New reports indicate doctors at Indiana University and Wishard Hospital have decided to stop doing as many as 70 abortions annually thanks to the state law Governor Mitch Daniels signed de-funding Planned Parenthood.
The law, which has been put on hold while a lawsuit against it moves ahead, revoked taxpayer funding for the abortion business, required abortions practitioners to tell women that life begins at conception, and stopped abortions after 20 weeks based on the notion that unborn child can feel excruciating pain during an abortion. While the bill exempted hospitals, some say it did not exempt the abortion practitioners at the hospitals.
“House bill 1210 has had an impact on our physicians’ ability to provide care to a significant group of patients,” a representative of IU School of Medicine told Fox59.
In a statement, Wishard Hospital said the doctors doing the abortions are the ones making the decision, saying, “Wishard does not make medical decisions. The IU School of Medicine physicians who practice at Wishard made clinical decisions along with their patients based on individual situations and circumstances.”
State Senator Scott Schneider, who sponsored the pro-life provisions, told FOX59 he thinks they were well-founded.
“I think the bill was solid,” he said. “I think the bill was the right thing to do. We based it on good legal and medical information.”
“I don’t understand it,” he added. “We based the law on good scientific fact, we exempted hospitals. We don’t interpret the law the way they (doctors) do and the governor’s office doesn’t interpret the law the way they do.”
The television station says the governor’s office is looking at adding a provision to the law that would exempt doctors at hospitals as well.
Although pro-abortion state Sen. Vi Simpson blamed pro-life advocates for rushing the bill through the legislative process, the Indianapolis Star notes the Indiana State Medical Association did not weigh in on the legislation and took no position against it. Meanwhile, an oncologist with the IU Simon Cancer Center urged lawmakers to remove a provision requiring abortion practitioners to inform women of the link between induced abortions and breast cancer — which they eventually removed.
Yet Elizabeth Ferries-Rowe, chief of obstetrics and gynecology for Wishard, told the newspaper, Daniels had “tied the hands of physicians attempting to provide medically appropriate, evidence-based care in the setting of routine obstetrics and gynecology” in “a politically motivated move to de-fund Planned Parenthood.”
