House approves bill tightening regulations on abortion clincs

Brad Bumsted
| Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011

HARRISBURG — The state House today approved legislation requiring unannounced inspections of abortion clinics and applying the same regulations to them that regulators use for ambulatory surgical facilities.

The bill, filed in the aftermath of criminal charges against a West Philadelphia clinic, has bounced back and forth from the House and Senate this year as changes were made.

But House Health and Human Services Chairman Matthew Baker, R-Tioga County, said the version moving now has support of the Senate and the governor and likely will become law.

It comes on the heels of a House-passed bill preventing insurance coverage for abortions in health exchanges that the federal health care law might create in 2014.

Pro-choice lawmakers and advocates claimed it is part of a Republican effort to stop abortions, using the Dr. Kermit Gosnell case in Philadelphia merely as an excuse. Prosecutors accuse Gosnell of murdering a female patient and killing viable babies born alive, amid horrendous conditions.

Rep. Phylllis Mundy, D-Luzerne County, said the legislation would mark a return to back-alley abortions because the physical changes needed to comply with the new law will put clinics out of business.

Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Squirrell Hill, said it is part of national effort by pro-life legislators to circumvent the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.,

"Let's not go back to the Dark Ages when women were forced to have abortions in back alleys," Mundy said.

House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Bradford Woods, said it "only makes sense" to treat abortion clinics the same as surgical facilities. And it is in response to the Philadelphia grand jury allegations about Gosnell's clinic, he said.

"It is consistent. It is commonsense," said Turzai. "It is fair."

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