Sarah Zagorski Jun 26, 2015 | 9:25AM Washington

A 26-year-old woman who wants to remain anonymous has shared online that she is seven-weeks-pregnant and plans to have an abortion on July 10th. However, if pro-lifers can raise one million dollars in 72-hours she says she will not have the abortion and place the baby for adoption. She selected 72-hours intentionally because she wanted to draw attention to the laws that recently passed requiring women to wait 72-hours prior to an abortion.

The 26-year-old who is demanding money to save the life of her child believes these laws are intended to control women’s rights rather than to help women and save unborn children. She said, “The backward direction this country is headed in terms of its treatment of women I feel is due in large part to the influence of the religious right disguised as the pro-life movement. The pro-life movement cares very little about saving lives and far more about controlling women by minimizing their choices in a wide variety of ways not the least of which is readily available reproductive health care.”

She concluded, “I hope to give the American public a concrete example that the conservative right in America doesn’t actually care about the life of a child, they care about controlling the lives and choices of women. We have to acknowledge this and we have to stop it.” Additionally, the woman said that if the funds are raised she will put the money in a trust fund for her baby that he or she will have access to on their 21st birthday.

Lila Rose, the President of Live Action, went on the HLN TV show Dr. Drew to explain why this woman’s request is upsetting. She said, “This website that this woman’s putting up about killing a child in 72-hours disturbs us because we know it’s a child, it’s a baby.”

As LifeNews previously reported, in the United States, South Dakota, Utah, Missouri and North Carolina all have three-day waiting periods while 26-states require women to wait 24 or 48 hours. Pro-life lawmakers believe these laws are critical because sometimes abortion involves coercion and women feel they have no other choice than to kill their unborn child. The new laws can give these women time to reconsider their options and potentially pursue other sources for help.

After the pro-life law was enacted in North Carolina, Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life said the following about waiting periods: “As pastoral director of the world’s largest ministries for healing after abortion — Rachel’s Vineyard and the Silent No More Awareness Campaign — I know that many mothers weep for their aborted children years, even decades later. A three-day wait cannot compare to a lifetime of emotional pain. Making sure that abortion clinics meet the minimum health and safety standards is just common sense, except to the abortion industry, which is wildly unregulated, and to its advocates, who think that keeping women safe and doctors accountable is somehow antithetical to women’s rights and health.”

Steven Ertelt Jun 24, 2015 | 11:07AM Washington, DC
http://www.lifenews.com/2015/06/24/ohio-senate-committee-passes-pro-life...

Today, the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services heard additional testimony for and against the legislation and ultimate voted for the bill to move out of committee and on to the Senate floor.

The legislation is sponsored by Senators Peggy Lehner (R-Kettering) and Jay Hottinger (R-Newark). Between the House and Senate, thirty-three legislators signed on as co-sponsors of the legislation.

“In Ohio, I was fortunate enough to work with Ohio Right to Life for the enactment of our post-viability abortion ban in 2011,” said Senator Peggy Lehner in her testimony. “Since passage of that legislation, abortions after 19 weeks gestation have decreased by 40%. While we are encouraged by this trend, there is more to be done and frankly I see no reason why we cant do it together, setting aside our hardened positions on abortion rights and seeking a law that more clearly reflects our understanding of fetal development.”

“The Hippocratic Oath says, First do no harm,” said Representative Roegner, another bill supporter. “I would think everyone could agree to err on the side of caution, in light of the overwhelming scientific evidence, when it comes to the question of whether a five month pre-born baby can feel pain.”

Ohio Right to Life strongly supports the bill and says public opinion is solidly on the side of protecting unborn babies from abortions.

“With Kermit Gosnell’s House of Horrors marked indelibly on the collective American conscience, it’s no wonder there’s a groundswell of support for legislation that protects 5-month pre-born babies from the pain of being dismembered,” said Stephanie Ranade Krider, executive director of Ohio Right to Life. “The passage of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act will chronicle the end of late-term abortion-on-demand in Ohio, bringing us in line with the rest of the developed world.”

Krider said the legislation challenges the viability limit on abortion restrictions, commonly triggered at 24 weeks, that the U.S. Supreme Court imposed in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. As of 2011, abortions in Ohio are prohibited at 24 weeks or the point of viability, which must be tested for at 20 weeks gestation.

Supporters of the bill say it is important to help keep the focus on how abortion victimizes unborn children.

