Colorado Senate Committee Rejects Bill Giving Women Abortion-Ultrasound Info 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
February 12, 2008
Denver, CO (LifeNews.com) — A Colorado state Senate committee has rejected a bill that would give women the kind of information about fetal development that abortion business don’t normally provide. The Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee defeated a bill that would give women the option of seeing an ultrasound of their unborn child before an abortion.
Pro-life groups have credited ultrasound technology for saving lives and encouraging the public to be more open to the pro-life perspective.
In pregnancy centers, ultrasounds regularly convince most women considering an abortion to seek alternatives and Sen. David Schultheis, the sponsor of Senate Bill 95 hoped his law would do the same thing.
“Basically this is a bill, as Hillary Clinton would say, to make abortion safe, legal and rare,” Schultheis told the committee, according to the Grand Junction Sentinel.
But the panel voted down his bill on a party-line 3-2 vote calling it a "burden" to inform women about the development of their unborn child.
During the hearing, Planned Parenthood representatives claimed they provided women with this kind of information.
However, Jim Pfaff, the director of the Colorado Family Institute, told LifeNews.com that’s not always the case.
“The real story of these hearings was the contradiction of Planned Parenthood’s testimony," he said.
"They claim that they provide the ultrasound option for all of their patients. Yet we had women here today, many of whom had multiple abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics who were never offered this option," he said.
In addition to providing the ultrasound information, the bill would have given women the option of giving the baby anesthesia before the abortion.
Women would be able to sign a consent form indicating they had received the option of seeing the ultrasound and making sure abortion practitioners follow the law.
Jennifer Karska, executive director of the Colorado Catholic Conference, testified for the bill and said, “By voting for this, you are giving women true choice of whether to proceed with an abortion by allowing them to view an ultrasound."
