March 4, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – As a handful of key pro-life bills are fighting their way to passage on Capitol Hill, pro-life legislators countrywide have mounted a a multi-faceted attack on the abortion industry with a surge of pro-life bills on the state level. Here is a roundup of the latest.
ARIZONA: On Monday, the Arizona House approved two pro-life bills. One would require clinics that provide medical abortions only to conform to regulations intended for surgical abortion centers, including a requirement to offer patients ultrasound images. Another would make donations to Planned Parenthood ineligible for a state income tax credit. Last week, the House approved a separate bill prohibiting race or sex-based abortions.
IDAHO: Another fetal pain bill has received the green light from a state Senate committee.
IOWA: Out of 17 pro-life bills proposed by Republicans in the Iowa House of Representatives, only three have survived committee: a fetal pain bill, a measure blocking state taxpayer dollars for abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood, and a third excluding any abortion-covering insurance policy from participating in the upcoming health insurance exchange.
MICHIGAN: A state Senate panel approved Tuesday a partial-birth abortion ban.
NEBRASKA: A bill to ban private health insurance from covering abortions was approved by the state’s unicameral legislature in a 36-9 vote Wednesday, but will undergo two more rounds of debates and votes before reaching the governor. The measure would also affect policies under the health insurance exchange that is planned under the federal health care law.
OHIO: The speaker-amplified heartbeats of two unborn children provided testimony this week for an Ohio bill that would ban abortion after a child develops a heartbeat, one of five pro-life bills introduced in the General Assembly this year.
OKLAHOMA: Several pro-life bills have passed through committee in the past week, including proposed legislation to define human life as beginning at conception, two bills requiring higher standards for abortion clinics, a measure banning abortion after the fetus is believed to feel pain, and one to eradicate embryonic stem-cell research.
SOUTH DAKOTA: A bill requiring a 72-hour waiting period before abortion was passed Wednesday by the state Senate and sent to Governor Dennis Daugaard, who has indicated support for the bill.
TEXAS: Governor Rick Perry has said he would support a bill requiring women, with their consent, to receive a sonogram 24 hours before an abortion. The bill, which was supported in a preliminary House vote Thursday evening, will be taken up by the Texas House of Representatives for a final vote Monday.
VIRGINIA: Pro-life advocates won a long-awaited victory in the Commonwealth Feb. 24 after the Lieutenant Governor’s favorable vote broke a tie in the Senate over a bill to require abortion clinics to meet hospital-grade regulations.
(Feel free to let us know here of any state legislation missing in this list.)