On June 7, the Michigan House Health Policy Committee voted 13-5 to pass the Prolife Bus bill. The Prolife Bus bill represents the largest collection of prolife legislation ever addressed at one time in the Michigan legislature. House Bill 5711 is an omnibus bill combining several currently introduced prolife bills into one large new bill.
Right to Life of Michigan Legislative Director Ed Rivet said, “The resolve of the prolife majority on the House Health Policy Committee was unwavering. The best interests of women, their unborn children and the state of Michigan were well-served by the committee members who voted to pass the Prolife Bus bill.”
The Prolife Bus bill addresses a multitude of issues including
- Making it a crime to coerce women into having abortions. According to Right to Life of Michigan, the Coercive Abortion Prevention Act screens women seeking abortions for possible coercion to abort, and requires abortion clinics to post an anti-coercion sign.
- The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act protects from abortion unborn children beginning at 20 weeks fertilization based on the unborn child ability to experience pain. Such abortions, RTL of Michigan explains, “always involve the destruction of an unborn child fully capable of experiencing pain. If cruelty, torture and the infliction of pain are crimes against persons and animals, unborn children deserve the same legal protection.”
- Prohibits prescribing the abortion pill RU 486 by remote consulting over the Internet. In so-called “webcam” abortions, “the woman never meets or is physically examined by the doctor. This violates the most basic of medical protocols and must not be allowed to happen in Michigan.”
- Requires humane disposition of aborted babies.”Due to a technicality in Michigan’s public health laws, the bodies of aborted babies can be legally thrown into a common trash bin, headed for an ordinary landfill, so long as the bodies are chemically treated.”
- Abortion clinic licensing requires any abortion clinic or private physician office advertising outpatient abortion services to be licensed as a Freestanding Outpatient Surgical Facility. “While nearly every abortion is performed in an outpatient facility (99.8%), only 4 of 32 surgical abortion clinics are licensed in the same way other outpatient surgical centers are, such as laser eye or podiatric surgical facilities,” RTL of Michigan notes.
- Abortionists are required to carry $1 million in malpractice insurance or an equivalent bonded surety.
“The overall message theme to this package,” Right to Life of Michigan explains, is
“‘Reforming Abortion Practices in Michigan – Long Overdue!’ If reforming and reinventing Michigan government is a current priority in Lansing, the pattern of turning a blind eye to abortion clinic practices for 39 years must come to an end.”