoc.asp?id=47 where you can find your Legislators, read tips on contacting them, and look up bills.