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Abortion bill supporters outmaneuver Senate opponents
by Tom Scheck, Minnesota Public Radio
April 9, 2003

The Minnesota Senate will vote on Thursday on a bill that would require any woman seeking an abortion to get specific information and wait 24 hours before the procedure is done. A parliamentary procedure on the House floor will force the full Senate to either adopt the bill or send it to conference committee. Supporters say they have the votes in the Senate to send the bill to Gov. Pawlenty's desk. Critics say the parliamentary procedure is undermining the committee process and won't allow the Senate to make any changes to the bill.

St. Paul, Minn. — The chair of Senate Health and Family Security Committee says she intended to hold a hearing on the bill Tuesday night, but the bill's two author's had other ideas.

Sen. Jim Vickerman, DFL-Tracy, says he wants the full Senate to consider the bill as he wrote it. He says the only way that will happen is to bypass the Senate committee and take the bill up on the Senate floor when it comes over from the House.

"I want it to get the Senate floor as the MCCL bill. We're not going take a bill in, have it stripped to nothing and go through three hours of agony. I won't do it. I'm not going to do it," he said.

MCCL is Minnesota Citizens Concerned For Life, the state's largest anti-abortion group.

The bill will be heard on the Senate floor as a result of a parliamentary move by the Minnesota House. The House attached the abortion language to a bill that would allow circuses during state fair time. The Senate can either adopt the bill or send it to conference committee. They can't amend it.

The bill's supporters say the parliamentary trick was necessary.

"This is the only way that we can get it to the floor," said the MCCL's Marice Rosenberg, who says a majority of the Senate supports the bill in its current form. But she says her organization was worried that DFL Senate Majority Leader John Hottinger and other supporters of legalized abortion would defeat or change the bill in committee.

"We thought we were being reasonable this year by saying we're going to pass a single bill. But basically what happened is Hottinger decided that that isn't the way he wanted it to be. So he was going to stall everything up in the Senate by making sure that the committees are stacked against us," she said.

Sen. Becky Lourey, DFL-Kerrick opposes the bill. Nevertheless she believes it was inevitable that the bill would become law this year. Lourey, who chairs the Senate Health and Family Security Committee, says opponents of legalized abortion are doing the state a disservice by not letting the bill be heard in her committee.

"They have found a way to not have any honest debate and not receive any reasonable amendments and just have it one way," she said.

Lourey says she would have liked to make some changes to the bill. For example, it requires abortion providers to tell women seeking an abortion about the possible link between the procedure and breast cancer. The American Cancer Society, the Minnesota Breast Cancer Coalition and the National Cancer Institute say there's no cause and effect relationship between the two.

Lourey says she's also concerned that women who have been raped would also have to look at pictures showing the different stages of pregnancy.

"It's not a choice of information it's a state dogma that has to be delivered regardless of the reason that has brought the woman to the clinic," Lourey said. Other critics say the bill is different than legislation that was vetoed twice by Gov. Ventura.

Officials representing an organization that advocates on behalf of infertile couples say they have concerns that the bill changes the definition of when life begins from conception to fertilization.

Amy Hill, with Resolve Minnesota, says the shift would create a new legal status for an embryo. Hill says she fears the bill would not allow infertile couples to decide if they want to donate, destroy or preserve any unused embryos.

"It's a whole new term and this could nullify the stated intentions and contracts that infertile couples have made with their providers, the people who are storing ewmbryos. It has great potential to diminish their rights," Hill said.

If the full Senate passes the bill it will go directly to Gov. Pawlenty. He says he intends to sign it.

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