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Pro-abortion California Governor signs law allowing some non-physicians to perform first-trimester abortions

Sep 25, 2012

By Dave Andrusko

Pro-abortion California State Senator Christine Kehoe

My apologies for not getting to this important story yesterday. We’ve written several times about the repeated efforts of pro-abortion California state Senator Christine Kehoe to pass a measure to allow nurses and other non-physicians to perform first-trimester abortions. Having failed twice, the initiative passed in an amended form and has been signed into law by pro-abortion Gov. Jerry Brown.

In this case, Kehoe settled for half a loaf, no doubt intending to come back for more next session.

Back in April, having been rebuffed on two occasions, Kehoe employed an obscure legislative tactic known as “gut and amend.”

The gutted SB 623 was originally written to amend the Harbor and Navigation code of California, which had been introduced to outlaw certain copper paints in marine areas. The State Senate passed SB 623 and sent it to the Assembly.

That was that until Kehoe amended the marine paint bill by gutting all references to paints and substituting the ‘scaled-back’ language regarding non-physician abortions!

The original version would have allowed up to 24,000 medical professionals to be able to perform first-trimester uterine aspiration abortions–-trained nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants, and certified nurse midwives. The scaled-back version that became law extends until January 1, 2014, a controversial pilot project that allows “medical providers” who’ve been trained at Planned Parenthood and Kaiser Permanente clinics under a special program run by the University of California at San Francisco’s Bixby Center to perform these first-trimester abortions.

Kehoe’s rationale, of course, was “to increase the availability of safe, early abortion care that is limited in many areas of California.”

Pro-life organizations have been strongly critical of the UCSF pilot project, saying it places women’s lives in danger, that project participants are not adequately trained before actually performing abortions, and that the project’s funding is suspicious.

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Categories: Legislation