A bill demanding doctors inform pregnant women seeking abortions that their fetuses feel pain provoked passionate testimony at a hearing of the Assembly Health Committee Tuesday at the Capitol.
Assembly Bill 321 would require physicians to inform women seeking abortions that fetuses after 20 weeks of gestation have physical structures allowing them to experience pain, that there is evidence suggesting unborn children seek to evade certain stimuli, and that abortion methods invoke substantial pain upon unborn children.
The bill also requires that information provided to women seeking abortions be updated, published and redistributed.
In response to this proposed law, Planned Parenthood representatives Chris Taylor and Lisa Boyce voiced grave concern. Taylor claimed the bill is essentially requiring physicians to mislead and scare women.
\It coerces women into changing their minds on abortion,"" she said.
She added there is ""no credible scientific evidence"" to support the information doctors would provide under the bill and called the information ""invasive, inflammatory and misleading"" to women seeking abortions.
Boyce further questioned the representatives on the committee, asking, ""Why are we trying to pass a bill when there is uncertainty about the facts?""
According to Taylor, rather than the government enforcing this bill, ""the Legislature should be educating the youth"" by passing laws that provide improved access to birth control and emphasizing the implementation of sex education.
Other national groups weighed in on the controversy at the hearing. Kelda Helen Roys, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin said she agreed with Planned Parenthood representatives that the bill is not supported by scientific evidence.
Roys criticized the Legislature for attempting to control the information that patients receive from doctors. She said doctors are in a better position to make medical decisions than politicians.
Speaking rhetorically, Roys additionally asked representatives, ""Are you going to pass a bill that is not medically accepted, misleading, and unproven?""
By providing misleading information, ""the bill jeopardizes the health of patients and medical reputation of providers,"" she said.
