WISCONSIN: New pro-life law passed – ultrasound

From Citizen Link:

Wisconsin Gov. Signs Pro-Life Bill into Law
by Bethany Monk

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill into law Friday requiring that women seeking abortions be given the opportunity to see their preborn babies via ultrasound. Senate Bill 206, or Sonya’s Law, also requires that an abortionist have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of an abortion facility.

“Sonya’s Law will empower women to make truly informed decisions regarding how they will proceed with their pregnancies and will protect the lives of women who experience complications after their abortions,” said Wisconsin Right to Life Legislative Director Susan Armacost.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and Affiliated Medical Services announced plans to file suit against the law. [Whaddya know.]

This announcement is no surprise to anyone, Armacost said.

“It appears that the court challenge will focus on the hospital admitting privileges,” she explained. “Apparently, Wisconsin’s abortion clinics don’t believe their abortionists need to have hospital privileges at a local hospital within 30 miles of their clinic — or anywhere at all.

Laws requiring hospital admitted privileges have been enacted in North Dakota, Alabama and Mississippi, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion organization.

Currently, when a woman in Wisconsin experiences life-threatening complications after an abortion, the abortion seller sends to her a hospital alone. She must then explain her medical issues to the emergency room staff.

The abortionist who performed the abortion is nowhere to be seen,” Armacost explained.  “This deplorable situation must change.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Learn more about SB 206.

Read the Guttmacher Institute’s “State Policies in Brief: An Overview of Abortion Laws.”

UPDATE:

From Alliance Alert/AP:

AP: A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Monday evening to block enforcement of a new Wisconsin law that bans doctors who lack admitting privileges at nearby hospitals from performing abortions. | Opinion and Order (July 8, 2013) | ACLU press release announcing the filing and complaint.

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6 Comments

  1. Giuseppe says:

    I strongly disagree with the ultrasound requirement. Open acceptance of a legislator-decreed edict requiring certain medical tests is a full-throated endorsement of legislative government’s intrusion into health care. There is no medical necessity to require an ultrasound prior to an abortion. A legislative body mandating a medical procedure (which I trust the state will pay for at abortion clinics) is never necessary. I would not trust my state representative or state senator to even opine about my doctor’s visit, let alone require tests. This sets a horrible precedent. Plus, the fetus is 2 inches long in the first trimester. For every life it saves, I suspect it will result in the realization of many ‘mothers’ that ‘it’s not a baby, it’s smaller than a shredded wheat.’ If you want to hear a heartbeat, you will hear your child’s heartbeat. If you want an abortion, you will hear the beating of a tiny parasite.

    The meat of this bill, and the reason it was stayed, is the requirement that abortion clinic physicians have admitting privileges. For every heart-beat that people claim will save lives, it is the regulatory nature of a clinic as an outpatient surgical facility that will close down clinics. There is no true constitutional objection of state laws requiring credentialing of physicians at various facilities, knowing that most physicians will not botch enough abortions to admit enough patients each year to a hospital to merit admitting privileges. (Most hospitals require a minimum number of admissions each year to cover the cost of credentialing a physician.)

    While Father Z and others are swayed by heartbeats, it is the regulatory paperwork that will close clinics. It’s not the ultrasound which will save lives; it’s the paperwork.

  2. Things are beginning to build to a crescendo in this country.

  3. Referring to the restraining order . . . seems that our nation takes one step forward to promoting justice only to have in the next following hours, a judge, or panel of judges who thwart progress and true rational justice.

  4. SKAY says:

    I wonder who appointed this judge.

    We are getting ready to have the government and the corrupt IRS all over our health care, Giuseppe.

    Ultrasounds can make a huge difference–and the abortion industry knows that.

  5. Back pew sitter says:

    I wish we would stop the nonsense of calling laws like this ultrasound law a ‘pro-life law.’ It isn’t a pro-life law at all, but merely a regulation which enables a woman to qualify for an abortion. Yes, some may not abort after seeing the ultrasound and so some lives may be spared – but the ends do not justify the means. Any pro-lifer voting for or advocating support for the law becomes implicit in the regulatory process of abortion.

    In fact, laws like this may make the situation worse for the unborn, because it suggests that abortion is being well-regulated and women aren’t having abortions ‘lightly’; this could be presented as a moderate, compromised position to be regarded as better than the ‘extremism’ of either the pro-life or the ultra-‘pro-choice’ positions.

    No true pro-lifer should agree with regulating abortion and they should recognise this sort of regulation law for what it is – and have nothing to do with it.

  6. Vox Laudis says:

    Fr. Z, could you comment on @Back pew sitter’s take on what I have heard many pro-life organizations (including Catholic ones) consider part of an ‘incremental solution’?

    Here in North Carolina, the General Assembly is working on passing a bill that includes absolute conscience protections for all persons working in healthcare, so that they may refuse to participate in an abortion; extends the health regulations governing ambulatory surgery centers to abortion clinics (several of which have recently failed even the low-bar of health inspections required presently); requires that a doctor performing a surgical or medical abortion be present the entire time; and requires that a doctor performing any type of abortion have admitting privileges at a local hospital. There is also a provision that no county or city government is permitted to offer abortion coverage in their workers’ health plan that is greater than that offered in the State Employees health plan (abortion only in the case of rape, incest, documented life-threatening condition of the mother).

    Certainly none of those are the perfect step of outlawing abortion, period, but they are incremental steps to safeguard the religious liberty of all persons and to further regulate abortuaries to at least the level of safety of other surgical centers. The pro-abort faction is screaming that these legislations, particularly the physical presence requirement and admitting privileges, will ‘illegally limit access to abortion’ and that the regulations are not aimed at protecting women’s health but making abortions harder to get. 40 Days for Life has been quite effective in the state, so they are scared.

    Since it is obvious that pro-lifers cannot just do away with abortion (even with a majority in both houses and the same party holding the governorship), why is it sinful to support incremental steps, i.e., that which we can accomplish? This is what I am interpreting @back pew sitter to say with “Any pro-lifer voting for or advocating support for the law becomes implicit in the regulatory process of abortion.” (Perhaps he meant ‘complicit’?)

    Just trying to form the conscience correctly, here. Thank you, Father.

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