Proposed bill in the state legislature would make Alabama one of the most restrictive states in terms of abortion practices. Photo Courtesy of Merakih/Flickr Commons.
Does life begin at birth or does life begin with a heartbeat? Could it start somewhere in the middle? It depends on who is asked — one reason the issue of abortion has been a source of controversy for many years.
Alabama State Rep. Terri Collins (R-Decatur) believes that life begins with a beating heart and has thus introduced a bill to the state legislature that would outlaw abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected.
While Collins believes life begins long before birth, her answer to the question was more complicated.
“I believe,” Collins said, “that without getting into contraception or some of the things that have caused such controversy over the beginning, that if you just limit it that life begins when that heartbeat is detected, then you don’t get into any contraceptives or anything like that, which happens in those first few weeks.
“And so therefore, if life is determined to not be there when the heartbeat stops, then what is more commonsense [than] to determine it begins when the heartbeat is detected?” Collins said.
Last year, a similar bill that restricted abortion passed the Alabama House but failed to make it through the Senate. Collins said she believes HB 405, colloquially known as the Fetal Heartbeat Bill, has the legs to make it through both the House and Senate without much resistance.
“I’ve received lots of encouragement from the House,” Collins said on Monday.
“I’ve been looking at some statistics and this year over 10 states are working on similar types of legislation. They’re really testing the boundaries of Roe v. Wade, and I think that because of the [ultrasound] technology that is available today, the courts might reevaluate the parameters of that law.”
The bill would first require physicians to check for a heartbeat before performing an abortion. A heartbeat occurs about six weeks into a pregnancy. If passed, the bill will “make it unlawful for a physician to perform an abortion on a pregnant woman after a heartbeat has been detected from the unborn child.” The bill also will “provide for the definition of abortion as referenced herein, as well as certain types of exceptions; to require a physician to check for a detectable heartbeat from an unborn child prior to performing an abortion as defined herein; to require written documentation of the procedure used to determine the existence, if any, of a detectable heartbeat in an unborn child and the results thereof,” HB 405 reads.
The bill is expected to be in the House committee sometime next week, according to Collins.
There has been staunch opposition to the bill since its conception. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued a statement chiding the restrictive language of the bill.
“Access to reproductive services, including abortion care, is essential for millions of American women,” the ACOG said. “Restrictions such as these, which limit the ability of physicians to provide their patients with the full spectrum of quality care, only put women at increased risk. Attacks on a woman’s reproductive choice actually jeopardize her safety and are also attacks on her health. Moreover, the threat of criminalization of physicians for providing women with appropriate, quality care is an egregious interference in the patient-physician relationship.”
Collins disputed the idea that HB 405 will infringe on women’s rights.
“To me if the baby is a woman then a decision to take her life would be a whole lot more of an infringement… whether it’s a man or a woman, either way,” she said. “I believe very strongly in the rights of individuals. I’m speaking out for the individuals that are not able to speak out for themselves.”
Last year, a federal judge overturned a similar law in North Dakota. U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland struck down the bill after finding it to be unconstitutional.
“The United States Supreme Court has spoken and has unequivocally said no state may deprive a woman of the choice to terminate her pregnancy at a point prior to viability,” Hovland said in his ruling, as reported by BBC News.
He also referred to the Roe v. Wade ruling which states that abortion must be legal until the fetus is viable, which is typically 22-24 weeks into a pregnancy. Currently Alabama allows abortions to be preformed up to 20 weeks into a pregnancy.
Despite Hovland’s ruling, Collins said she does not foresee any type of federal intervention.
“The 8th Circuit is the only court that struck down similar legislation and with very little reasoning, which has been my biggest concern,” she said. “But Alabama is not assigned to the 8th Circuit Court and our courts have not done anything to strike down this legislation.”
The emotional trauma that can result from terminating a pregnancy can be hard to cope with, Collins said, especially for teenage girls. After counseling young women who were haunted by the decision to have an abortion, some even “hearing their baby cry for years afterwards,” Collins said she began championing for the pro-life cause.
She said she worked with Sav-A-Life, a faith-based anti-abortion group, and with “young girls through church and Bible studies and different things like that.”
“Matter of fact, when I stopped being a teenage person I started working with teenage girls. I saw the devastating effects that it had on girls who decided to abort a child,” Collins said.
“It’s easy to make the decision to abort a fetus when you don’t think of it as a life,” Collins continued.
According to the Center for Disease Control, the birth rates for American teens has reached a historic low for all age and ethnic groups.
A report issued by the CDC said that, “The U.S. teen birth rate declined 9 percent from 2009 to 2010, reaching a historic low at 34.3 births per 1,000 women aged 15–19; the rate dropped 44 percent from 1991 through 2010.”
Even with the historically low number of teen pregnancies, the ACOG said the decision to get an abortion should be left in the hands of individuals, not politicians.
“Access to reproductive services, including abortion care, is essential for millions of American women,” a representative from ACOG said in a statement. “Restrictions such as these, which limit the ability of physicians to provide their patients with the full spectrum of quality care, only put women at increased risk.
“Decisions about reproductive health, including abortion care, are best made by a woman in consultation with the people she trusts, including her obstetrician-gynecologist — not a politician. Abortion is safe and legal — and it is safe because it is legal. For the sake of American women, we need to keep it that way.”
While there are no provisions in Collins’ bill that would allow abortions from pregnancies that are a result of rape or sexual abuse, it would allow for the procedure to take place if there is a “lethal anomaly.” That is, if the child has been “diagnosed before birth with a condition that, with reasonable medical certainty, will result in the death of the child within three months after birth, or would die at birth or be stillborn,” the bill states.
The bill would also allow for abortions to take place in cases of ectopic pregnancy, meaning the egg has been fertilized outside the uterus.
Located the cradle of the pro-life movement, the state has an obligation to stand up against abortion, Collins said.
“Those babies have a heartbeat,” Collins said. “I just want young girls to have as much information as they can about the child they are carrying so they can make the best possible decision for themselves and that child. My passion for this issue comes more from the girls I would see and talk to as opposed to the babies I didn’t know.”
