Calif. Training Midwives to Perform Abortions Before Bill Is Voted on, Signed Into Law
The Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF) has rung the alarm over a new California bill putting forth a program allowing non-physicians to perform abortions through a method the organization describes as "sucking" babies out of wombs. Although the bill has yet to be voted on, the LLDF says midwives are already being trained to perform such abortions.
The program, called the Health Workforce Pilot Project #171 (HWPP), is being sponsored by several pro-abortion organizations with a significant presence in California, such as Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, the American Civil Liberties Union of California, ACCESS Women's Health Justice, NARAL Pro-Choice California and California Latinas for Reproductive Justice. Dozens of nurse midwives reportedly have already been trained to perform first-trimester abortions by the University of California, San Francisco in various health centers across the state.
Dana Cody, Executive Director of LLDF, explained to The Christian Post that although California is, to her knowledge, the first state to push for abortions performed by non-physicians, it may very well pave the way for it to become an accepted practice on a federal level. Currently, 43 states and Washington, D.C., require that only licensed physicians perform abortions, Americans United for Life president Charmine Yoest, told LifeNews.com.
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"My fear is that we have just seen the Obama administration and the health and human service regulations forcing people to give out contraceptives over conscientious objectives, and I'm afraid if this happens in California, Obama's administration will implicate it," Cody told CP.
"Abortion itself is an atrocity when committed by a physician. However, now there's pending legislation that would train nurse practitioners and midwives to perform abortions, including the suction method. Most people think that midwives are supposed to bring babies into the world, not kill them," she said in a previous statement.
Suction Aspiration is the most common method of abortion during the first12 weeks of pregnancy, LifeSiteNews.com reports. The mother is given anesthesia and a suction cannula (hollow tube with a knife-edged tip) is inserted into the womb, which, connected to a powerful vacuum device, sucks out the fetus from the womb.
In order to find out more about the physicians providing the training for the HWPP project, LLDF filed a Writ of Mandate on Friday, April 13, after a public request for the records was denied.
"We want to see which physicians are doing the training, and we want to see that they haven't been sanctioned or have any sanctions against them. The taxpayers have a right to know what is going on, and we also want the accounting information – we want to see who gave money for what. We want to see that they are spending money appropriately," Cody shared with CP.
"They sent us about 450 pages worth of documents, but they refused to give us the identity of the physicians or the accounting information that we wanted," she added.
The legislation, SB 1338, was authored by Sen. Christine Kehoe of San Diego and is reportedly expected be voted on early next week. The proposed law particularly targets the state's rural areas, where access to doctors who can perform aspiration abortions is restricted, reports the Los Angeles Times.
"SB 1501 will ensure that all women have access to providers they know and trust in the communities where they live," Kehoe explained to the San Diego Reader, revealing that over half of California's counties currently have no abortion providers.
"We believe it will give many California women access to earlier, safer procedures in the first trimester of their pregnancy," she added.
Asked why California in particular is pushing to expand access to such abortions, Cody suggested that abortion lobbyists had a firm control over the state.
"I think that California is just a very pro-death state and the abortion lobbyists are in control, and we know that the information that we did get form their agents that Planned Parenthood and Women's Health Services are the ones doing the training, so they are getting the money and they are benefiting from it," the LLDF executive director explained.
