KS House gives 1st round nod to Abortion Clinic Regulation

Rep. Steve Huebert

The Kansas House Wednesday gave first-round approval for Abortion Clinic Licensure, H Sub SB 36.  The final vote will take place Thursday morning and the bill will then head to the Senate for a vote “to concur”. UPDATE, Mar.31: Final vote passes the bill 97-26.

In 2003 and 2005, then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius chose to favor the abortion lobby, rather than women, by vetoing abortion clinic licensure bills nearly identical to H Sub SB 36.

This House vote shows legislators realize women need protection from abortion profiteers, because abortion clinics have shown, time and again, they won’t police themselves.  Rep. Steve Huebert (R-Valley Center), who carried the bill, referenced the Philadelphia “House of Horrors” Gosnell clinic and the appalling Kansas City, Kansas, Rajanna clinic (now closed).

H Sub SB 36 requires a license to be secured by any hospital, ambulatory surgical center (ASC), or physician office that performs abortions EXCEPT those done to prevent the death of the mother.

If a state-licensed hospital or ASC treats life-threatening ectopic (tubal) pregnancy or performs the very rare abortions required to save the mother’s physical health, it does not need not get an abortion license.

As in the earlier bills Sebelius vetoed, H Sub SB 36 requires that KDHE and appropriate professional regulatory boards be notified of maternal abortion-related deaths (within one business day) and maternal abortion-related injuries (within 10 days).

H Sub SB 36 is essentially the legislation vetoed by Sebelius– which had been drafted using the published standards for clinics belonging to the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood.  H Sub SB 36 adds a few additional protections:

• KDHE will conduct two annual facility inspections, one scheduled and one unannounced (veterinarians and restaurants overseen by KDHE only get unannounced inspections);

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Claim of 5 deaths by KS abortionists examined

abortion safety skewed by CDC missing death & injury data

Kansas abortionist, Herbert Hodes, has retracted his testimony to the Kansas House Federal State Affairs Committee about 5 deaths having occurred to women undergoing abortion in Kansas in the past 5 years.

However, there HAVE been at least 5 deaths at the hands of Kansas Healing Arts Board-licensed abortionists, although 3 of them did not occur on Kansas soil.  Kansans for Life has copies of the

lawsuits filed in all 5 deaths, and the allegations show an infuriating and inexcusable disregard for professional protocols and equipment.

The Kansas House and Senate will imminently vote upon a clinic licensure bill, now numbered ‘H sub SB 36’. This bill would provide state oversight to abortion businesses that have shown that, time after time, they will not police themselves.

In a March 15 letter sent to the committee, Hodes wrote, “I have researched this question and I now feel that in the more that in 30 years that abortion has been legal in Kansas only 2 deaths have occurred.”   Since he gave no names, we can only assume he referred to the publicly-known deaths in Kansas of

1. Erna Fisher, 18, in Dennis Miller’s Kansas City abortion clinic March 3, 1988, and
2. Christin Gilbert, 19,  in George Tiller’s Wichita clinic, Jan.13, 2005.

However, 3 other abortion deaths occurred at the hand of Kansas-licensed Robert Crist, a Planned Parenthood abortionist since 1980:

1. Diane Boyd, 19, at the St. Louis, MO, Planned Parenthood on Oct. 23, 1981;
2. Latachie  Veal, 17, after a late-term abortion at the Houston, TX, West Loop Clinic on Nov.2, 1991;
3. Nichole  Williams, 22, from her abortion at St. Louis Planned Parenthood on April 25, 1997.

We can’t know with any certainty the total number of women who have died from abortion by Kansas-licensed practitioners.  We would like to share a little about these women who died,

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KS abortion ban based on science of pain capability

Preemie pain protocols prove unborn peers feel pain

The Kansas House and Senate is to be applauded for passage of HB 2218, the Pain-capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

This is historic and sound legislation that is already law in Nebraska without court challenge.  HB 2218 asserts Kansas has a compelling interest in protecting the pain-capable unborn child at 22 weeks gestation (20 weeks post-fertilization).

In a document accepted as expert by a federal court, Dr. Kanwaljeet (Sunny) Anand, arguably the world’s foremost pain researcher, said, “It is my opinion that the human fetus possesses the ability to experience pain from 20 weeks of gestation, if not earlier, and that pain perceived by a fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by newborns or older children.”  The explanation is that the human unborn child,

between 20-30 weeks gestation, has more surface pain receptors per square inch than any other time in life, while the system of pain suppression is not operating fully until 40 week gestation–or after!

At the time of the Roe v Wade ruling, our understanding of pain was so primitive that newborns undergoing surgery did so without anesthesia, or pain medication, receiving only a paralytic to keep them immobile!

The unborn child did not exist as a patient in the early 70’s. In the late 70’s ultrasound gave a ‘window to the womb’ and in the 80’s neonatology and fetal anesthesiology became medical specialties.

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KS Senate passes protections for teens & 20-week unborn

Both bills edit old statutes, replacing the term 'fetus' with Unborn Child.

