MORGANTOWN – The state Senate passed a retooled version of the House abortion law bill Friday night.
While the Senate amended version of HB 302 is largely the same, it has two significant differences. It eliminates the criminal penalties, and it trims the window for adult victims of rape an incest to obtain a legal abortion from 14 weeks to eight.
Along the way, comments from a couple Republican senators led to jeers and heckling from from pro-choice observers, and resulted in an angry President Craig Blair pausing the session to clear the gallery.
At the end, one senator pushed the wrong vote button and they had to re-vote to register her true wishes. The crowd chanting outside made it hard for Blair to hear what was going on but the re-vote finally happened.
And the special session is paused for at least a week, At just after 10 p.m, the Senate adopted a concurrent resolution – needing House agreement – to adjourn, and then did adjourn until the president calls everyone back. Shortly after that, the House refused to concur in the Senate amendment and called for formation of a conference committee.
The Senate version took the form of a strike-and-insert amendment replacing the House version; that amendment was subject to further amendment before it was adopted.
One amendment, from Minority Leader Stephen Baldwin, dealing with the rape and incest provision. The original amendment allowed for adult victims to obtain a legal abortion within the first eight weeks of pregnancy if they report the assault to law enforcement and obtain medical care. For minors and incompetent or incapacitated adults, the window was 14 weeks, with the requirement that it either be reported to law enforcement or medical care was sought.
For both groups, Baldwin posed amendments to change the requirement to merely reporting the rape to a mandatory reporter. He argued that few rapes are reported and victims often would be more comfortable talking to a guidance counselor or teacher or someone else who would then report the assault.
His amendment regarding adults failed. After some confusion over technical issues with both amendments got sorted, the other one was adopted with Republican support.
But during the course of the debate, Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, opposed both saying an abortion clinic could have mandatory reporters on staff and a pregnant female could just go in and falsely claim rape to use abortion as birth control.
“If somebody’s willing to go in and kill their baby, they’re willing to lie as well to get it done.” That led to jeers from the audience and Blair’s first threat to clear the gallery.
Later, after the technical issues were resolved, Sen. Robert Karnes, R-Randolph, pursued a line of thought that rape victims often have romantic feelings for their abusers and sometimes mandatory reporters are abusers and are seeking an excuse to have the victim get an abortion to cover their misdeeds.
That led to the second round of jeers that caused Blair to recess for 15 minutes and clear the gallery.
Sen. Mike Romano, D-Harrison, offered an amendment to extend the window for rape and incest to 22 weeks, which failed. And Sen. Mike Maroney, R-Marshall, failed with a more modest extension to 10 weeks for adults.
Sen. Ron Stollings, D-Boone, failed in a proposed mental health parity amendment to count threats of self-harm and suicide as a permissible medical emergency.
The amendment to eliminate the criminal penalty came from Majority Leader Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, who is a physician and talked about the stifling effect the potential prison sentence would have on doctors treating pregnant females. Fear of prison could force them to make wrong decisions.
The vote to adopt it was 18-13, with nine Republican voting yes.
Tarr proposed an amendment to create an Abortion Assessment Advisory Board that would decide if abortions to be performed on minors less than 23 weeks pregnant are necessary and advisable. He said he intended it both as a protection for abortion providers acting in good faith and as a deterrent to bad-faith providers, But he withdrew it after Takubo’s amendment succeeded.
After all the sub-amendments were considered, discussion turned to the overall amendment.
Tarr said he was willing to accept the original strike-and-insert, but not the amended version.
“The sins of the father shouldn’t make a death sentence for the child,” he said. “A product of rape or incest is still a human.” The amended version fails to close the loopholes for abortion profiteers.
It was the Democrats who helped carry the amended amendment to adoption in a 21-10 vote. Nine Republicans voted no but eight Democrats voted yes.
The final round of speeches addressed what was now HB 302 with the Senate version replacing the House version.
Righteous anger was evident on both sides of the issue.
Sen. Mike Caputo, D-Marion, read a letter from a constituent, age 32 who identifies at they, who wrote that they were raped at age 10; they were already having periods and when they missed one they fearfully stole one of their mother’s pregnancy tests to see if they were pregnant. “The moment the test turned negative I knew I’d been spared.”
Caputo turned angry as he addressed the comments from Tarr and Karnes. “No one is going to lie as a form of birth control,” he yelled. “I think it’s total BS. … I’m not only a no, Mr. President, I’m a hell no.”
Sen. Randy Smith, R-Tucker, talked about his eight grandchildren – four adopted with two who came close to not being born.
“I can tell you one thing we don’t have to right to do,” he said, tearfully, “Choose to end the life of a baby.” He said that decision belongs to God.
“These children are innocent,” he said. “There’s not one person in this body that’s going to convince me that we have a right to take these babies’ lives.”
Karnes said he’d be voting against the bill, with all of its exceptions. “This is not a pro-life bill. This is a pro-abortion bill.” He hopes the House returns it to its more restrictive version.
Romano said, “My religion tells me to vote yes. My belief in freedom tells me this bill is wrong to force my beliefs on other citizens.”
The final vote was 21-10, with one Democrat voting yes and two Republicans voting no.
Blair said he expects he may be calling the Senate back Aug. 8, but he left the date indefinite. The House also adjourned pending the call of the speaker.
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