MORGANTOWN — The bill to clarify state abortion law cleared the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and heads toward a public hearing, debate on proposed amendments and probable House passage on Wednesday.
Judiciary took up HB 302 Tuesday morning.
Rabbi Joshua Lief of Temple Shalom in Wheeling fielded questions from the members. Offering a broad look at the Jewish view of abortion, he cited Exodus 21:22, which says if two men fight and hurt a pregnant woman, causing her to give birth prematurely, but no harm follows, they will be punished but not receive the death sentence.
Since then, he said, Rabbis have decided that it isn’t the same as murder for the loss of the not-yet-born. Life begins at conception, but while that life is human, it does not reach personhood until birth, making the rights of the fetus secondary to the mother’s.
That includes both the physical and mental health of the mother, he said, and in cases of rape and incest, wide berth of discretion is given to the mother. No one is encouraged to have an abortion, but it is permitted in cases of rape or incest.
The state should not answer to Jewish law, Lief said; but it also should not show deference to other religions. He warned that HB 301 may violate the state Constitution by preferring one religion over others.
Among the bill’s provisions, it makes all existing abortion laws — except the criminal portion updated and enacted in 1870 — no longer effective and creates a new code section to consolidate everything in one spot. It defines abortion as “the use of any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance or device with intent to terminate the pregnancy.”
Pregnancy is when a fertilized egg has implanted in the wall of the uterus
It prohibits abortions except in the case of a non-medically viable fetus, an ectopic pregnancy or a medical emergency. A medical emergency would lead to the mother’s death or substantial and irreversible physical impairment. An emergency excludes a threat of suicide or self-injury.
Members approved an amendment correcting some errors and code citations.
Democratic members offered the same two amendments offered in House Health on Monday, and they met the same fate.
One was to make an exception for rape and incest. Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha and an amendment sponsor, pointed out that in cases where the rapist is not convicted, he retains parental rights.
Delegate Steve Westfall, R-Jackson, offered an amendment to that amendment to allow the exemption to be effective during just the first six weeks of pregnancy. He said he favored an exemption but not for an indefinite period. At six weeks there’s still no heartbeat and it’s still an embryo rather than a fetus.
His amendment faced opposition because many females don’t even know they’re pregnant at six weeks, and Delegate Joe Ellington, R-Mercer and an obstetrician/gynecologist, confirmed that.
Westfall’s amendment failed and debate began on the main amendment.
Minority Leader Doug Skaff, D-Kanawha, said he’s a father and pro-life, but favors the exemption. Without it, victims will be forced to undergo further trauma and so might the child after birth. If you vote against it, “How can you live with yourself?”
Delegate Patrick McGeehan, R-Hancock, said, “There’s terrible evil in this world. When we confront such evil we cannot participate in another evil.”
The exemption, he said, opens the door to moral relativity. “That innocent life is still an innocent life regardless of the evil act. … Is it ever just to punish an innocent person for a crime committed on someone else?”
Several Democrats repeated their accusation that Gov. Jim Justice put the bill on the call at the last minute as a bargaining chip to save his tax cut bill.
The amendment failed in a 7-16 vote. Pushkin’s amendments to repeal state code section 61-2-8, which contains the felony provisions of the law, also failed.
An amendment to put the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act — which requires a physician who performs a failed abortion and the child is born alive to obtain care for the child — into the new section passed without opposition.
During debate on the bill’s passage, Delegate Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, argued that the bill invades a woman’s personal rights. “If you don’t want to wear a mask and infect someone else, that’s OK. … I just wish you would leave people alone.”
Responding to Democratic questions about why they were taking up the bill at all, committee vice chair Tom Fast, R-Fayette, said it’s necessary following the Dobbs decision.
He also pointed out that Lief didn’t read the remainder of the verse in Exodus. It says that if any harm ensues from the fight, the punishment is life for life, eye for eye and tooth for tooth — much more severe than Lief suggested.
The committee passed the bill and sent it to the House floor, where it was read a second time and moved to third reading, with the right to amend. A public hearing on the bill is set for 9 a.m. Wednesday in the House chamber.
Also during the House floor session, Pushkin and colleagues introduced HB 303, a bill to repeal 61-2-8. It was referred to Judiciary, and given the amendment’s fate there, it is unlikely to see an agenda.
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