2 abortion-cutoff bills head for House votes

Speaker settles panel’s roll-call vote dispute

Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Conway, right, keeps track of a roll call vote on his bill dealing with abortion during a meeting of the House Committee on Public Health, Welfare and Labor at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark., as Rep. Ann V. Clemmer, R-Benton,  listens Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013. The committee met earlier in the day when a voice vote was taken on the measure but a roll call was requested by the committee's vice chair. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)
Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Conway, right, keeps track of a roll call vote on his bill dealing with abortion during a meeting of the House Committee on Public Health, Welfare and Labor at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark., as Rep. Ann V. Clemmer, R-Benton, listens Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013. The committee met earlier in the day when a voice vote was taken on the measure but a roll call was requested by the committee's vice chair. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

— Two bills aimed at limiting abortions in Arkansas are on their way to the House floor after procedural wrangling in a House committee almost held one back Tuesday.

Both bills - one bans most abortions after 12 weeks, the other outlaws most abortions after 20 weeks - could make it to the House floor for a vote as early as Thursday.

Senate Bill 194, which restricts abortion after 12 weeks, passed the House Public Health, Labor and Welfare Committee twice - first Tuesday morning and again in the afternoon.

During the committee meeting, Chairman John Burris, R-Harrison, called for a voice vote on the bill, declared that the bill had passed, and then called on a lawmaker to present another piece of legislation. When asked to hold a roll-call vote, Burris said it was too late because the committee had moved on.

Committees commonly hold voice votes with the chairman deciding whether a bill passes or fails. Members may also request a roll-call vote. It takes 11 votes to get a bill out of a House committee.

Tuesday afternoon, after House Speaker Davy Carter intervened, the committee met a second time and held a roll-call vote to pass the bill 11-5.

Burris said he knew how the vote would go based on previous votes on the bill. The bill has been amended three times.

The bill would require women seeking an abortion to first get an abdominal ultrasound to determine whether the fetus has a heartbeat. Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Bigelow, has amended the original bill to allow abortions when the fetus has a “highly lethal fetal disorder” and likely won’t survive long after birth, and in cases of rape or incest.

Burris said: “It was just, we’ve heard this bill a lot. It was just kind of a desire to speed this process along. I deduced, I think accurately, that based on the vote on Thursday, the votes were here to pass the bill.”

But committee Vice Chairman Reginald Murdock, DMarianna, said Burris abused his authority as chairman when he ignored Democrats’ request for a formal vote tally.

“That’s what you’re always afraid of when people get in leadership positions, that they will just abuse that position. The rules of the committee clearly say … if the voice vote is questioned or challenged, the integrity of the body, the integrity of this institution says that it goes to a vote,” Murdock said.

Carter, R-Cabot, told reporters after the House adjourned that he reviewed video of the committee meeting and decided that the “pretty close timing” between the voice vote and Burris moving on warranted the bill being sent back to committee.

“There’s going to be some gray area. It didn’t take me long to figure out we needed to send that back to the committee to make sure we upheld the integrity of the process,” Carter said.

The speaker would not say if Burris acted inappropriately by denying the roll-call vote.

Two Democrats, Reps. Butch Wilkins of Bono and Rep. Chris Richey of Helena-West Helena, joined the nine Republican committee members to move the bill out of committee.

“A lot of Democrats are mad at me because I voted for some pro-life bills. Sometimes you give your word and you have to vote according to how you give your word,” Wilkins said. “We can’t help who we are. I can’t help who I am, and I’ve always been pro-life, I’ve never told anybody I was anything but pro-life.”

Richey, a pastor at the nondenominational Delta Fellowship Church in Helena-WestHelena, said he voted with his conscience.

Of the 4,033 abortions that occurred in Arkansas in 2011, 815 occurred at or after 12 weeks, according to the state Department of Health. That means if Rapert’s bill were already in place, it would have affected about 20 percent of abortions in Arkansas in 2011.

If approved by the House,Rapert’s bill would return to the Senate.

The second bill, House Bill 1037 by Rep. Andy Mayberry, R-Hensley, needs one more vote by the House before it would move on to the governor’s desk.

It bans abortion at 20 weeks, except in cases of rape or incest, or to save the mother’s life or prevent catastrophic injury to her health or bodily functions. The proposal prohibits abortions, even if the fetus has catastrophic health problems.

Rita Sklar, executive director of the Arkansas chapter of the American Civil LibertiesUnion, said the bill doesn’t go far enough to address exceptions for when the mother’s health is in danger, stressing that many health problems may not be severe enough to be considered catastrophic, such as a heart condition or diabetes.

“There are many medical conditions which are not black and white but do not result in permanent and irreversible damage of a major bodily function and they do not result necessarily in death,” Sklar said. “Medical concerns are a continuum. Whether or not a woman has a heart condition and an abortion needs tobe performed immediately to preserve the woman’s life is a judgment call for the doctor.”

She said the bill doesn’t consider women “an equal human being to the fetus.”

Mayberry did not respond to Sklar’s complaint about the bill. He has said he is satisfied with the bill how it is.

Mayberry’s bill would have affected 48 abortions, or 1.2 percent of the 4,033 Arkansas abortions in 2011.

Opponents of the legislation have said both bills, if they become law, would violate federal court precedent about when and how states can restrict abortion, and the ACLU has threatened to sue.

Supporters say they are moving the anti-abortion cause forward.

“It’s a good bill, saves some babies’ lives,” Mayberry said.

Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat, has said he is concerned about whether both bills are constitutional. He would not say whether he has decided to veto the bills.

“These folks need to vote up or down without necessarily any cover from me. They need to vote the way they want to vote, and they will, and then I’ll do what I think is appropriate,” he said.

Sean Beherec of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette contributed to this report.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/20/2013

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