INDIANAPOLIS —Indiana would have some of the nation’s tightest abortion restrictions — and would become the first state to block Planned Parenthood from receiving government dollars — under a measure now headed to Gov. Mitch Daniels’ desk.
The Indiana House of Representatives gave final approval on Wednesday to House Bill 1210, which could block Medicaid dollars from going to Planned Parenthood clinics such as the one in Evansville.
“Because of your positive vote today, babies will be born that otherwise would have been aborted,” said the bill’s author, Rep. Eric Turner, R-Cicero.
In addition to the Planned Parenthood language, the bill would restrict abortions to the first 20 weeks of a woman’s pregnancy. It would require women seeking abortions to look at ultrasound images or sign paperwork saying they’ve refused to do so.
It would also require that doctors who perform abortions have admitting privileges at a hospital in the county in which they operate or an adjacent county.
The bill passed on a 66-32 vote, with some of the chamber’s 40 Democrats providing the opposition.
“I get so tired of us – mainly older males – saying women don’t have rights,” said Rep. Win Moses, D-Fort Wayne. “This is a decision between a woman and her God, if she chooses to talk to a God.”
The decision for Daniels on whether to sign the measure into law comes against the backdrop of speculation over whether he will launch a White House bid.
Last year, the Republican governor kicked up a cloud of criticism from some conservatives when he called for a “truce” at the national level on social issues.
This bill could quell some of that criticism from the right. Indiana Right to Life and other anti-abortion organizations lauded its passage, and its move – defunding Planned Parenthood – to do on a state level what Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and others sought but failed to achieve in Congress.
But it’s heavily criticized by Planned Parenthood and its proponents.
In a statement after the bill’s passage, Planned Parenthood of Indiana called it “one of the worst pieces of public health legislation in Indiana’s history.” The group said it would “require doctors to lie to women before an abortion,” and also will cost the state millions of dollars.
The cost is a key issue. Indiana gets about $4 million in family planning grants, but federal rules require the state not to make rules that favor certain health care providers over others.
Indiana Family and Social Services Administration Secretary Michael Gargano asked federal officials whether Indiana could suffer sanctions for violating that law — a question that has not yet been answered.
“It’s abundantly clear that lawmakers didn’t fully understand the implications of the bill when they sent it to the governor,” said Betty Cockrum, the head of Planned Parenthood of Indiana.
Democrats tried twice on the House floor Wednesday to use procedural moves to strip language that would defund Planned Parenthood from the bill.
Some Democratic members said it was important to them to do so because they supported the tighter abortion restrictions, but not at the expense of other blows to women’s health care.
House Minority Leader B. Patrick Bauer, the South Bend Democrat who has a long record of voting with anti-abortion advocates, called the Planned Parenthood language a “political statement against a group that many in this chamber dislike.”
“When you politicize a question as serious and as fundamental as whether or when life begins, and you include a political attack on a certain group, I don’t think you can go much lower,” he said.
But majority Republicans beat back those efforts. Rep. Matt Ubelhor, R-Bloomfield, brought to the front of the chamber a map that listed clinics that offer reproductive care for women. The goal, he said, was to show that options outside Planned Parenthood are available.
“There are people out there providing these services. They’re very caring people. There are babies being saved,” said Rep. Sue Ellspermann, R-Ferdinand.