Arkansas lawmakers filed matching bills in the House and Senate on Thursday requiring a physician to be in the room during a chemical abortion.
Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain Home, filed Senate Bill 53 and Rep. Julie Mayberry, R-Hensley, filed House Bill 1076 to ban the use of telemedicine during abortion procedures, sometimes referred to as webcam abortions. Both said the practice is not currently used by the handful of abortion providers in Arkansas and that the aim is to prevent telemedicine abortions from occurring in the future.
After taking the medication, "there are a lot of times the woman goes home or to an apartment or to a hotel room or whatever, and that's where she has the abortion," Mayberry said. "She's all alone, and if she has a problem, who then does she go see?"
Irvin said Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, which operates in Arkansas, has used telemedicine in other states during abortion procedures using mifepristone, also known as RU-486. Irvin said she's heard accounts of severe complications.
"We're talking about the safety and health of a mother. Bleeding can occur. ... It's a serious procedure, and it needs to be done in the presence of a physician in Arkansas," she said.
Legislative supporters noted that the measure had 16 sponsors in the Senate and 38 in the House, several of them Democrats.
The bills were assigned Thursday to the House and Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor committees and could be discussed as early as next week.
In addition to requiring a physician be in the room during the procedure, the bills require that the doctors make "every reasonable effort" to see the women between 12 and 18 days after the procedure for a follow-up examination. The bill also notes that medical providers who violate the prohibitions, could be sued by the mother or the father of the embryo.
The measure is the first bill by abortion opponents filed during the 90th General Assembly, two years after the Arkansas Legislature passed two of the strictest abortion bans in the country, one prohibiting most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, the other barring most abortions after 12 weeks.
The 12-week ban is currently being challenged in federal appeals court.
The sponsors introduced the telemedicine bill three days before an anti-abortion rally and march being held by Arkansas Right to Life. Gov. Asa Hutchinson is to be the keynote speaker at the Sunday rally. Representatives of the organization said this bill was the group's main legislative focus for the session.
A similar bill was introduced late in 2013 session and never made it out of committee.
Rita Sklar, executive director of the Arkansas Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, described the bill as a solution in search of a problem.
"It's unnecessary and ... obviously, there is one intention and that's to make access to safe, legal abortions more difficult," she said. "It has nothing to do with the safety of the woman, which, of course, we all care about."
Sklar said that medical abortions, like the ones targeted by Sklar, are deemed "extremely safe" by health and professional medical associations. She also said she was not surprised that the legislation included a clause to allow litigation against the service provider.
"That's been the trend of laws restricting abortion for several years: to pretend they're protecting the women and to put fault on and target providers," Sklar said.
But Jerry Cox, director of the Arkansas Family Council, said the bill's having sponsors from both parties shows the intent is to protect women's health.
"I think it shows that for most people, regardless of the procedure, it would give them greater comfort knowing that a licensed physician is there," Cox said. "I would hope there would be pro-choice individuals who would say, 'Yes, I'm pro-choice, but I believe in doing things in a way that is medically safe, that is in the best way possible to protect the health of the mother.'"
At least two other measures restricting abortions have been talked about by legislators, including a restriction to limit the ability of groups that perform abortions to apply for government grants, and a measure requiring more information be given to women in person at least 24 hours before they undergo an abortion procedure. Proposed legislation containing those measures had not been filed as of late Thursday.
NW News on 01/16/2015