Senate passes abortion ban, House leader vows to kill bill

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Senate passes abortion ban, House leader vows to kill bill

By John Mott Coffey, The Commericial Dispatch (Columbus, Mississippi), February 8, 2007

JACKSON - The state Senate passed a bill Wednesday to ban most abortions in Mississippi, but the House chairman in charge of such legislation said he's going to kill it.

"I have no intention of taking up any pro-life bills this year," said House Public Health and Human Services Chairman Steve Holland, D-Plantersville.

The Senate voted 34-5 for the bill to prohibit abortions except in cases of rape, incest or if the pregnant woman's life is endangered. Anyone found guilty of providing an illegal abortion could be fined $5,000 and jailed for one year.

Senate Public Health and Welfare Chairman Alan Nunnelee, R-Tupelo, argued that the abortion-ban bill isn't aimed at intruding on women's rights to terminate their pregnancies.

"This bill in no way regulates these young women. What this bill does is regulate these folks that are making money off of these young women," Nunnelee said.

"I'm interested in driving them out of the state."

Mississippi's only abortion clinic is in Jackson.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 declared women have a right to abortions.

However, the state House of Representatives in 2006 voted 94-25 to ban most abortions, defying the court decision with hopes of triggering a test case to overturn it.

The Senate declined to accept last year's House measure, and it died in March when Nunnelee and Holland couldn't agree in negotiations on the final wording of the ban.

Holland said Wednesday the Senate lost its one chance last year to enact an abortion ban when it quibbled over the House bill.

"I'm not going to put the House through that again," Holland said.

"That's good. We don't have to debate that again," said Rep. Esther Harrison, D-Columbus, who voted against the 2006 abortion bill.

Mississippi is one of several states where lawmakers have considered abortion legislation in the past year since the U.S. Supreme Court got two new, conservative justices seen as potential votes to affirm abortion bans.

South Dakota lawmakers approved an abortion bill in 2006, but voters rejected it in a November referendum.

In addition to the bill to prohibit most abortions, the Mississippi Senate on Wednesday passed two other similar measures. One bill would require doctors in Mississippi to give women considering an abortion the chance to listen to their fetal or embryonic heartbeat and view a sonogram. Another bill says minors who don't have parental consent would have to wait until they get a court's permission before undergoing an abortion.

Planned Parenthood issued a statement Wednesday criticizing the Senate action.

"If Mississippi senators truly care about reducing the number of unintended pregnancies and reducing the need for abortion, they will work with Planned Parenthood to pass prevention measures designed for that purpose," said Felicia Brown Williams, vice president of public affairs for the group's Alabama chapter.

"We ask that legislators stop wasting time and taxpayer funds on criminalizing abortion when they should be focusing on affordable housing, good education and access to sound health care, as well as the continuing unmet needs of the public following Hurricane Katrina."

State Department of Health statistics show there were 3,041 abortions performed in Mississippi in 2005, down from a 10-year high of 4,325 in 1997.

The bills are Senate Bill 2801, 2391 and 2795.

Roll Call Vote

This is how area senators voted on Senate Bill 2795 to ban all abortions except in cases of rape, incest and to save the mother's life.

For: Hob Bryan, D-Amory; Gary Jackson, R-Kilmichael

Against: None

Absent: Sampson Jackson, D-Preston; Bennie Turner, D-West Point; Terry Brown, R-Columbus (Brown did have his support for the bill recorded in the Senate journal, but it doesn't count as a vote.)

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