With nearly all abortions illegal in Louisiana since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, lawmakers who favor abortion rights have set out to ease the state’s ban in some extreme cases and to clarify rare cases where it doesn’t apply.
But a clerical change stemming from the fallout of that decision has spelled a quick death for a few of those bills in the state Legislature — with more likely to follow as Republicans seek to avoid potentially raucous floor debates on sensitive subjects, such as exceptions for rape and incest victims.
Two lawmakers filed bills proposing exceptions to the ban for victims of rape or incest; both were killed in the House Administration of Criminal Justice Committee last week. Others, which sought to exempt miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies from the ban and ease punishments for doctors who perform abortions, are set to be heard by that same committee on Tuesday.
Before the Supreme Court’s invalidation of Roe, abortion was not considered a criminal act in Louisiana, and bills on the subject historically mostly passed through the House Health and Welfare Committee. But since the procedure is now outlawed, legislative staff this session have instead sent bills on the topic to the criminal justice panel.
That committee underwent sweeping changes before the session, with several of the House’s most conservative members appointed to serve on it — a change that House Speaker Clay Schexnayder made because he wanted it to be tougher on crime. Amid the committee’s new, more-conservative makeup, efforts there to soften the abortion ban have largely faltered.
Though Gretna Independent Rep. Joe Marino chairs the panel and votes in favor of expanding abortion access, its members voted down both of the abortion bills by large margins last week.
“It does not matter how many people we get into the room and say that 75% of Louisianans support an exception for rape and incest; it’s their way or the highway,” Rep. C. Denise Marcelle, D-Baton Rouge and a member of the criminal justice committee, said in an interview after the votes.
Different receptions from different committees aside, the Legislature has never signed off on rape and incest exemptions, even though some lawmakers have called for them as far back as 2006, when lawmakers preemptively passed the abortion ban to take effect if the Roe case was overturned.
As tensions mount over abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation this year, political jockeying has ensued over the abortion bills with lawmakers who oppose abortion access hoping to evade a public floor vote on the rape and incest exceptions. Having to publicly vote against such exceptions is seen as a political liability even for hardline conservative lawmakers, according to interviews with legislators on both sides of the political aisle.
Seeking another path to get their abortion bills to the House floor, Reps. Candace Newell, D-New Orleans, and Mary DuBuisson, R-Slidell, tried last week to move their abortion bills back to the Health and Welfare Committee, which has more Democrats than the criminal justice panel. Dubuisson’s bill would clarify that miscarriages do not fall under the ban; Newell’s would clarify how the law’s exceptions work for ectopic pregnancies.
The Health and Welfare Committee’s chairman responded on the House floor last week that his committee did not want them, saying they belong in the committee that deals with criminal codes.
“This is a criminal justice bill; it’s not a health and welfare bill,” Rep. Larry Bagley, R-Stonewall, said on the House floor.
Newell’s bill was returned to the criminal justice panel and is set for a hearing on Tuesday — not without objection from Marino, who felt they belonged back in Bagley’s committee room.
“When I look at (Newell’s) bill, her bill looks like it is talking about a medical procedure or a variation of a medical procedure,” Marino said in an interview. “This is a medical procedure. We are the criminal justice committee.”
Polling suggests that exceptions to the abortion ban for victims of rape and incest are widely popular among Louisiana voters. But the state’s most influential anti-abortion group, Louisiana Right to Life, opposes them.
Rep. Aimee Freeman, D-New Orleans, began to present her bill last week before the Criminal Justice Committee that would clarify how doctors can evaluate whether a pregnancy is medically futile and give them a fine, rather than jail time, for breaking the abortion law.
Freeman said she was meeting with Right to Life staff on Monday to try to hammer out that compromise.
“If they really care about the outcomes of pregnancies, they would want to protect the doctors so they can provide the best outcomes for any pregnancy,” Freeman said in an interview.
Schexnayder, the House speaker, said in an interview that the lower chamber’s record on advancing “pro-life” legislation spells challenges for any proposed changes to the abortion ban.
“But I do see the other side’s argument,” he said. “I think they need to be heard and expressed and then the body can make that decision on its own.”
But, he added, “If I’m one of the people carrying that legislation, I’m sitting in a pro-life body, and that’s going to make it very difficult.”
Leave a Reply