Maine bills seek fetal protection Issue revives battle for Legislature

AUGUSTA – On one side of the Augusta Armory on Thursday was the sign “Trust Maine Women.” On the other was the sign “Maine Right to Life.”

In between the signs were the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee members and 100 people passionately split on the issue of abortion rights. At issue was a number of bills aimed at restricting abortion rights, requiring parental approval for abortions, and establishing stiffer penalties for assault on a pregnant woman that results in the death of a fetus.

The familiar arguments on the abortion issue, which now comes before the Legislature each session, were heard again on Thursday.

Supporters like Rep. Susan Kasprzak, R-Newport, called the bills “the most common-sense ideas on the planet.” But Karen Stram of the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition said the bills were “cleverly disguised as fetal protection,” when they were actually “back door approaches” to eliminating abortion rights.

It was basically the same opponents who fought the same battle on an abortion rights referendum in 1999. A proposed ban on a specific abortion procedure was defeated by 55-45 percent of the vote. The opponents could not even agree on the wording they used to describe the procedure. Ban supporters referred to “partial-birth abortions.” Opponents said the term was a political one, which had no basis in medicine since it occurred so rarely. They preferred to call the procedure a “late-term abortion.”

Two of the bills being addressed Thursday were aimed at eliminating the procedure and both used the language “partial-birth abortions.”

Opening the perennial battle anew, Kasprzak called partial-birth abortions “horrendous, barbaric” and unconstitutional. Rep. Mary Black Andrews, R-York, called any assault that kills an unborn child “the same as murder.” Rep. Jay MacDougall, R-North Berwick, who sponsored the parental notification law, said a student cannot get an aspirin at school without approval but current law allows abortion without parental consent. “Opposition to this law baffles me,” MacDougall said. Rep Stavros Mendros, R-Lewiston, who sponsored the law to increase penalties in cases of violence against pregnant women, said his proposal “is neither pro-life nor pro-choice. It is common sense enforcement of what we all should agree is a heinous crime.”

Supporters had twice as many speakers as opponents. Standing at the microphone with her 6-year-old-child beside her, Mary Jo Sharma of South Portland said she would want to be notified if her child had an abortion so “I could be there for her.” Dr. Anne Pulsifer of Wells said she counseled pregnant coeds at Boston College for 23 years. She said 90 percent of them called their parents and not a single one of them ever regretted it. Teen-agers cannot get a tattoo without a parent’s permission but are allowed to make abortion decisions alone, said Sheila Franconis of Winthrop. She carried her baby in her arms as she told the committee, “You are standing between life and death.” A Bowdoin senior said it is now easier for a teen-age girl to get an abortion than to get alcohol or tobacco.

Opponents asked the committee to “trust Maine women” to make their own reproductive choices and to reject the bills.

The array of bills “represent both familiar and new attempts to erode a woman’s constitutional right to a full range of reproductive services,” said Laura Fortman of the Maine Women’s Lobby. Limits on abortion rights would “set a dangerous precedent by allowing the state to interject itself between a woman and her doctor,” said Karen Stram, director of the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition.

The abortion rate in Maine has been cut in half from 4,800 in 1987 to 2,400 in 1997 and no restrictions are needed, according to Dora Mills, director of the state Bureau of Health and the state’s chief health officer. The state’s abortion rate is less than half the national average and Maine has the third lowest teen pregnancy rate in the country, Mills told the committee.

While each bill takes a different approach, all the proposed measures are unconstitutional and all “blatantly ignore the health of the woman,” said Pat Peard, legal director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union. Other organizations that opposed the bills included the League of Women Voters, the Maine section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Maine Medical Association, Maine State Nurses Association, Family Planning Association and the Planned Parenthood Association.

A work session on the bills will be held at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, April 3, in Room 438 at the State House.

The bills discussed were:

. LDs 119 and 135, which would ban partial-birth abortions.

. LDs 1602 and 1406,which would establish the crime of murder for causing the death of an unborn fetus.

. LD 1689, which would expand the state’s abortion reporting laws.

. LD 1494, which would require parental notification of an abortion.