“Human growth in the womb is truly amazing,” said Dr. Dennis Sullivan, director of the Center for Bioethics at Cedarville University. “Most fetal organs are fully formed by the end of the first three months of development. We also know that unborn babies react to external stimuli very early on, and pull away from probes and operating instruments when procedures are done late in pregnancy. I am so thankful that society is finally recognizing the need to protect its most vulnerable members from unnecessary and horrific pain and suffering. It is our solemn duty to pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.”

A national poll by The Polling Company found that, after being informed that there is scientific evidence that unborn children are capable of feeling pain at least by 20 weeks, 64% would support a law banning abortion after 20 weeks, unless the mother’s life was in danger. Only 30% said they would oppose such a law.

A November 2014 poll from Quinnipiac found that 60 percent of Americans support legislation limiting abortions after 20 weeks, including 56 percent of Independents and 46 percent of Democrats.

During a Congressional hearing on the federal bill, former abortion practitioner Anthony Levatino told members of the committee the gruesome details of his former abortion practice and how he became pro-life following the tragic automobile accident of his child.

Another bombshell dropped during the hearing came from Dr. Maureen Condic, who is Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She testified that the unborn child is capable of reacting to pain as early as 8-10 weeks. This is when most abortions in America take place.

The bill relies on the science of fetal pain to establish a Constitutional reason for Congress to ban abortions late in pregnancy. The science behind the concept of fetal pain is fully established and Dr. Steven Zielinski, an internal medicine physician from Oregon, is one of the leading researchers into it. He first published reports in the 1980s to validate research showing evidence for it.

He has testified before Congress that an unborn child could feel pain at “eight-and-a-half weeks and possibly earlier” and that a baby before birth “under the right circumstances, is capable of crying.”

He and his colleagues Dr. Vincent J. Collins and Thomas J. Marzen were the top researchers to point to fetal pain decades ago. Collins, before his death, was Professor of Anesthesiology at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois and author of Principles of Anesthesiology, one of the leading medical texts on the control of pain.

“The functioning neurological structures necessary to suffer pain are developed early in a child’s development in the womb,” they wrote.

“Functioning neurological structures necessary for pain sensation are in place as early as 8 weeks, but certainly by 13 1/2 weeks of gestation. Sensory nerves, including nociceptors, reach the skin of the fetus before the 9th week of gestation. The first detectable brain activity occurs in the thalamus between the 8th and 10th weeks. The movement of electrical impulses through the neural fibers and spinal column takes place between 8 and 9 weeks gestation. By 13 1/2 weeks, the entire sensory nervous system functions as a whole in all parts of the body,” they continued.

With Zielinski and his colleagues the first to provide the scientific basis for the concept of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand has provided further research to substantiate their work.

One leading expert in the field of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand at the University of Tennessee, stated in his expert report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice, “It is my opinion that the human fetus possesses the ability to experience pain from 20 weeks of gestation, if not earlier, and the pain perceived by a fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by term newborns or older children.”

“The neural pathways are present for pain to be experienced quite early by unborn babies,” explains Steven Calvin, M.D., perinatologist, chair of the Program in Human Rights Medicine, University of Minnesota, where he teaches obstetrics.

Dr. Colleen A. Malloy, Assistant Professor, Division of Neonatology at Northwestern University in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2012 said, “[w]hen we speak of infants at 22 weeks LMP [Note: this is 20 weeks post fertilization], for example, we no longer have to rely solely on inferences or ultrasound imagery, because such premature patients are kicking, moving, reacting, and developing right before our eyes in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.”

“In today’s medical arena, we resuscitate patients at this age and are able to witness their ex-utero growth and development. Medical advancement and technology have enabled us to improve our ability to care for these infants…In fact, standard of care for neonatal intensive care units requires attention to and treatment of neonatal pain,” Dr. Malloy testified. She continued, “[t]hus, the difference between fetal and neonatal pain is simply the locale in which the pain occurs. The receiver’s experience of the pain is the same. I could never imagine subjecting my tiny patients to horrific procedures such as those that involve limb detachment or cardiac injection.”

by Marie Smith | LifeNews.com | 6/23/15 12:13 PM

The United Nations’ treaty monitoring body for the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) ignored the pro-life laws of four countries under review during its recent 55^th session and strongly urged the countries to change their laws or policies on abortion, despite the fact that the treaty does not mention abortion.

