Committee Considers Bill To Ban Second Trimester Abortion Procedure

Proposed legislation seeks to ban a second trimester abortion procedure under most circumstances.

A House committee took hours of testimony Wednesday on the Indiana legislature’s latest attempt to curtail abortion rights.

Dilation and evacuation abortion procedures, or D&Es, are performed in the second trimester. And they’re currently legal up to around 20 weeks. Proposed legislation would ban them unless there are serious health risks to the mother.

OB-GYN Christina Francis argues D&Es – which she calls “dismemberment abortions” – are barbaric.

“As physicians, we are meant to be healers, not killers," Francis says. "As a just society, we are meant to protect our citizens, especially those who cannot protect themselves.”

But OB-GYN Caitlin Bernard says the bill bans the safest procedure for ending a pregnancy in the second trimester.

“Forcing women to undergo additional or alternative procedures that may cause unnecessary pain and risk of complications,” Bernard says.

A House committee is set to vote on the bill next week.