California looks to authorize non-physician performed abortions

According to the Life Legal Defense Foundation, the California Assembly Committee on Business, Professions and Consumer Protection approved a bill by a vote of 9 to 4 that would increase non-physician abortion in the state of California. The bill, AB 154, would require a training course for nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, and physician assistants, but would then allow them to perform aspiration abortions. According to LLDF, the bill would open up the door to producing more abortionists.

The training would be based on a pilot project, HWPP No. 171. But reports show a higher danger to women; under HWPP No. 171, a December 2011 report showed an 80% spike in complications when non-physicians performed a surgical abortion. The report showed that physicians reported 78 complications, while non-physicians reported 141. Those complications included “incomplete abortion, failed abortion, hemorrhage/excessive bleeding, hematometra, infection, cervical injury, and uterine perforation.”

According to Dana Cody, the president and executive director of LLDF, “AB 154 is based on flawed and incomplete research and will increase danger to women. It is horrific that unborn children are dying in abortion clinics everyday – now women’s lives are put at further risk. My prediction is that this type of ‘training to perform abortion’ will ultimately become a mandate under Obamacare. God have mercy on our nation.”

Proponents point to a recent American Journal of Public Health article that applauded HWPP No. 71, but according to LLDF, in that project, a physician was present at all abortions. If AB 154 were to be made law, non-physicians would be able to perform abortions without a physician present. According to LLDF, that is a flaw in the American Journal of Public Health article, which does not take into account the presence of a physician in the pilot project during an abortion.

“California sees far too many unqualified physicians performing abortion in sub-standard clinic environments,” said Cody. “Expand that to non-physicians practicing without effective physician oversight, and it is not a pretty picture.”