Utah GOP Lawmakers Push to Protect Pregnant Women and Unborn Babies
Republican-led states, such as Utah, are pushing for legislation that seeks to protect pregnant women and their unborn babies.
Utah Rep. Brady Brammer (R) is sponsoring HB 113, a bill that would ensure biological fathers are financially responsible for half of the mother’s out-of-pocket pregnancy costs. The measure passed a Utah House committee Wednesday, 8-1.
The Salt Lake Tribune said Brammer hopes the legislation increases “the responsibility for men in the bringing of life into the world.”
“Oftentimes there’s this battle between pro-life and pro-choice where some of the pro-life positions really turn into a perception that it’s just anti-abortion,” Brammer told the state House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. “I kind of got sick of those things and I thought what could we do that’s really a pro-life thing? … and so that’s where this bill came from.”
The bill would apply to a pregnant woman’s out-of-pocket health insurance premiums and pregnancy-related medical costs, but not for the cost of an elective abortion the mother undergoes without the father’s consent.
Another bill introduced in the Utah legislature would require women to affirm “under penalty of perjury” they completed the state’s online pre-abortion program before ending their pregnancy. While the online program is already required, there is concern some women are using a web loophole that allows them to circumvent the course and just print out a certificate of completion. The measure would ensure the program is viewed fully from beginning to end without fast-forwarding.
Karrie Galloway, CEO of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah said, according to the Tribune, the bill serves the purpose of “shaming” women by telling them, “You don’t know what you’re doing, let me educate you … so that you will change your mind.”
But Utah Rep. Steve Christiansen (R), who is sponsoring HB 253, said he simply wants to ensure women are fully informed before undertaking ending their pregnancy.
“For some reason, when it comes to abortion, there are some who want to push back when we try to ensure the woman receives relevant and complete information about what is about to happen,” he said. “We would never push back regarding other medical procedures that could have the same or similar types of consequences on a person’s life and health.”
The bill also requires the informed consent visit takes place in person, rather than through telehealth.
“I am trying to keep our doors open for people who need reproductive health care,” Galloway complained about the legislation. “And instead of working on a pandemic, [Christiansen] wants to intrude into the health care system to make it more problematic for my staff and problematic for women.”
But Christiansen dismissed opposition to the bill based on its timing.
“I think that anytime, frankly, is a good time to make sure that we are protecting women and protecting the unborn,” he said. “I don’t think there is a bad time.”
Gayle Ruzicka, president of the Utah Eagle Forum, agreed, saying the legislation is essential to ensure a crucial procedure is fully understood.
“Anybody should always be able to say that they had all the information before they make such a critical decision,” she said, according to the Tribune. “We want to make sure that they have the opportunity to know all there is to know and that there was nothing that they felt was later withheld from them.”
HB 231, proposed by Utah Rep. Cheryl Acton (R), would also criminalize out-of-state transport of fetal remains, aborted or miscarried, unless they are to be buried.
Acton told the Tribune the legislation seeks to ensure fetal remains are “handled with dignity and not treated as medical waste.”
In 2020, the state legislature approved a requirement that health care facilities dispose of fetal remains by either burial or cremation. The criminalization of out-of-state transfers is a follow-up to that measure.
These measures are being introduced in Utah as the Biden-Harris administration is intent upon unraveling the pro-life policies of the Trump administration. Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life organization, told Breitbart News on Friday during the annual march the Biden administration is already making “extreme” and “out of touch” decisions:
Matt PerdieIn March 2020, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) signed a bill into law that would ban most elective abortions in the state, except for those in cases of rape, incest, or serious risk to bodily function or death of the woman, should the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade be overturned.
As Fox13 News reported at the time, Utah Sen. Dan McCay (R), the sponsor of the bill, said he is “grateful to live in a pro-life state where we seek to protect the unborn.”
“I’m hopeful that the U.S. Supreme Court will take the opportunity to overturn the barbaric practice of abortion,” he added.
A report by the pro-abortion rights League of Women Voters of Utah, noted that, within the last five years, the Utah legislature has passed more than a dozen new abortion restrictions.
“In the 2020 legislative session alone, Utah lawmakers considered 11 bills to add restrictions to or prohibit abortion with certain exceptions,” the report noted.
Unity Watch: Biden's Radical Abortion Policies Alienate Americans, Even Democrats
President Joe Biden promised to unite America, but his week-one slate of executive orders has proven extremely divisive. While Americans are divided on the “pro-life” or “pro-choice” labels, in-depth polling has found broad agreement in favor of policies restricting abortion. Yet Biden’s extreme abortion policies, including funding abortion domestically and overseas with taxpayer dollars, alienates the majority of Americans, and many who identify as Democrats or “pro-choice.”
