Proposals to restrict access to abortion, but not ban it, have advanced in the Montana Legislature. A legal challenge to a state Supreme Court precedent protecting access to abortion is still pending.
The package of anti-abortion bills includes House Bill 625that would create a felony offense for providers who fail care for infants born after an abortion. The protection exists in federal law and infanticide is a crime.
Republican Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe of Billings says the bill is different from LR-131, a ballot initiative with similar language that failed during the last election. She says her bill, unlike the initiative, includes protections for families who do not want medical intervention for infants born with fatal conditions.
“Every human life is valuable, precious and worthy of full legal representation,” Seekins-Crowe said.
Democratic Rep. Laurie Bishop of Livingston spoke in opposition to the bill, saying it may lead to an exodus of health care providers nervous about the criminal penalty, and that late-term abortions are only provided in life-threatening circumstances.
“When it drives practitioners away, when it makes practitioners afraid to negotiate these policies, it makes it hard for Montana families to get the care that is right now legal in our state,” Bishop said.
The bill, along with four others, passed along party lines and will move onto the state Senate for consideration.
One of those proposals would ban an abortion procedure used during the second trimester of a pregnancy, known as dilation and evacuation. While the bill focuses on one procedure, it would limit a person’s ability to get an abortion after the first trimester, as the other most commonly used procedure, medication abortions, are ineffective after 11 weeks.
The other anti-abortion bills would restrict Medicaid coverage of abortion, ban abortion at 24 weeks and require reporting of cases in which a patient experiences an adverse reaction to a medication abortion, which Kaiser Family Foundationsays is rare.
