Oklahoma State House Panel Approves Telling Women of Baby’s Abortion Pain
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
February 15, 2006
Oklahoma City, OK(LifeNews.com) — An Oklahoma state house committee has approved two bills that would help women avoid abortions. One allows women to know about the pain an abortion will cause their unborn child and the other allows them to see an ultrasound of the baby.
They are additions to existing law require abortion businesses to provide women with information about abortion’s risks and alternatives.
“If you’re going to have an abortion, a women needs to have all the information that’s available,” Rep. John Trebilcock, a Republican lawmaker, said, according to the Associated Press.
Other measures the committee approved included requiring parental consent for a girl under the age of 18 to have an abortion and requiring abortion practitioners or doctors treating women who have been injured by an abortion to reporting information regarding the abortions to the state.
The report forms would be sent to the Oklahoma Department of Health and become public record.
The measure is designed to help women who have been victims of a botched abortion and though abortion advocates criticized the extra paperwork, lawmakers supporting the legislation said it wasn’t onerous.
“If it creates additional paperwork, I think it’s a small price to pay for the lives that you save,” said Rep. Ken Miller.
The new bills were announced last week as 200 pro-life advocates delivered roses to lawmakers to mark an annual pro-life tradition.
"It has an impact in the pro-life debate," Shirley Cox of Catholic Charities told AP. "Many women who have had abortions have said: ‘If I had the information I would not have had the abortion.’"
Eusebius Beltran, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City said the rally was "critically important” and urged legislators to "make decisions that are important to the people."
