Utah Legislature: Ultrasound bill clears House panel

A bill passed unanimously in committee Friday requires medical clinics that perform abortions to display any ultrasound images of a pregnant woman's fetus taken prior to the procedure so she can view them, if she wants, as they are being taken.

HB200, which retools the informed consent requirements portion of state abortion statutes, also requires clinics to give a detailed description of the ultrasound images if the woman asks for the information.

The measure also requires the state Department of Health to produce printed and video information on the abortion procedure, and that facilities performing abortions make it available to any woman seeking an abortion 24 hours before it is performed.

Sponsor Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, said the intent of the bill is simply to give women more information about the procedure free of charge if they want it. The intent is simple, but the language of the bill is unavoidably difficult because it updates and rewrites aspects of the state's complicated informed consent policies and procedures.

HB200, which no one testified against at the hearing, is likely the least controversial of any abortion legislation Wimmer has sponsored, yet it has become his most widely misunderstood proposal, he said.

"This doesn't force anything on women; it makes no mandate of any kind," Wimmer said. "In four or five places, it uses the phrase 'if she chooses.' This is actually a 'choice' bill that allows a woman to have more information if she wants it. That's it."

The reason ultrasound images are specified, he said, is that 86 percent of women who see the image of their unborn child before the procedure choose not to go ahead with it.

Another abortion bill sponsored by Wimmer, HB12, that would make it a crime for a pregnant woman to seek an illegal abortion, passed the full House Friday on a 59-12 vote.

A core element of both bills is Wimmer's desire to have abortions based solely on the physical health, and not the mental health, of the pregnant woman who is seeking an abortion. About 3,000 abortions a year are performed in Utah, according to county and state public health data.

The bills show no fiscal impact, but the Health Department will have to pay for producing and making information available, plus provide lawmakers with a new annual report at the same time it is imposing budget cutbacks of 3 percent to 4 percent.

e-mail: jthalman@desnews.com