Ireland’s constitutional protection of life from conception was targeted for elimination as the Committee told Ireland: “The Committee recommends that the State party take all necessary steps, including a referendum on abortion, to revise its legislation on abortion, including the Constitution and the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013, in line with international human rights standards; adopt guidelines to clarify what constitutes a real substantive risk to the life of a pregnant woman; publicize information on crisis pregnancy options through effective channels of communication; and ensure the accessibility and availability of information on sexual and reproductive health.”

The term “human rights standards” comes straight from the pro-abortion legal toolkit. No international human rights treaty includes abortion as a human right and no matter how many times the claim may be repeated, the destruction of an unborn child in abortion is a reproductive wrong, not a human right. There is no universally recognized “right to abortion”.

Chile is considering a new law to allow abortion for limited exceptions but the Committee expressed its dissatisfaction and told the pro-life country with the lowest maternal mortality rate in Latin American that it wanted the legislation to go further saying it was concerned about “a strict ban on abortion.”

Uganda was told that abortion in its country is “too restrictive” and was instructed to “…revise its abortion legislation, including by considering decriminalizing abortion and providing for exceptions to the general prohibition on abortion in certain cases.”

Venezuela’s law restricting abortion was also irrelevant to the Committee which instructed it to: “Review its legislation regarding the prohibition of abortion to make it compatible with other fundamental rights such as health and life of women and their dignity.”

Kyrgyzstan which allows abortion on demand was told that the Committee was concerned that despite abortion being legal; it was not covered by public health insurance. It was recommended that the country “…increase financial resources allocated to the health sector” and “Provide confidential access for everyone, including adolescents, to contraceptives and safe abortion services, which are fully covered by health insurance.”

The actions of the CESCR Committee, a UN entity disrespecting sovereign laws against abortion while promoting increased access to the violence of abortion and claiming it is a “human right”, comes as countries are in final negotiations of the Zero Draft on the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) with targets on access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights. Target 5.6 includes “Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development…”

Countries with laws against abortion have felt a level of protection for their national abortion policies by inclusion of references to the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD)-known as the ICPD caveat- where the Programme of Action stated that laws on abortion were to be decided at the local or national level according to the national legislative process.

However, as demonstrated by the CESCR Committee, certain treaty monitoring bodies treat national laws with contempt as they issue instructions to countries under review to change their laws and policies on abortion, regardless of what is stated in the ICPD Programme of Action. While the observations and recommendations issued by members of treaty bodies are mere “interpretations” of the respective treaty, they are increasingly used to advance support for abortion and other issues related to the broad agenda of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) which are not universally recognized human rights but which SRHR activists claim reflect so-called “human rights standards”.

PNCI expresses its deep concern for the ongoing distortion of international treaties to promote the killing of preborn babies and advises countries with laws restricting abortion to defend their sovereign laws and reject the recommendations from treaty bodies, acting as SRHR agents, to change their laws and policies to allow easy access to the violence of abortion.

PNCI notes that as the process to finalize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets nears completion in September, proposals to allow treaty bodies to act as monitors of country progress for the targets, especially those on sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, must be opposed.

9:42 PM, JUN 17, 2015 CALVIN FREIBURGER | LIVE ACTION NEWS | 

Arizona has agreed to delay the implementation of its recently-signed abortion pill reversal law over a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood and pro-choice doctors, the Arizona Republic reports.

In recent years, pro-life physicians and activists have taken toexploring and promoting the possibility of abortion pill reversal, in which someone who changes her mind after taking the first pill of RU-486 treatment, mifepristone, undergoes progesterone therapy to reverse its effects and save her child’s life.

Pro-abortion commentators and activists have bitterly denouncedthe concept as junk science supported by no hard medical evidence. The lawsuit claims Arizona’s law is unconstitutional on both First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds—the former for requiring doctors to give “a state-mandated message that is not medically or scientifically supported,” the latter for inflicting “false, misleading and/or irrelevant information” on patients.

However, doctors in Nebraska, California, and Arizona all report specific cases of successfully stopping chemical abortions begun at Planned Parenthoods. The Arizona location had told the woman reversal was impossible and not taking the second pill would cause new complications, while the California one had refused to let her hear her baby’s heartbeat. In all, AbortionPillReversal.com, which represents 226 pro-life OB/GYNs, claims to have saved 77 lives since 2012.

Originally set to take effect on July 3, the law’s fate will now be decided at a hearing in September or October.

