Abortion battle goes on with 6 of 7 bills alive

BISMARCK — Sen. Margaret Sitte said a thwarted effort during the 2011 legislative session to define a human being at conception may have fueled this year’s legislation aimed at abortion and giving rights to the unborn.

“That has been rumbling around inside people since,” the Republican from Bismarck said. “People really felt if there was going to be an opportunity to get something done, this is it with the right group of people and the right time.”

The personhood and abortion issues have surfaced this session in seven distinct forms of legislation, all designed to address the legal practice of abortion the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Rep. Betty Grande, R-Fargo, is championing two bills that would limit the practice of abortion that have passed the House.

“I believe there is life in the womb and in the full sanctity of life, we need to protect the unborn,” she said.

On the other side, Rep. Kathy Hawken, R-Fargo, calls herself a pro-life person who votes pro-choice, believing state laws should not infringe on a woman’s right to choose.

“God hasn’t tapped me on the shoulder and say I am in charge,” she said. “I can’t tell somebody else what to do.”

When the second half of the session starts Wednesday, the Legislature will take up Grande’s bills to prohibit an abortion based on gender or genetic abnormalities or if a heartbeat is detected and Sitte’s personhood resolution to amend the state constitution to include unborn babies, as well as proposals to define who can legally perform an abortion, prohibiting in vitro fertilization and the age an unborn can feel pain.

The Senate defeated one bill that would have penalized anyone guilty of destroying a human embryo with a misdemeanor crime.

State’s role

Tammi Kromenaker is director of the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, the state’s lone abortion clinic.

She said Monday the remaining six bills “are troubling to us as some of them contain unconstitutional attacks on reproductive rights and the health and safety of women is being threatened in North Dakota.”

Kromenaker added the bills before the North Dakota Legislature now are similar to those being passed through state legislatures around the country. She said it seems many legislatures are trying to be the first to pass a bill that directly challenges the Roe. v. Wade decision.

“We know there is a concentrated effort to chip away at women’s rights in the states, because that’s where Supreme Court gave the power to allow states to regulate abortion,” she said.

Grande said the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling has emphasized the state’s role to look at the life and welfare of the mother and define what a potential life is.

“We have been forced by federal courts to address those two issues, because (Planned Parenthood) took it to the federal court to do so,” she said. “I would rather not be having that discussion, but Planned Parenthood put us here.”

Sitte and Grande said they have drafted their own pieces without any help from a pro-life organization.

Grande said she has introduced legislation this year, and supported it during previous sessions, because, “we as state representatives represent our people and this is what our people are wanting,” she said.

Legal battles

Hawken said the most egregious of the bills are the personhood bills, designed to define a human as an embryo or unborn child, which would eliminate a number of areas of women’s health.

As many legislators and lobbyists have warned, the legislation will likely result in an increased number of lawsuits.

“They want it to be a lawsuit,” Hawken said Monday. “It isn’t thinking about women or children, it’s strictly to have the ability to tell other people what they should or should not do.”

Sitte would welcome the opportunity to use the state law to challenge Roe v. Wade and hears the same from North Dakota residents.

“It’s almost everyday I see somebody that says thanks for standing firmly for life.”

Rep. Gail Mooney, D-Cummings, said she is convinced the large number of bills have been introduced so one or two might make it through the session.

She said the most offensive part about the legislation is the lack of fiscal responsibility.

“I believe what is happening in North Dakota is being positioned to foot the bill for a federal court fight,” Mooney said.

The North Dakota Medical Association, which represents many physicians across the state, rarely takes a public position on divisive issues. The group’s opposition to the “personhood” bills has nothing to do with the abortion issue, NDMA Executive Director Courtney Koebele said Monday, noting physicians themselves are divided over the issue.

“These bills are interfering with the physician practice to such an extent that we didn’t really have an alternative,” she said. “These are just bad bills.”

Mike Booth, president of the North Dakota Medical Association, said if they become law, the personhood bills could make North Dakota less attractive to professional women.

“I see this as a real swipe at women’s rights,” he added. “I find that very depressing in a state that’s trying very hard to push itself forward. That really upsets me.”

Reporter Patrick Springer contributed to this story.

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