A new Marist/Knights of Columbus (KOC) poll released Wednesday illustrated just how extreme Biden’s policies truly are.
“Amidst the harsh political divides in our country, clear bipartisan majorities support abortion restrictions and do not want their tax dollars paying for abortion abroad,” Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, said in a statement about the new poll. “Our polling has shown consistently over the past decade that policies that promote abortion on demand paid for by taxpayers are divisive and out of step with American public opinion.”
Indeed, Biden has staked out four abortion policies that fall far outside the mainstream, according to the poll.
1. The Mexico City Policy
On Thursday, President Biden will rescind the Mexico City Policy, which Democrats condemn as the “global gag rule.” The policy prevents U.S. taxpayer dollars from funding non-governmental organizations that perform abortions overseas or advocate for abortion overseas. Yet this policy enjoys broad support among Americans.
A whopping 77 percent of respondents in the Marist/KOC poll said they “oppose” or “strongly oppose” “using tax dollars to support abortion in other countries.” Only 19 percent said they support taxpayer funding for abortion overseas.
Even majorities of self-identified Democrats (55 percent), Biden supporters (58 percent), and pro-choice respondents (64 percent) said they opposed taxpayer funding for abortion overseas.
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2. The Hyde Amendment
The Hyde Amendment prohibits taxpayer funding for abortions in the U.S. While Biden long supported the Hyde Amendment during his decades in the U.S. Senate, he reversed course and opposed the amendment during the 2020 presidential election. Democrats have recently condemned the Hyde Amendment as “racist,” even though many pro-life Democrats have condemned abortion as a “black genocide” since abortion disproportionately kills black unborn babies.
Most respondents (57 percent) in the Marist/KOC poll said they “oppose” or “strongly oppose” “using tax dollars to pay for a woman’s abortion.” Only 38 percent said they support or strongly support taxpayer funding for abortion.
About a third of those who identified as pro-choice (34 percent), Democrat (31 percent), or Biden supporters (31 percent) said they opposed taxpayer funding for abortion.
Most respondents who identified as white (58 percent) or non-white (57 percent) said they opposed taxpayer funding for abortion.
3. Abortion restrictions
Although Biden identifies himself as a practicing Roman Catholic and regularly attends mass, he broadly supports the legal availability of abortion. While Biden has not explicitly said he supports making abortion legal at any stage of pregnancy up until birth, his record suggests that he does. Newsweek and PolitiFact have claimed that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris do not support abortion up until the moment of birth, but the outlets could not identify statements or policies explicitly limiting abortion to early phases of pregnancy.
Yet most Americans support legal restrictions on abortion at different points in pregnancy, according to the Marist/KOC poll.
Only 15 percent of respondents said, “abortion should be available to a woman any time she wants one during her entire pregnancy.” Most respondents said they would limit abortion to either the first six months of pregnancy (10 percent); the first three months of pregnancy (25 percent); cases of rape, incest, or to save the mother’s life (28 percent); only to save the life of the mother (11 percent). Another 12 percent of respondents said, “abortion should never be permitted under any circumstance.”
This means a whopping 86 percent of Americans support more restrictions on abortion than Biden and Harris.
Facebook Suppresses Pro-Life Ad Slamming Biden and Harris Over Abortion Extremism
4. Roe v. Wade
During the campaign, Biden repeatedly pledged to codify Roe v. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court ruling striking down state laws on abortion, in a law passed by Congress and signed by the president.
Yet according to the Marist/KOC poll, most Americans support returning abortion law to the states.
Marist asked respondents, “Which comes closest to your view of what the Supreme Court should do when it reconsiders Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling making abortion legal in the United States?”
About a third (31 percent) of respondents said the Court should “allow abortion to be legal without restriction at any time.” Nearly half (48 percent) of respondents said the Court should “allow certain restrictions on abortion as determined by each state.” Another 17 percent said the Court should “make abortion illegal.”
Even 42 percent of respondents who identified as “pro-choice” said the Court should allow the states to restrict abortion. Forty percent of self-identified Democrats and 37 percent of Biden supporters agreed.
Democrats like Biden often cite the fact that most Americans identify themselves as “pro-choice.” Yet in-depth abortion polling like this reveals that the Democrats’ pro-abortion platform is radical and out-of-step with a majority of Americans. So much for “unity.”
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