NC House Committee Approves Mandatory Delay, Biased Counseling Requirements

Women in North Carolina will soon face additional hurdles and a mandatory 24 hour waiting period prior to obtaining an abortion if some state legislators get their way.  HB 854 (a whopping eight page bill) would mandate that physicians read a state-written script and provide biased written materials to a woman 24 hours prior to performing an abortion.  It also requires that women have an ultrasound at least four hours before the procedure and listen to a description of the ultrasound image.   A House committee voted in favor of the bill by a vote of 9-5 after almost two hours of sometimes heated debate. 
 
During debate on the bill, several witnesses in favor of the bill made medically inaccurate statements about the risks of abortion.  They claimed abortion causes breast cancer (no real link exists), mental health problems (again, no evidence) and complications later in pregnancy (you guessed it, not true).  They used these unfounded claims to justify extensive state involvement in the doctor-patient relationship that is not required for any other medical procedure.  

Several people also spoke in opposition to the bill; two in particular stand out.  The first, Heather K., bravely shared with the committee her heartbreaking story of ending her very wanted pregnancy because of fatal condition suffered by her fetus.  She asked committee members to explain to her which requirements found in the bill (a 24 hour delay, a mandated ultrasound four hours prior to the procedure, a requirement that she listen to a description of the ultrasound image, etc.) would have made her excruciatingly difficult choice more “informed.”  The bill does not allow exceptions for cases of fetal anomaly, threats to the health of the woman, or rape or incest (the only exception is for medical emergencies–basically, when the life of a woman is in immediate danger unless the pregnancy is terminated).  Even women in these already difficult and often agonizing circumstances will have to endure the state-mandated lecture and waiting period. 

Representative Alice Bordsen delivered one of the most succinct analyses of the seemingly intractable abortion debate we’ve heard in a long time during her remarks in opposition to the bill.  You should watch it for yourself (her remarks begin at 1:23 and goes until 1:31).  http://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/video/9579661/

Aside from the obvious–mandatory delays are medically unnecessary, abortion providers already adhere to legal and professional informed consent standards, cookie-cutter state-mandated scripts ignore the diversity of experience of women seeking abortions, the best way to reduce the abortion rate is to do something to reduce unintended pregnacy–it’s the underlying assumption of bills like this that really raise our ire.  Bills like HB 854 assume that women who make the decision to have an abortion do so flippantly and thus require the state to step in and delay their access to the procedure.  Nothing could be further from the truth–on average, women wait 10 days between finding out they are pregnant and making an appointment for an abortion.  These bills assume that women wouldn’t choose to have abortions if they just heard a state-mandated script designed to imply that they shouldn’t.  In reality, most women make this sometimes difficult, sometimes easy choice based on what they feel is best for themselves and their families–in fact, the most common reason cited by women for why they chose to have an abortion is concern for existing children.  It’s the assumption, as Representative Bordsen so eloquently pointed out, that left to their own devices women are not capable of making a moral choice, a right choice, an autonomous choice, that should alarm and infuriate each and every woman in the state of North Carolina.

Take Action: If you’d like to tell your Representative how you feel about HB 854, you can do so here.