TNGA Rep. Matthew Hill & HB3808 (2012): Sermon On The Mons

[doeriver]

TNGA Rep. Matthew Hill (R-7, Jonesborough), legislative sponsor of the Tennessee Life Defense Act of 2012, or HB3808, was defending his bill that would require all doctors who perform abortions to obtain admitting privileges at area hospitals before the Tennessee House Health and Human Service Committee and also originally requiring the state to publish records that would identify doctors performing abortions in Tennessee and compile a very broad demographic database about the women undergoing abortions in Tennessee.

Critics of Hill's HB3808 legislation cited the bill was a merely a legislative attempt to providing anti-legal abortion rights opponents with the information to identify, assault, and terrorize doctors and women seeking abortion services.


TNGA Rep. Matthew Hill (R-7, Jonesborough)


Tennessee General Assembly - Bill Information for HB3808
http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/Default.aspx?BillNumber=HB3808&ga=107

Tennessee General Assembly - Bill Information for HB3808 - Bill Summary
http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/billinfo/BillSummaryArchive.aspx?BillNumber=HB3808&ga=107

HB 3808 by *Hill, Evans. (*SB 3323 by *Beavers.)
Abortion - As introduced, enacts the "Life Defense Act of 2012." - Amends TCA Title 37, Chapter 10, Part 3; Title 39, Chapter 15, Part 2 and Title 68.

Fiscal Summary
NOT SIGNIFICANT

Bill Summary
This bill:

(1) Prohibits a physician from performing an abortion unless the physician has admitting privileges at a licensed hospital that is located in a county in which the abortion is performed or in a county adjacent to the county in which the abortion is performed. The physician must notify the patient of the location of the hospital at which the physician has privileges and where the patient may receive follow-up care by the physician if complications arise; and

(2) Rewrites the present law requirement that a physician performing an abortion keep a record of each operation and make a report to the commissioner of health with respect thereto at the time and in the form as the commissioner may reasonably prescribe. Under this amendment , a report of each abortion performed must be made to the department of health on forms prescribed by the commissioner of health. The report forms will not identify the individual patient by name and must include the following information:

(A) Identification of the physician who performed the abortion and the physician's office, clinic, hospital or other facility where the abortion was performed;
(B) The county and state in which the woman resides;
(C) The woman's age, race and marital status;
(D) The number of prior pregnancies and prior abortions of the woman;
(F) The gestational age in number of weeks of the unborn child at the time of the abortion;
(G) The type of procedure performed or prescribed and the date of the abortion; and
(H) Pre-existing medical conditions of the woman that would complicate pregnancy, if any, and, if known, any medical complication that resulted from the abortion itself.

The reports must be completed by the facility where the abortion was performed, signed by the physician who performed the abortion and transmitted to the department of health within 15 days after each reporting month. The commissioner of health must prepare a comprehensive annual statistical report for the general assembly based upon the data gathered. Such report must not lead to the disclosure of the identity of any person filing a report or about whom a report is filed. The report will be available for public inspection and copying and posted on the department's web site. In addition to whatever other information the commissioner of health includes in the annual report, the commissioner must include the number of abortions performed in each county of the state and the number of facilities in each county, as well as aggregate statistics based on the data gathered, including, but not limited to, abortion rates by age and race. Reports filed pursuant to this provision will be confidential in nature and not be accessible to the public, except that disclosure may be made to law enforcement officials upon an order of court after application showing good cause therefore. The court may condition disclosure of the information upon any appropriate safeguards it may impose.

Original copies of all reports filed under this provision will be available to the board of medical examiners and the board of osteopathic examination for use in the performance of their official duties. Any person who willfully discloses any information obtained from reports, other than that disclosure otherwise authorized by law, commits a misdemeanor. Any person required under this provision to file a report, keep any records or supply any information, who willfully fails to file such report, keep such records or supply such information at the time or times required by law or regulation is guilty of unprofessional conduct and the person's license for the practice of medicine and surgery will be subject to suspension or revocation.

Any person who willfully delivers or discloses to the department of health any report, record or information known by the person to be false, commits a misdemeanor. In addition to the above penalties, any person, organization or facility who willfully violates the provisions requiring reporting will upon conviction thereof:

(A) For the first time, have its license suspended by any appropriate licensing board for a period of six months;
(B) For the second time, have its license suspended by any appropriate licensing board for a period of one year; and
(C) For the third time, have its license revoked by any appropriate licensing board.

[doeriver]

1. "Safety", Rep. Hill?

"Safety", Rep. Hill?:

Abortion Surveillance --- United States, 2007
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6001a1.htm?s_cid=ss6001a1_w

"...Deaths of women associated with complications from abortions for 2007 are being investigated under CDC's Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System. In 2006, the most recent year for which data were available, six women were reported to have died <across the entire United States and U.S. territories> as a result of complications from known legal induced abortions. No reported deaths were associated with known illegal induced abortions."

SAFETY OF ABORTION
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html

• The risk of abortion complications is minimal: Fewer than 0.3% of abortion patients experience a complication that requires hospitalization.[11]
• Abortions performed in the first trimester pose virtually no long-term risk of such problems as infertility, ectopic pregnancy, spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) or birth defect, and little or no risk of preterm or low-birth-weight deliveries.[12]
• Exhaustive reviews by panels convened by the U.S. and British governments have concluded that there is no association between abortion and breast cancer. There is also no indication that abortion is a risk factor for other cancers.[12]
• In repeated studies since the early 1980s, leading experts have concluded that abortion does not pose a hazard to women’s mental health.[13]
• The risk of death associated with abortion increases with the length of pregnancy, from one death for every one million abortions at or before eight weeks to one per 29,000 at 16–20 weeks—and one per 11,000 at 21 or more weeks.[14]
• Fifty-eight percent of abortion patients say they would have liked to have had their abortion earlier. Nearly 60% of women who experienced a delay in obtaining an abortion cite the time it took to make arrangements and raise money.[15]
• Teens are more likely than older women to delay having an abortion until after 15 weeks of pregnancy, when the medical risks associated with abortion are significantly higher.[15]