STEVEN ERTELT   JUN 17, 2015   |   3:23PM    | The LifeNews| 

The California Senate will hold a hearing next week on the “bully bill” that would force pregnancy centers in California to promote abortion. Brian Johnston of the California Pro-Life Council says pro-life people need to start calling and emailing legislators urging opposition.

“This bill mandates a statement all Pregnancy Care Centers would have to tell mothers seeking care that includes how to get an abortion but not alternatives like adoption. It also exempts abortion clinics from giving the same mothers the same information,” he said.

“This bill must be urgently acted on! It is crucial that we rally around California’s Pregnancy Resource Centers and make sure that they are able to offer the support and answers that women deserve,” Johnston added. “AB 775 passed on the Assembly Floor and has now been referred to the Senate Committee on Health, and is scheduled to be heard on June 24, 2015.  If it passes the Senate Committee on Health it will be one step away from the Governors desk.”

Lori Arnold of the California Family Alliance also talked about the dangers associated with the bill.

“Mirroring its path in the Assembly, AB 775 will be heard June 24 before the Senate Health Committee,” she said. “Although named the “Reproductive FACT Act,” the bill is more accurately described by several pro-life organizations as the “bully bill.” AB 775 stifles free speech by forcing non-profit Pregnancy Care Clinics to promote a government-mandated message that violates their right of conscience. The mandate comes despite the fact that such centers receive no taxpayer funding and are supported entirely by private fundraising and donations.”

Arnold said:

• AB 775 violates the free speech rights of Pregnancy Care Clinics by forcing them to promote abortions services that are contrary to their deeply held religious beliefs.
• AB 775 exempts Medi-Cal family planning providers, including abortion clinics, from its disclosure requirements.
• AB 775 promotes viewpoint discrimination by forcing one-sided disclosures by Pregnancy Care Clinics but not abortion facilities.
• AB 775 undermines licensed PCC medical clinics by suggesting they are not “legitimate” organizations since they do not provide abortions.
• AB 775 increases taxpayer liability, since abortion facilities are largely funded with government money. PRCs, on the other hand, are funded and operated by concerned individuals, offering a wide range of pregnancy support services at no expense to taxpayers.

ACTION: Please contact the members of Senate Committee on Health, so we can stop this piece of legislation that takes away free speech and bullies our Pregnancy Care Centers. Call-to-Action Link.

Members of the Committee follow:

http://www.lifenews.com/2015/06/17/california-senate-to-hold-hearing-on-...

SARAH ZAGORSKI   JUN 16, 2015   |   12:03PM    | LifeNews| 

Care Net, a national network of 1,130 pregnancy centers, has announced that over the last six years, they’ve saved over 388,000 unborn children from abortion. According to their website, the organization says their mission is to “offer compassion, hope, and help to anyone considering abortion by presenting them with realistic alternatives and Christ-centered support through our life-affirming network of pregnancy centers, organizations, and individuals.”

The non-profit was founded in 1975 and runs the country’s only real-time call center offering pregnancy decision counseling. Care Net pregnancy centers provide free pregnancy test and ultrasounds, as well as parenting support and counseling.

The pregnancy center group noted some of the amazing numbers that reveal the impact it has had.

Care Net-affiliated pregnancy centers have done 579,322 free ultrasound scans and presented the Gospel message to more than one million people. Another 1.1 million mothers received tangible baby items and materials for their newborn and CareNet centers gave out 1.8 million free pregnancy tests.

“Approximately 1,180 Care Net affiliated pregnancy centers welcome those facing unplannedpregnancies with life-affirming compassion, hope, and help. Every year about 30,000 peoplevolunteer at these pregnancy centers. And since 2009, there has been a 20 percent growth in the number of Care Net centers providing free ultrasounds to their clients,” it said.

Here’s more:

Care Net has saved 388,691 lives! Where did we get this number? In 2014, we gathered information from our affiliated pregnancy centers to see what impact Care Net has made in the past six years (2008-2013). Of the women who came in considering abortion, 388,691 chose life. This is 8 out of 10 women visiting a Care Net center who were at risk for abortion.

In addition to our pregnancy centers, Care Net has a Pregnancy Decision Line, which takes real-time calls from women and men facing difficult pregnancy decisions. In pursuing Care Net’s mission of providing compassion, hope, and help to women and men facing pregnancy decisions, our centers and Pregnancy Decision Line impact lives. By presenting women and men with realistic alternatives to abortion. our centers help them choose life for their unborn children and abundant life for their families. The 388,691 life decisions made have changed the lives of unborn children and their families.

