By Emily Ketterer
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS — The House Public Policy Committee withheld voting on a controversial bill that would limit second-trimester abortions after hours of heated debate that dragged into the evening Wednesday.

House Bill 1211 would make performing dismemberment abortions on a living fetus during or after the second trimester a level 5 felony, which would be punishable by up to six years in prison. The only exception is if the pregnancy poses a serious health risk to the woman that would result in “substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”

All other anti-abortion laws the General Assembly passed since 2013 have been blocked by federal judges.

Laws in the nine states banning the procedure are only in effect in Mississippi and West Virginia. The others are on hold because of legal challenges in Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas.

The bill, authored by Rep. Peggy Mayfield, R-Martinsville, graphically defines a dismemberment abortion as when a fetus is extracted from a woman “one piece at a time” by using clamps or scissors to “slice, crush or grasp” a body part.

The procedure, medically defined as a Dilation and Evacuation (D&E) procedure, is the most common method for a second trimester abortion. Still, it remains rare. This procedure made up 0.35 percent of the 7,778 abortions performed in Indiana during 2017, according to the state department of health.

“The baby is literally the second trimester? Jesus Christ,” Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour, said during the hearing.

The House Public Policy Committee withheld voting on the bill after listening to more than three hours of testimony from both sides and getting into heated debate among the members Wednesday afternoon.

During the hearing, Rep. Dan Forestal, D-Indianapolis, said he was disappointed in the repeated use of the graphic language throughout.

“The comments today are very hyperbolic,” he said. “I have heard torn apart limb by limb probably 14 times.”

Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, which opposed the bill, stated the term “dismemberment” is not medical, and lawmakers are using the word to invoke fear and stigmatize women’s healthcare. The organization believes the bill is another attempt to criminalize women’s medical decisions and undermine health professionals.

A local pediatrician, Tracey Wilkinson, was faced with the decision to have a second-trimester abortion after she found out her unborn child had possible life-threatening birth defects. This was a decision she thought she would never have to make, she said, and that choice should remain private.

“I struggled to think about how this would impact my family,” Wilkinson said. “At no point was there space for my representative to be involved with my decision.”

Dr. Katie McHugh, an obstetrician and gynecologist (OB/GYN), said she and other physicians want to offer all options, and HB 1211 would ban the safest procedure that can be performed in the second trimester. She said the alternatives may be painful and cause complications, including terminating the fetus before a D&E, which is permitted under the bill.

“What I advocate for is for women to have a choice,” McHugh said. “By taking medical decision out of the hands of women … and instead putting them in the hands of politicians, it is extremely dangerous.”

Indiana Right to Life and National Right to Life take the position that dismemberment the abortion is “barbaric.”

“To think about other children … to be pulled limb for limb, it just breaks my heart,” Ryan McCann, of the Indiana Family Institute, said.

Dr.  Kathy Altman, a retired OB/GYN who previously performed dismemberment abortions, testified against the bill. She graphically described the procedures she performed, including making sure to count all the body parts she pulled out. She explained the many possible dangers and complications that come from the surgery, such as accidentally crushing the woman’s bladder or pulling a bowel out.

“It always made me a little nervous doing these,” Altman said.

The other piece of HB 1211 includes more specific lists of complications that may rise from an abortion, which Mayfield said were more vaguely defined last session.

The legislation also allows for the woman who received an abortion banned by the proposed law and experienced complications, her parents or a prosecuting attorney can petition for an injunction against a physician. The woman, the father or the parents of a female under 18 who received an abortion that caused her death, can sue a doctor for damages under the bill as well.

FOOTNOTE: Emily Ketterer is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.