ST. PAUL, Minn. – On Apr. 18, the Minnesota Senate passed a bill on a 43-23 vote, requiring centers that conduct 10 or more abortions per month to be licensed and inspected by the state.
“We haven’t had a good vote in the Minnesota Senate like this in a long time on an issue like abortion,” said Sen. Claire Robling, the bill’s sponsor. “I worked very hard to make this a reasonable bill. I think when the public realizes that we have no health department inspection or licensing of abortion clinics, they are shocked. They just assume that they would be. It’s an invasive procedure, and there are so many risks.”
Senate File 1921 was written in response to an egregious situation drug-enforcement officers found in Pennsylvania in 2011. Kermit Gosnell’s Philadelphia abortion clinic had gone uninspected for years — but when officers investigating him for illegally distributing prescription drugs finally entered his building, they found fetal remains in trash bags, unsanitary equipment, and a facility that reeked of cat urine.
Gosnell was charged with eight counts of murder – seven in connection with babies whose birth he induced in the last trimester, then killed by severing their spinal cords with scissors, and one in connection with a woman who died after being given too much Demerol, a painkiller. Authorities said he also spread venereal disease among patients through unsterilized equipment.
“We should never allow that to happen. This is for prevention of situations like that,” Robling said.
SF 1921 is on its way to the House of Representatives.
Mississippi Governor aigns Abortionist-Certification Bill
JACKSON, Miss. – Gov. Phil Bryant signed a bill Apr. 16 making Mississippi the first state to require abortionists to be board-certified obstetrician-gynecologists with admitting privileges at hospitals close to their clinics.
The state has only one abortion clinic – the Jackson Women’s Health Organization – where only one of the four doctors on staff has admitting privileges at a local hospital. It could be forced to close under the new law.
“I believe that all human life is precious, and as governor, I will work to ensure that the lives of the born and unborn are protected in Mississippi,” Bryant said when signing the bill, HB 1390.
The Jackson Women’s Health Organization is run by Diane Derzis, who owns several abortion businesses in four states – including New Woman All Women in Birmingham, Ala. That clinic will close in mid-May after the Alabama Department of Public Health cited it for 76 deficiencies, including a series of botched abortions that resulted in multiple patients being hospitalized in one day this January.
The law takes effect July 1. Derzis has said that if she can’t comply with the new law, she intends to sue to stop it.
Global Warming? Polar
Bears say bring it on
LONDON –You may have heard that global warming is destroying polar bear habitat and the population of the bears is falling dramatically. Only problem is: It’s not true, at least the polar bear part of that equation.
According to an article in the Globe and Mail newspaper, a recent study has produced a “healthy polar bear count [that] confounds doomsayers.” According to the article, “The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher. That’s 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears’ ability to hunt. The Hudson Bay region, which straddles Nunavut and Manitoba, is critical because it’s considered a bellwether for how polar bears are doing elsewhere in the Arctic
Arizona Governor Signs
More Pro-Family Legislation
PHONEIX, Ariz. – Family advocates had a lot to celebrate on Apr. 18, when Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law three pieces of legislation protecting life, religious freedom and taxpayer funding of arts programs.
Under an amendment attached to HB 2265, no state dollars will go toward funding obscene art. HB 2627 decrees that abortion providers cannot qualify for a tax credit given to the working poor, and SB 1359 bans anyone in the state from filing a “wrongful cause of life” lawsuit against doctors who fail to diagnose birth defects in preborn children that might lead parents to have abortions. Brewer also signed a bill allowing schools to offer an elective course on the Bible as literature
These briefs come from World Magazine’s World News Briefs. Reprinted with permission.