REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS Choice foes press campaign to curb abortion BY AMY HAWTHORNE

As in most years, there are a handful of choice-related bills currently before the General Assembly, on topics including notification, insurance coverage, and use of public funds for education and counseling. Many of the bills aim to create further restrictions in a state already ranked 32nd by NARAL Pro-Choice America, with a D- minus grade for access to abortion.

Of the anti-choice legislation, none is more important to the Rhode Island Right to Life organization than the Women’s Right to Know Act (S-2197 and H-7195). According to executive director Rita Parquette, the anti-choice group has unsuccessfully worked to get this bill passed for more than 10 years, but this session might be different. Supporters have been focusing most of their efforts on passing this act, although its fate remains unclear. The Senate bill has been lying dormant, while the House bill went before the Judiciary Committee in early April.

Proponents present the Women’s Right to Know Act as an "informed consent" law. It would impose a 24-hour waiting period, require doctors to identify themselves over the phone to prospective patients, create state-funded informational packages, and establish a reporting system to document how effectively the literature deters women from getting an abortion.

Critics argue that even if this bill is well-intentioned, it will have serious and adverse consequences beyond the letter of the law. Many concerns focus on the requirement for doctors to identify themselves over the phone to an unverified potential patient. Anti-choice extremists could potentially use this as a way to gather personal information about these medical professionals. Parquette responds by saying she is unaware of any deaths directly related to the implementation of similar acts in other states, adding, "If what you’re doing is so horrible as to cause a fringe group to want to attack you, you should really stop and think about it."

Critics also cite how 24-hour waiting periods can cause an actual delay of two weeks or more, because, contrary to the mythology about the abortion "industry," clinics do not just offer services on demand. In many cases, a delay of multiple weeks can push a pregnancy into the next stage, requiring a more dangerous and invasive procedure. The waiting period may actually be unconstitutional, as it creates an "undue burden" on the patient. The implementation of such laws has already been blocked in Delaware, Florida, Massachusetts, Montana, and Tennessee.

There are also concerns about spending taxpayer money on the literature, heavily skewed toward anti-choice perspectives, that the Women’s Right to Know Act would require abortion-providers to give to potential patients. Planned Parenthood puts the price tag at $500,000 per year. The Right to Life organization glosses over this figure, saying Rhode Island can purchase existing brochures from other states at a discount and pass the cost on to health-care providers. Addressing the moral, rather than financial, concern of the state’s distribution of the literature, Miriam Inocencio, president of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island, told the House committee, "There are no safeguards in this bill to guarantee medical accuracy and there, realistically, may not be any way to assure objectivity. You need only pass by our clinic any Thursday or Friday [when anti-choice activists protest] to view the gross distortions of reality."

Supporters of H-7195 are actually quite open, in fact, about their hope that the Women’s Right to Know Act will reduce the roughly 5000 abortions performed annually in Rhode Island by up to 30 percent — making it clear that this campaign is about more than information.

In talking about abortion, it’s hard to find common ground because each side has such a fundamentally different view. Now it’s up to the General Assembly to decide if one of those perspectives will be imposed upon the state as a whole.