Governor's Task Force on Abortion shows bias
Governor’s Task Force on Abortion colludes with Abortion Ban filers and devises plan to circumvent patient privacy laws For Immediate Release: For more info contact: December 4, 2007 Pamela Sumners at 314-531-8616 Members of the Governor’s Task Force on the Effects of Abortion on Women allowed it to be known at their meeting yesterday that they are working with the Elliot Institute, the group sponsoring the recently submitted abortion ban initiative petition. After a member of the task force looked for David Reardon, founder and director of the Institute, in the gallery in order to offer him the opportunity to speak, the group went on to consider the Elliot Institute “study” on the alleged coercion of women to have abortions. The panel also discussed the wider “ministry” of the institute. “It is laughable that the governor or his task force would expect us to believe this task force isn’t working in tandem with the initiative,” said Pamela Sumners, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri. “What we have here is a replay of what happened in South Dakota, where that governor’s task force resulted directly in a legislative ban on abortions. For this task force to claim it is not interested in banning abortions is to claim that somehow 2+2 no longer equals 4. For the governor to pretend this task force and ballot initiative that functionally bans all abortions isn’t all about his pandering to his right-wing political base strains credibility.” The Elliot Institute, an out-of-state right-wing think tank, is a leading proponent of the discredited theory that women who have abortions suffer life-long trauma. In an effort to fish for data supporting their debunked claim, the task force plans on requesting a change in the reporting requirements for abortion collected by the state Department of Health. Claiming that the current system of reporting, which protects the confidentiality of patient records would not go far enough the task force would require the department to track individual women for years after their abortions. “It isn’t enough for this group to try to deny a woman the right to choose a safe, legal abortion; now they would like access to all of her health records for years following,” Sumners said. “This kind of blatant intrusion into the private lives of citizens is precisely what we can expect if we allow these kinds of unconstitutional shenanigans to continue.” During the public comment portion of the meeting, several members of the nearly entirely pro-choice gallery addressed the panel. They echoed comments previously made by Senator Joan Bray that organizations like NARAL, with decades of experience helping women and preventing unplanned pregnancies, were excluded from the task force. They received the response that “the governor is clearly of the pro-life persuasion and only asked people who share his views to serve on the task force.” Task force members also stated that reducing the rate of abortion by preventing unplanned pregnancy is clearly beyond their purview, and would not be discussed. As a line of citizens wishing to speak to the task force developed, many of their comments were met with laughter or snide commentary from members of the panel. The most egregiously rude member, Joe Dalton of the Pregnancy Resource Center of Rolla, questioned why the panel should entertain public comment because, “clearly we’re diametrically opposed to all the people standing up here,” and said that several of the concerns raised by pro-choice citizens – especially those about preventing pregnancy through contraception and family planning budgets – were “ridiculous.” ###
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