The Kansas Senate today ushered in a new pro-life era by advancing two significant measures that Gov. Sam Brownback is anxious to sign into law.

The landmark Pain-capable Unborn Child Protection Act, HB 2218, and the  Abortion Reporting Accuracy and Parental Rights Act, HB 2035, each passed 24-15.  Both measures acquired minor amendments on the Senate floor and will require a quick assent  by the House, when it returns to work Monday.

UPDATE Mar. 29: House concurs on HB 2035 by100-22 and HB 2218 by 94-28.

Sen. Terry Bruce (R-Hutchinson) did a top notch job leading the defense of HB 2218 in floor debate,  citing

• the 1987 ground breaking evidence published in  the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine,
• a ‘litany’ of consistent scientific studies after that, and
• the 2004 U.S. Dept. of Justice testimony of top researchers.
  

Bruce added “the smartest man he knew, one of only ten neuro-radiologists in the country” supports the science of the bill that unborn children aged 20 weeks post-conception (22 weeks gestation) can acutely experience pain.

Speaking in support of HB 2218 were Senators Julia Lynn (R-Olathe), Ty Masterson (R-Andover) and Garrett Love (R-Garden City. Sen. Jeff King (R-Independence)

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Senate cmte passes Unborn pain bill & reporting/consent bill

Possibly emboldened by the events in Wisconsin, five members of the Senate Judiciary committee played hooky on Monday to deny a quorum needed to vote out pro-life bills– but citizen uproar forced them back to the table in the evening.

After the Senate recessed for the day, Judiciary Chair Tim Owens (R-Overland Park) reconvened the committee and they voted out to the full Senate, 2 of 3 pro-life measures that received a hearing last Thursday.  The first bill passed was HB 2035, Late- term Reporting Accuracy & Parental Rights Act, which

• contains twice-vetoed provisions to curb  inauthentic statistical reporting by abortionists;
• strengthens parental involvement in teen abortions from notice by mail to signed consent;
• requires parental waiver protocols by courts to provide minors with better assessment,  and sexual abuse reporting.

The second bill, HB 2218, the Pain-capable Unborn Child Protection Act, will ban abortion past 22 weeks gestation (20 weeks post-fertilization).

The bill had passed 91-30 in the House but narrowly escaped major undoing by Sen. Laura Kelly(D-Topeka), under the tutelage of  Rep. Barb Bollier (R-Mission Hills);  both are fierce abortion supporters. 

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Disabled unborn children no defense for abortion

Tiffany Campbell

Abortion-supporters Planned Parenthood, Kansas N.O.W. and TrustWomen (a Washington D.C. Political Action Group founded by George Tiller’s long-time lobbyist Julie Burkhart) oppose HB 2218, the Pain-capable Unborn Child Protection Act.  HB 2218 will ban abortions after 22 weeks gestation because of the excruciating pain felt by the unborn at this age.

Abortion supporters cannot seriously challenge the data so they falsely claim this bill interferes with medical treatment of high risk pregnancies, even with specialists denying it.

Legislators are being warned not to intrude on the “rights” of parents of unborn children with disabilities to abort them past the midterm of pregnancy–a “prenatal euthanasia.“ One Kansas legislator, Rep. Barbara Bollier (R-Mission Hills), strongly defends this position by distributing  a drawing of a baby without a brain!

We have great compassion for parents of unborn babies diagnosed with lethal problems, but we must affirm the right to life of those children–no matter how sad and short their days on earth.

As similar “unborn Pain” bills are moving forward in other states, abortion-supporting groups are commanding the media to focus on “sad stories” of unhealthy pregnancies. For several years,

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Specialist defends Neb. Unborn Pain law as good medicine

Planned Parenthood got big media attention in Iowa for a Nebraska couple who suffered an early pregnancy loss, and then, while still mourning, complained that a 2010 prolife Nebraska law hurt the medical management of their pregnancy. (Iowa and 8 other states, including Kansas, are trying to pass that Nebraska law.)

On Monday, Dr. Sean P. Kenney rebuts that the Nebraska Pain-capable Unborn Child Protection Act negatively affected them.  Dr. Kenney is an OB/GYN maternal-fetal specialist who testified in support of the law.

Dr. Kenney reveals that this couple has been victimized by inadequate medical counsel, aggravated by politicizing a new law that Planned Parenthood wants stopped in every state.

Kenney writes,”Although my heart goes out to the Deavers, as a maternal-fetal medicine specialist who has cared for several patients in similar situations and who testified on behalf of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, I think it is imperative to make clear that their understanding of the facts is wrong.

Danielle Deaver was diagnosed with pre-viable premature rupture of the membranes (Pre-viable PPROM) at 22 4/7 weeks. When I was a resident at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, patients with Pre-viable PPROM could not be aborted because it was not considered to be a lethal condition and, without clinical infection, was not considered a significant risk to the mother.

An abortion that late in pregnancy, without a significant

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