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Louisiana House passes ‘Forced Abortion Prevention Sign Act,’ takes out breast cancer claim

The Louisiana House of Representatives Thursday unanimously approved a measure to require all abortion clinics in the state to post a sign (to be measured

Jul 31, 2020544 Shares544K Views
The Louisiana House of Representatives Thursday unanimously approved a measureto require all abortion clinics in the state to post a sign (to be measured exactly at 16 inches by 20 inches) that lists a series of specified information intended for a woman seeking an abortion.
The bill reenacts certain measures — informed consent, parental consent and the 24-hour waiting period prior to an abortion — that were previously declared unconstitutional but later found by the U.S. Supreme Court to be constitutional in the case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, and enacts brand-new ones like the “Forced Abortion Prevention Sign Act.”
Now it’s up to the state Senate to decide whether outpatient abortion facilities will be forced to “conspicuously” post signs that list the following:
Notice: Women’s Rights and Pregnancy Resources You can’t be forced.
  • It is unlawful for an abortion to be forced on you without your voluntary and informed consent, regardless of your age. You and the father.
  • The father of your child is liable to assist in the support of the child, even if he has offered to pay for an abortion. You and adoption.
  • The law permits adoptive parents to pay costs of prenatal care, childbirth and newborn care. You are not alone.
  • Many public and private agencies are willing to help you to carry your child to term, and to assist after your child’s birth.
Other proposed laws in the bill include requiring the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals to publish an “abortion alternatives and informed consent” website
that provides information about public and private “pregnancy resource centers” that do not “refer, counsel, perform, induce, prescribe, or provide any means for abortion.”
Additionally, the bill requires printed materials be developed and available on the new DHH website to include detailed descriptions of abortion procedures and short-term and long-term medical risks associated with abortion.
Once such “risk” — that there is a direct connection between abortion and breast cancer, a notion that has been disputed by major cancer and gynecology associations — was tossed out in a passed amendment.
Rep. Frank Hoffmann (R-West Monroe), who authored the bill, agreed to remove the breast-cancer-abortion connection but said his he still believes abundant medical research exists establishing that notion, according to the Greenfield Daily Reporter.
According to the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health, having an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer.
In many cases, the anti-abortion rights position on the abortion-breast-cancer link has been based on a 1970 article “Epidemiological characteristics of cancer of the breast in Taiwan” (lead author Brian MacMahon), which found that women having their first child when they were under 18 had only one-third the breast cancer risk of women who delay their first birth until age 35 or later.
The organization Abortion Breast Cancer— which, as The Florida Independentreported, recently condemned Johnson and Johnson for continuing to sell “cancer-causing birth control pills” to women — promotes the idea that breast cancer causes abortion and, on its homepage, includes a warning that, in the past, women have sued their abortion providers for neglecting to disclose the breast cancer risk although none of the women had developed the disease.
Hajra Shannon

Hajra Shannon

Reviewer
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