Indiana Right to Life is applauding the Indiana Senate for passing a bill yesterday that would help ensure abortions are reported when done on teenage girls who are apparently victims of statutory rape.
The Senate approved House Bill 1474 by a 48-0 vote and the bill carries provisions that Indiana’s abortion reporting requirements be amended to require that any abortion done on a girl under the age of 14 be reported to the department of child services within three days of the abortion in order to streamline the reporting of child sexual abuse.
The bill also requires that pregnancy termination reports list the age of the father as another provision to help authorities identify potential cases of child sexual abuse.
Another provision of the bill will create a greater degree of accountability for abortion providers in reporting abortions in accordance with state law by requiring that the date the report was received by the state be included on the report.
Abortions done in Indiana are required to be reported within six months of the abortion, but current Indiana abortion reports have made that provision virtually unenforceable by failing to provide the date on which the report was received by the state. Each failure to report an abortion in Indiana is a Class B misdemeanor.
“These are positive changes that will better facilitate the reporting of child sexual abuse in Indiana while holding abortion providers accountable for timely reporting of abortions,” Indiana Right to Life president Mike Fichter told LifeNews.com.
The bill will now go to Governor Mitch Daniels who is expected to sign the new abortion reporting provisions into law.
Earlier this year, Indiana’s largest abortion business, Planned Parenthood of Indiana, reported 5,580 abortions done in 2010, an increase of more than 2% in the number of surgical and drug-induced abortions it did in 2009. The figure is almost 130 more than the 5,452 reported abortions for 2009. Planned Parenthood of Indiana annually does more than 50% of the total chemical and surgical abortions done in Indiana, when comparing its own figures to those of abortions done annually statewide as shown by the state health department.
The increase in abortions also came despite Planned Parenthood of Indiana closing five centers after an undercover video showed it covering up a potential case of statutory rape.
Last year alone, according to Planned Parenthood’s own annual report, it received more than $363 million in revenue from government grants and contracts. During that same timeframe, it did 324,008 abortions, a 5.8 percent increase from the previous year, which also set a record high at that time.
