After Florida improved its reporting system, the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) has been able to record a 14.5% reduction in abortions in the state for 2022. But Lynda Bell of Florida Right to Life has some questions about another figure.
"According to the AHCA … eight babies were actually born alive during their abortion procedures in 2022 that they reported," she tells AFN. "We don't know what happened to those eight babies."
Her organization is already working on convincing members of the legislature that the abortion reporting system requires more changes.
"We should be able to know whether those babies survived, what happened to those babies, were they treated, were they not treated," Bell insists. "This non-information should not be acceptable to anybody."
She also points out that the situation is not unique to Florida. Information on abortion is incomplete nationwide, with some states reporting the figures and some not. That means state legislatures and Congress do not have sufficient information to pass laws to get the stats flowing from the right sources so that meaningful policies can be established.
In Illinois, which is already one of the most pro-abortion states in the nation, lawmakers are moving in the opposite direction, making known their intention to enhance the state's ability to terminate preborn children.
Mary Kate Zander of Illinois Right to Life explains Senate President Don Harmon has introduced an amendment that will expand abortion in five ways. One deals with doctors and other medical personnel.
"A physician has to be present only if they have to provide general anesthesia," she relays. "If the surgical abortion procedure does not require general anesthesia, a physician does not have to be present. A nurse practitioner or someone else can do that procedure."
So that means non-doctors will be doing a surgical procedure.
"The second thing was they were going to go after the free speech of the pregnancy centers," Zander continues. "They were going to say there's conduct that is not allowed, and the attorney general can actually go after these pregnancy organizations and pursue up to $50,000 in civil fines for what the state defines as being misconduct."
Illinois lawmakers are also considering allowing abortionists who have lost their medical licenses for performing illegal abortions in other states to come and commit abortions in The Prairie State. Additionally, Illinois taxpayers will now foot the bill for women coming from other states to receive abortions -- including travel expenses, food, lodging, and the cost of the abortion.
