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Pro-Abortion Groups Fighting Michigan Ban on Coerced Abortion

NOW says bill’s proposed 24 hour waiting period is a violation of women’s rights

By Hilary White

LANSING, December 13, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Abortion advocates are trying to halt the passage of a set of five bills, collectively called the Coercive Abortion Bills, that aim to protect women from coerced abortion. The bills are being considered by the Michigan Senate Health Policy Committee, having already passed the House this summer.

The bills have enraged the Michigan branch of the National Organization of Women who say the bill’s proposed 24 hour waiting period is a violation of women’s rights. Kary Moss, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan wrote on the NOW website that if Michigan lawmakers want to help women “avoid pregnancy,” they ought to subsidize contraceptives. Her only suggestion to address the problem of coerced abortion was to recommend increasing funding for battered women’s shelters

The bills however, were crafted after statistics and stories of women and girls being forced or threatened to have abortions, often by their families, came to light.

One bill, HB 5879, requires a physician to perform a Coercion and Intimidation Screening and include in the acknowledgement and consent form “I understand that it is illegal for anyone to coerce or intimidate me into seeking an abortion.”

Another lays down the screening stipulations which include a requirement that the physician give the patient information on how to contact law enforcement and domestic violence shelters if she says she is being intimidated or coerced. Child Protective Services must be contacted if the patient is under 18 and says she is being coerced or intimidated.

HB 5882 establishes criminal penalties. If the pregnant woman is under the age of 18 and the perpetrator of the coercion is the adult father of the unborn child, the punishment would be imprisonment for not more than 1 year or a fine of not more than $5000, or both.

The bills’ definition of “coercion” includes, “physical abuse, stalking, filing or threat to file for divorce, withdrawal or threat to withdraw financial support, change or threaten to change an existing housing arrangement, terminate or change in conditions of employment.”

The Michigan bills recognize that women who abort their children are often under pressure from family members, boyfriends or husbands. An even more sinister side is the evidence that shows the abortion industry is colluding with adult men who sexually abuse young girls and use the local abortion facility to cover up their misdeeds.

Elliot Institute Director Dr. David Reardon co-authored a Medical Science Monitor study of American and Russian women that found that 64 percent of American women who had abortions reported that they felt pressured to abort by others.

Michigan Right to Life notes that statistics show that the leading cause of death of pregnant women is homicide. One study published in 2005 in the American Journal of Public Health showed that pregnant black women are up to 7 times more likely to die by violence than white women.

Recent news reports have spurred on the passage of the bills. In one case in the state of New York a pregnant teenage girl was forced by her mother to drink turpentine in an effort to abort the child.

This September, a Maine couple was charged with kidnapping when they attempted to force their pregnant daughter to have an abortion across state lines. Nicholas and Lola Kampf had tied their daughter up in the back of their car and the girl was able to call 911 when she asked to be released to use the bathroom.

In November, news reports carried the story of a teenage girl who was taken to an Illinois abortion facility by the man who raped her.

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Special Report Exposes America's Forced Abortion Epidemic
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/sep/06092902.html

Coercive Abortion Studies
From Michigan Right to  Life (Adobe required):
http://www.rtl.org/html/pdf/Studies_Stories2.pdf

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