The Louisiana House voted unanimously Thursday to ban dismemberment abortions and voted 75-1 to ban women from getting an abortion because the fetus has a genetic abnormality such as Down syndrome.
The dismemberment bill would ban the abortion method, commonly used in the second trimester, in which the abortionist uses a metal tool to pull the living fetus out of the womb piece by piece. No one voiced opposition to the bill on the House floor and there was no debate, reported the Associated Press. All 83 representatives present, including 25 Democrats and two Independents voted to pass the bill.
“The fetus in many cases dies just as an adult would,” Republican Rep. Mike Johnson, who sponsored the bill and is running for Congress, told a USA Today affiliate. “It bleeds to death as it is torn limb from limb. There are many who say this is the preferred method not because it better but because it is cheaper.”
Here is how the bill defines dismemberment:
‘Dismemberment abortion’ means, with the purpose of causing the death of an unborn child, to purposely dismember a living unborn child and extract him or her one piece at a time from the uterus through use of clamps, grasping forceps, tongs, scissors, or a similar instrument that, through the convergence of two rigid levers, slices, crushes, or grasps a portion of the unborn child’s body to cut or rip it off or apart.
Pro-abortion activists say the bill would criminalize the “safest” method of abortion for women in their second trimester. State courts have blocked similar laws in Kansas and Oklahoma.
The second bill bans any abortion procedure that is undertaken because the unborn child has a genetic defect, including but not limited to: Down syndrome, any physical disfigurement, dwarfism, albinism, and any other type of intellectual or mental or physical disability. Twenty-one Democrats joined 52 Republicans to pass the bill, over the objection of one Democrat.
Persons found guilty of violating either bill face fines or imprisonment, and violation of the either bill is grounds for civil suit from the women or biological fathers of the aborted fetuses in such cases. Both bills are headed to the Republican-controlled Louisiana Senate.
The House also voted Wednesday to cut off state funds to Planned Parenthood abortion clinics.
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