July 11, 2013

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Extreme Drought Hits Texas pages 4-5

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panamericanonline.com

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July 11, 2013

Volume 69, No. 28

Texas abortion bill divides state, would impose new regulations

Clinics that will most likely close under stricter abortion laws

Co-ed tournament

El Nogalar

Clinics that will most likely remain open

STC theater’s last summer play

Weekly summaries of events

AU Mural

Students paint Chicago

YouTube

By Susan Gonzalez The Pan American Terry Sallas Merritt was a 27-year-old student at the University of Florida when she had an abortion - a decision that still impacts her today. As a pro-choice advocate, Merritt is against Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 2, Texas legislation that will place restrictions on abortion practices in Texas. HB 2 passed in the Texas House July 10 and can move to the Texas Senate as early as July 13. “People don’t get pregnant to have an abortion,” said Merritt, who works in public affairs with Whole Woman’s Health, a chain of private gynecology and abortion centers with locations in Texas, Minnesota and Maryland. “Pregnancy shines a bright light on your life so you start looking at everything and trying to decide ‘Who am I? What am I going to be? What can I provide?’” HISTORY OF THE BILL If passed during the special session, SB 1 and HB 2 will not

allow abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, will require abortion clinics to meet the same standards as outpatient surgical centers - also known as ambulatory surgical centers - and will require any doctor performing abortions to have hospital privileges no further than 30 miles from the abortion clinic. Originally Senate Bill 5 during the regular Texas legislative session that ended June 25, SB 1, and its companion bill, HB 2, are revivals of this legislation. A last-ditch effort was made to approve SB 5 the last night of the regular session, with a vote of 19-10 in favor of the legislation, but the vote occurred after midnight. According to the state constitution, the session ended and the bill could not be signed, enrolled or sent to the governor. But less than 24 hours after the nearly 13-hour filibuster given by Sen. Wendy Davis, DFort Worth, that prevented SB 5 from passing in the Texas Senate, Gov. Rick Perry called for a second special legislative session to begin July 1 at 2 p.m.

While the Texas Legislature only meets once every two years, the governor is allowed to call as many special 30-day sessions as he thinks are necessary to deal with specific bills he wants the legislature to discuss. A special session, unlike the regular one, only requires a majority rather than a two-thirds vote, to pass a bill. 20 WEEKS An abortion that occurs after 20 weeks is often referred to as a “late-term abortion” since it takes place during or after the second trimester. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Act June 18 with a vote of 228-196. It would ban nearly all abortions 20 weeks after fertilization. The justification for this measure is that fetuses can feel pain at this point in the pregnancy. “At 20 weeks maybe sooner, the baby feels pain,” said physician and

Rep. John Fleming, R-La., in an NPR article. “This bill is not just about abortion; it’s about pain, it’s about torture to that young life.” However, scientific studies on how much pain a fetus can feel vary in conclusions. Kanwaljeet “Sunny” Anand, professor of pediatrics, anesthesiology and neurobiology at the University of Tennessee, confirmed this insight in a 2008 article in The New York Times. Other studies,

such as one published in the British Medical Journal, deny it. But scientific conclusions aside, Kathryn Hearn, community services director for the Planned Parenthood Association of Hidalgo County, said this regulation poses a medical risk. “There’s fewer than 1 percent of abortions done in Texas after 20 weeks,” Hearn said. “Very often those pregnancies were happy pregnancies. Those women were happy to be pregnant, they wanted to give birth and have a child, but those pregnancies somewhere along the line went terribly, terribly wrong. So, those abortions after 20 weeks are those that women have to save their life, to protect their fertility, to protect their health.” For example, if a woman chooses to carry a troubled

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