Sides gear up for battle as Michigan lawmakers weigh abortion changes

Source: Detroit Free Press

Sides gear up for battle as Michigan lawmakers weigh abortion changes
6:17 PM, June 12, 2012
By Kathleen Gray
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer


Emotions are running high on both sides of the abortion debate as the state House prepares to consider — as early as Wednesday — a package of bills to add the most sweeping restrictions to the procedure that the Legislature has considered in decades.

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The bills would:

•Require doctors who perform abortions to meet higher standards of licensing for outpatient surgery and increase the amount of malpractice insurance they must carry. Opponents predict the provision would lead to fewer clinics providing abortions and higher costs for women seeking the procedure.

•Outlaw abortions after 20 weeks, without exceptions for the rape, incest, the woman's health or fetal anomalies.

•Make it a crime to coerce women into an abortion.

•Prohibit video consultations for the prescription of RU486. The pill blocks the hormone progesterone, which is needed to sustain a pregnancy, and will cause a medically induced abortion in the early stage of pregnancy.

•Regulate the disposal of fetal remains.

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