Late-Night Hearing on Abortion Bills: Majorities Matter

[TexasTowelie]

The Durango Herald’s Luke Perkins reports on the long, drawn-out death last night in the Colorado House Health, Insurance and Environment Committee of Republican-sponsored bills to restrict abortion rights–bills that were always going to die in the Democratic-controlled House, but highlight the new threat to abortion rights from a federal government more hostile than ever to them:

House Bill 1086, which would mandate providing women information about ways to reverse chemical abortions, was heard by the House Health, Insurance and Environment Committee.

After nearly five hours of testimony, the bill died on a 6-5 party-line vote, with Democrats disputing the viability of research backing the reversal option.

Rep. Susan Lontine, D-Denver, said the lack of scientific support was a serious obstacle for mandating that information. “We searched for data supporting this, and the only thing we could find was a case study that had six cases in it,” Lontine said.

The “abortion reversal” push is a relatively new attempt to shoehorn in obstructions to abortion rights, and if anything has even less scientific backing than the usual fare:

In recent years, the rise of medical abortion has led some anti-abortion activists and lawmakers to claim that the process can be reversed with an emergency treatment after the first pill. But even if they succeed at turning that myth into law, the truth is that science is not on their side…

It is impossible to find reliable sources for the notion that medical abortions can be reversed. The Louisiana bill’s sponsor, Rep. Frank Hoffman, told WWL that he heard about it from George Delgado, the medical director of an organization called Abortion Pill Reversal (APR), at a Right to Life Conference in New Orleans.

- See more at: http://www.coloradopols.com/diary/91833/late-night-hearing-on-abortion-bills-majorities-matter