Brian Schatz on Abortion

Require offering emergency contraception for rape victims

In the Hawaii State House, Brian led the charge for over-the-counter emergency contraception. He sponsored legislation allowing access to emergency contraception without a doctor's prescription.

In 2003, Brian voted for legislation requiring hospitals to offer emergency contraception to sexual assault victims. No matter what the religious affiliation of the hospital, he believes that sexual assault victims deserve to know their options, and should not be forced to carry their rapist's child simply because they went to a hospital that objected to emergency contraception on religious grounds. Brian said, "Once you're the only hospital in the neighborhood, you have a responsibility to all members of the public and not just to your personal religious beliefs."

Abortions should be legally available, and funded

Schatz indicates support of the following principles concerning abortion.
• Abortions should always be legally available.
• Q: Should Hawaii government funding be provided to clinics and medical facilities that provide abortion services?
  A: Yes.

Ban anti-abortion limitations on abortion services.

Congressional summary:: Women's Health Protection Act: makes the following limitations concerning abortion services unlawful and prohibits their imposition or application by any government:

• a requirement that a medical professional perform specific tests, unless generally required in the case of medically comparable procedures;
• a limitation on an abortion provider's ability to delegate tasks;
• a limitation on an abortion provider's ability to prescribe or dispense drugs based on her or his good-faith medical judgment;
• a requirement or limitation concerning the physical plant, equipment, staffing, or hospital transfer arrangements;
• a requirement that, prior to obtaining an abortion, a woman make medically unnecessary visits to the provider of abortion services or to any individual or entity that does not provide such services;
• a prohibition or ban prior to fetal viability

Opponent's argument against (Live Action News): This is Roe v. Wade on steroids. The bill is problematic from the very beginning. Its first finding addresses "women's ability to participate equally"; many have rejected this claim that women need abortion in order to be equal to men, or that they need to be like men at all. The sponsors of this pro-abortion bill also seem to feel that pro-life bills have had their time in this country, and that we must now turn back to abortion. The bill also demonstrates that its proponents have likely not even bothered attempting to understand the laws they are seeking to undo, considering that such laws are in place to regulate abortion in order to make it safer. Those who feel that abortion is best left up for the states to decide will also find this bill problematic with its overreach. Sadly, the bill also uses the Fourteenth Amendment to justify abortion, as the Supreme Court did, even though in actuality it would make much more sense to protect the lives of unborn Americans.

Access safe, legal abortion without restrictions.

Congressional Summary: Congress finds the following:

Access to safe, legal abortion services has been hindered in various ways, including blockades of health care facilities; restrictions on insurance coverage; restrictions on minors' ability to obtain services; and requirements that single out abortion providers.
• These restrictions harm women's health by reducing access to the other essential health care services offered by the providers targeted by the restrictions, including contraceptive services.
• The cumulative effect of these numerous restrictions has been that a woman's ability to exercise her constitutional rights is dependent on the State in which she lives.
• It is the purpose of this Act to protect women's health by ensuring that abortion services will continue to be available and that abortion providers are not singled out for medically unwarranted restrictions

Opponents reasons for voting NAY:(National Review, July 17, 2014): During hearings on S. 1696, Senators heard many myths from abortion proponents about the "need" for the bill's evisceration of all life-affirming legislation.

• Myth: Life-affirming laws are enacted "under the false pretext of health and safety."
  Fact: Induced abortion is associated with significant risks and potential harms to women.
• Myth: "Where abortion services are restricted and unavailable, abortions still occur and are mostly unsafe."
  Fact: Where abortion is restricted, maternal mortality rates have decreased.
• Myth: Admitting privileges laws are "not medically justified."
  Fact: Women with abortion complications are told to go to an emergency department. This would constitute malpractice in any other scenario.
• Myth: Ultrasounds and their descriptions are "cruel and inhumane."
  Fact: Allowing women the opportunity to view their ultrasounds serves an important role in providing informed consent, enabling women to exercise true choice.

Keep federal funding for family planning clinics.

Excerpts from Letter to the Senate Majority Leader from 46 Senators: The recent vote in the House to overturn rules protecting Title X health centers would deny women access to care. In 2015, Title X provided basic primary and preventive health care services such as pap tests, breast exams, and HIV testing to more than four million low-income women and men at over 4,000 health centers. In large part due to this work, the US unintended pregnancy rate is at a 30-year low, and rates of teenage pregnancy are the lowest in our nation's history. The success of the program is dependent on funding. Family planning services, like those provided at Planned Parenthood and other family planning centers, should be available to all women, no matter where they live or how much money they make.

Opposing argument: (Heritage Foundation, "Disentangling the Data"): Planned Parenthood received approximately $60 million of taxpayer money under Title X, and $390 million through Medicaid. To ensure that taxpayers are not forced to subsidize America's number one abortion provider, Congress should make Planned Parenthood affiliates ineligible to receive either Medicaid reimbursements or Title X grants if they continue to perform abortions. Taxpayer money from these programs should instead be redirected to the more than 9,000 federally qualified health center sites that provide comprehensive primary health care for those in need without entanglement in abortion.

Supporting argument: (ACLU, "Urging Title X"): Title X services help women & men to plan the number and timing of their pregnancies, thereby helping to prevent approximately one million unintended pregnancies, nearly half of which would end in abortion. However, current funding is inadequate. Had Title X funding kept up with inflation it would now be funded at nearly $700 million. We ask that Title X be funded at $375 million, which is $92 million above its current funding level.

Born-Alive Survivors bill tries to illegalize abortion.

S.311/H.R.962: Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act: Congress finds the following:

• If an abortion results in the live birth of an infant, the infant is a legal person for all purposes under the laws of the United States, and entitled to all the protections of such laws.
• (2) Any infant born alive after an abortion or within a hospital, clinic, or other facility has the same claim to the protection of the law that would arise for any newborn, or for any person who comes to a hospital, clinic, or other facility for screening and treatment or otherwise becomes a patient within its care.
• In the case of an attempted abortion that results in a child born alive, any health care practitioner present at the time the child is born alive shall exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age.

Opposing argument from Rewire.com, "Born Alive Propaganda," by Calla Hales, 4/12/2019: From restrictive bans at various points of pregnancy to a proposed death penalty for seeking care, both federal and state legislators are taking aim at abortion rights. The goal? To make abortion illegal, criminalizing patients and providers in the process. One kind of bill making a recent resurgence is the "Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act." These bills aim to further the false narrative that abortions regularly occur immediately before or, according to the president, at the time of birth. Intentional action to end the life of an infant is already illegal. This is covered by federal and state infanticide laws. These bills do nothing but vilify physicians who provide reproductive health care.

Legislative outcome Referred to Committee in House; Senate motion to proceed rejected, 56-41-3 (60 required).