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Gov. Eric Holcomb surrounded by Republican legislative leaders and state agency officials.
Brandon Smith/IPB NewsGov. Eric Holcomb is defending signing into law an anti-abortion measure that’s been struck down in other states.
The bill largely bans the second trimester procedure known as dilation and evacuation abortions. The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana has already filed a lawsuit seeking to strike down the legislation.
Holcomb says the threat of a lawsuit didn’t factor into his decision to sign the bill.
“The bills that I have signed have been out of my own conscience,” Holcomb says.
The state has already lost to the ACLU in six other lawsuits against Indiana anti-abortion measures this decade, at taxpayers’ expense. And Sen. Mark Stoops (D-Bloomington) says that record shows Republicans’ continued push to curtail abortion rights is not only, in his view, dangerous to women but also fiscally irresponsible.
“But I guess not all is lost," Stoops says. "At least the ACLU will continue to receive funding to protect our rights.”
Indiana has paid out millions of dollars to the ACLU in the last few years because of those abortion lawsuits.
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