Facts on HB 388

1. This bill does nothing to improve women’s health and safety. In fact it is a direct threat to women’s health and safety, as it will close safe and reputable abortion providers who are unable to meet this requirement.
2. LA law already imposes regulations on abortion providers, requiring a physician to remain in an abortion facility when patients are present. This physician must either have admitting privileges OR a written transfer agreement with a physician who has admitting privileges at a local hospital to facilitate emergency care. Eliminating a physician’s ability to maintain an arrangement with a physician who has local hospital admitting privileges will not improve patient safety.
3. There is no medical reason for this requirement: an abortion is among the safest medical procedures. Less than .5% lead to major complications, and most of those few complications can be addressed in an outpatient setting.
4. The AMA and ACOG oppose requiring admitting privileges for abortion doctors. Among their reasons is that abortion is some thirty-times safer than other outpatient procedures, like colonoscopies, that are not subject to admitting privilege requirements.
5. Admitting privileges are not easy to come by under any circumstances. More importantly, such a admitting requirement gives hospitals the power to decide whether abortion services are even available in the state.
6. There is a clause that requires physicians to provide a phone number to the nearest hospital. This is also medically unsound because in the event of an actual emergency, the hospital will tell them to hang up and call 911.
7. No other physician outpatient procedures with similar levels of anesthesia are required to have admitting privileges. This bill targets abortion providers specifically, in an effort to reduce the availability of abortion services in the state.

Louisiana Statistics

• Births resulting from unintended pregnancy-80% (2006)
• Public cost for births resulting from unintended pregnancy (millions of $)-406 (2006)
• Number of unintended pregnancies per 1000 women (ages 15-44)-55 (2006)
• Findings suggest that the way to cut Medicaid costs is to expand access to health care, not limit it.

General Findings

• Unintended pregnancy rates have increased among poor women while they have declined among higher-income women.
• 42% of women having abortions have income levels below the federal poverty line.
• Women report having to borrow money from friends & family and forgo paying rent, groceries & utilities to pay for their procedure.
• Compared with higher income women, poor women have unintended pregnancy rates 5X as high; abortion rates 5X as high and unplanned birth rates 6X as high.
• Seven in 10 women would have preferred to have their abortion earlier. Many women experience delays because they need time to raise the money.
• Delays=Higher Costs: travel costs, child care costs, lost wages from missed work

Sources

Finer LB and Zolna MR, Unintended pregnancy in the United States: incidence and disparities, 2006, Contraception, 2011, 84(5):478–485.

Jones RK, Finer LB and Singh S, Characteristics of U.S. abortion patients, 2008, New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2010.

Jones RK and Kavanaugh ML, Changes in abortion rates between 2000 and 2008 and lifetime incidence of abortion, Obstetrics & Gynecology, 2011, 117(6):1358–1366.

Finer LB et al., Timing of steps and reasons for delays in obtaining abortions in the United States, Contraception, 2006, 74(4):334–344.