Lawmakers spar over Columbus; balloons bring bipartisan agreement
Sally Mauk Holly, back at the Legislature, Democratic Representative Laurie Bishop has a bill that would codify the right to an abortion. And to say her House Bill 432 is a long shot is an understatement.
Holly Michels Yeah, I think you're right, Sally. Looking at the makeup of the House Judiciary Committee, which heard the bill, and how they voted on past abortion legislation, I think we can expect that this bill would face a pretty steep path even to get out of committee. And then we've seen how we have a supermajority of Republicans. We've seen them before, you know, pass bills that would limit access to abortion and vote down bills that would expand it. So, that being said, this is still a pretty important bill for Democrats this session in a package of legislation they have aimed at reproductive health care. What this bill would do is codify the existing abortion landscape in Montana, which at the top level is the right to access an abortion under a 1999 state Supreme Court ruling called Armstrong. And that found that Montana's state Constitution has the right to privacy and that Constitution protects access to an abortion. To understand why Democrats want to pass a bill like Bishop's, just look at the Dobbs decision last summer that overturned Roe v Wade at the U.S. Supreme Court at the federal level. And the concern is the same could happen here in Montana. The bill's sponsor, you said, Representative Laurie Bishop, is a Democrat from Livingston, and she told the committee that the bill is just simply codifying what's already practiced here in Montana, that it's not doing anything that's not already the status quo. And the language of the bill, in addition to codification of Armstrong, would strike out parts of state law that are either permanently enjoined by the courts or under temporary injunctions related to abortion. And that includes things like three laws passed last session, including one that would not allow abortions after 20 weeks and would require women to be informed of the opportunity to view an ultrasound for an abortion. Those are temporarily blocked right now as a lawsuit against them plays out.
Bishop would also have, her bill would strike another part of law that's been on hold an injunction for more than a decade now that would require parental consent for minors seeking abortions. And supporters of this bill just say it's good practice to clean up state code. And they also argue that abortion is essential health care. And we heard from people sharing pretty tragic pregnancy outcomes that could have been much worse if, they said, they were not able to get the care that they were able to access. But opponents argue that they don't think these late-term pregnancy tragedies would be affected by changes to abortion access that we have seen that happen in other states following the fall of Roe. Another thing that opponents argue is that some of these laws haven't been fully decided yet. And we also heard from opponents that they want these laws to remain on the books so that Armstrong were to fall in Montana, which is something they think will occur in the future, these laws would trigger back into place.