The Senate Health & Social Services Committee heard three bills, with the dominant focus on two highly contested abortion-related measures: SB252, requiring providers to offer ultrasound imaging and auscultation of fetal heart tones before abortion, and SB251, the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act restricting abortion based on fetal pain capacity. No votes were taken on any of the three bills, and outcomes remain unclear.
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Chair Pinkney asked Emily Hobler how SB252 would be materially different from informed consent already in Delaware law, noting that Delaware-specific abortion law already requires clinical judgment around whether an ultrasound is medically necessary. Hobler responded that there is currently nothing in the Delaware code that would require an ultrasound to be performed before an abortion. Dr. Chow stated the bill is not an informed consent bill and characterized it as hand-picking an element that those opposed to abortion hope might talk a woman out of the procedure.
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“We're not asking for the legislator to choose for the woman. We are asking for the legislator to ensure the provider gives her the biological facts necessary to choose for herself.”
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Sign in to subscribeGood morning and welcome back to yet another episode of the Senate Health and Social Services Committee. We will get started. Started. You know the rules. Follow them, play by them. We have no meeting minutes today, so we're recording your progress right into that. That gets me every week. And we'll start with attendance. Roll call. Senators present. Myself. Chair Pinkney is present. Vice Chair Townsend's not going to be joining us today. Senator Huxtable, Senator Siegfried not yet here. Senator Poore will be back in a moment. Senator Buxon, Senator Hanson will be here shortly and Senator Wilson. All right. With a quorum present and more on the way, we will jump right into it. We have. We'll start with my first my bill this morning. HB17 with House Amendment 1. HB17 is a fairly simple bill, but an important one. It is a part of a package of bills that we are running in the legislature to be in conformant with our Rural Healthcare Transformation Fund grant dollars. This bill simplifies and removes barriers in the certificate of need process that our hospitals are facing. It's important and practical and it makes updates to the Delaware Certificate…
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