Ultrasounds could be required with abortion-inducing medication

An amendment made to Senate Bill 371 Monday dropped language that mandated an ultrasound after taking abortion-inducing medication.

The bill now requires women prescribed the abortion-inducing drug RU-486 to have an ultrasound before taking the medication and “appropriate testing” afterward to confirm the pregnancy was terminated.

“It’s all intrusive into private health care,” said Dr. Sue Ellen Braunlin, co-president of the Health Access and Privacy Alliance. “It takes out your options. They would never do it for any other medical procedure.”

The bill also mandates that providers of the drug have surgical abortion facilities, even if they are only prescribing the abortion-inducing medicine.

“It would mean that our health center in Lafayette would have to stop providing non-surgical abortions,” said Catherine O’Connor, Planned Parenthood Indiana senior director for public policy.

Sen. Travis Holdman, R-Markle, who authored the bill, said in a statement the intent of the bill is “protecting women who are considering abortion-inducing drugs, namely RU-486.”

“I understand that with legislation of this nature, people have strong beliefs on both sides of the issue,” Holdman said in the statement. “My objective with this bill is to simply regulate abortion-inducing drugs that have previously not been regulated by our state. I believe the provisions in my bill have the chance to save women’s lives.”

Braunlin said this measure is a huge overreach for state officials.

“It’s not for safety, it’s to reduce access to abortions,” Braunlin said.

O’Connor said Planned Parenthood opposes the bill because it is an intrusion on the practice of medicine.

“The decision about how a doctor treats a patient is between the doctor and the patient,” she said.

Because RU-486 is taken at an early point in the pregnancy, the required ultrasound would be transvaginal, Braunlin said. A transvaginal ultrasound involves a probe being inserted through the women’s cervix to the uterus, she explained.

“It would likely be done anyway,” she said. “But it feels different if you’ve consented to it and it’s offered in your best interest. It’s different than when it is mandated by the state.”

According to a press release by HAPA, Sue Swayze, legislative director for Indiana Right to Life, said after the senate committee approved the bill last Wednesday that the ultrasounds would not be intrusive.

“I got pregnant vaginally,” she said. “Something else could come in my vagina for a medical test that wouldn’t be that intrusive to me. So I find that argument a little ridiculous.”

Braunlin said she does not find the debate ridiculous in the least.

“It is a tremendously big deal,” she said. “For some women it is painful, for some women it is psychologically difficult. For women who are rape victims it is especially difficult.”

John Stutsman, an IU professor and obstetrician-gynecologist who serves as Planned Parenthood of Indiana’s medical director, said in an email that as a medical provider he is concerned about mandating testing that is not always necessary and codifying medical practice. 

He opposes the bill for several reasons, he said.

“I oppose it because I am for a woman’s autonomy and control over her body,” he said. “I oppose it because I trust women. I oppose it because I am a father of a daughter. I oppose it because I have knowledge and experience of the safety of this procedure.”

O’Connor also said the bill would disproportionately affect lower-income women, because the bill exempts physicians in a private physician’s office.

“The bill has been crafted under the concern for patient safety,” she said. “One of the problems with it is that woman who can’t get that service at the clinic are more inclined to go to the Internet where the medicine is more readily available.”

The committee also passed SB 489 on Wednesday, which mandates that clinics give women the informed consent form with color photographs of fetuses, as opposed to previously black and white photographs, in various stages of development.

Additionally, the bill removes a state requirement that women listen to the fetal heartbeat.

Despite this point, Braunlin said she believes the bill will only to make it harder for women to get an abortion.

“They are concerned that medical abortions are too easy on the woman and too abstract,” Braunlin said. “It appears they just wanted it to be a little more visceral and little more gut-wrenching than it all ready is.”