By Dave Andrusko
My apologies for missing this; tightening up regulations on free-wheeling abortion clinics is very important, especially in places like Delaware.
We’d written about Senate Bill 45, which was described as a proposal to license abortion clinics, inspect them annually, and be regulated by the state Department of Health. Planned Parenthood protested that it was being singled out and succeeded in getting the Health and Social Services Committee to table the measure indefinitely
“This bill comes from a very specific ideological point,” huffed Planned Parenthood of Delaware spokeswoman Emily Knearl. “Such legislation is part of a strategy of the anti-choice community to misrepresent abortion as unsafe.”
Part of the impetus for the legislation (described by the Dover Post as establishing “a strict mechanism for the inspection and licensure of abortion clinics in Delaware”) was the actions of abortionist Kermit Gosnell, charged with eight counts of murder related to activity at his West Philadelphia abortion clinic, who also worked part-time in Delaware.
In what reads like an effort to undercut the tougher bill, the day before Senate Bill 45 was indefinitely tabled last week, “the Senate voted unanimously in favor of House Bill 47—legislation that would allow the health department to inspect any currently unregulated medical clinic in response to a public complaint,” wrote Doug Denison of the Dover Post. “That bill covers abortion clinics, but also applies to other medical facilities where procedures involving anesthesia are performed.”
But passively responding to complaints and aggressively monitoring the behavior of abortion clinics is night and day different.
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