As LifeNews previously reported, every year 16,000 babies are saved from abortion after their mothers see an ultrasound of their unborn baby at a pregnancy center. When a woman is in crisis, they often can only think about the here-and-now and not about the ramifications an abortion might bring. They are thinking about the reaction of their parents, their friends, and their partner. They are contemplating how much their life will change if they have a baby, and if they can financially care for another human being.

Others may be in direr circumstances, such as becoming pregnant because of rape or incest, being in an abusive marriage or relationship, or living in extreme poverty, wondering where their next meal will come from. Whatever the situation, these women are looking for help and a solution to their crisis immediately.

This is why when a woman walks into an abortion clinic and hears that abortion doesn’t end the life of another human being and is a safe and fairly pain-free procedure, they leave thinking they may have found what they were looking for. At an abortion clinic, women will not find out that 60% of women who have abortions suffer from post-traumatic–stress disorders, or that suicide rates among women who’ve had abortions are six-times higher than those who have given birth.

They will not hear that abortion will increase their risk of infertility, breast cancer and future ectopic pregnancies. And they most definitely won’t learn about all the women who have been maimed or even killed at the hands of an abortionist. All they will know for certain is that they have an all-eclipsing crisis and the woman at Planned Parenthood told them that abortion is “no big deal”.

However, at pregnancy centers women are given the truth about all their options. Additionally, many centers even provide support for women after they’ve had their baby. They supply women with baby clothes and food, facilitate parenting classes and walk alongside them as they venture into motherhood. Currently in the United States, there are 2,000 of these centers, and it is our duty as pro-lifers to work alongside them in their efforts to save lives.

STEVEN ERTELT   JUN 15, 2015   |   10:24AM    | LifeNews| 

The U.S. Supreme Court today rejected an appeal from the state of North Carolina to uphold a pro-life law allowing women a chance to see an ultrasound of their unborn baby before an abortion. Ultrasounds are routinely performed before an abortion but abortion clinics often don’t let women see the ultrasound image or get a description of their unborn baby before the abortion occurs.

Justice Antonin Scalia voted to hear the appeal but a majority of the justice voted against hearing it, meaning the law will not be upheld.

To allow women a chance to see the ultrasound, North Carolina passed a bill requiring abortion practitioners to ensure that happens. The law also requires the abortion practitioner to allow a woman considering an abortion to hear the heartbeat of her baby and to describe what the ultrasound shows. But it faced a lawsuit from the ACLU and Planned Parenthood.

In January 2013, a district court imposed a temporary injunction on the law, claiming that its mandated disclosures about abortion are an unconstitutional imposition of “the state’s philosophic and social position discouraging abortion,” rather than being factually based.

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden is involved in the case.

“Pro-life laws provide women with crucial information that they wouldn’t otherwise get from abortionists,” said Aden. “The court was wrong to view these reasonable disclosures of fact as merely ideological. This law simply provides women the adequate time and information they need to make such an important decision.”

“The State has a compelling interest in ensuring that women are not rushed or coerced into having an abortion,” the brief in Stuart v. Camnitz explains. “The General Assembly could appropriately take notice that some women who seek to obtain an abortion may have been pressured into doing so, and that women who have the opportunity to see and hear specific information about fetal development have time to ponder the decision and a chance to discuss it with their physician.

“Women in need deserve laws that are in the best interest of their physical and emotional well-being, and that take into consideration their unborn child,” added Aden. “We hope the court will allow this law so that women and children can flourish.”

U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles in Greensboro issued the initial ruling about the law, which also provides for a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion. The lawsuit, filed in the Middle District of North Carolina, claims the new law violates the rights of women and abortion facilities.

The law is important because women frequently complain they were not shown any ultrasound information before the abortion even though abortion centers routinely do them to determine the age of the unborn child at the time of the abortion.

The pro-life measure received approved from the state legislature and became law when lawmakers overturned a veto from pro-abortion Governor Bev Perdue, a Democrat. The measure helps women obtain information about abortion’s risks and alternatives they may not otherwise receive before an abortion.

Planned Parenthood Health Systems, Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina and the Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York-based pro-abortion legal group, joined the lawsuit the ACLU filed.

Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., director of state legislation for the National Right to Life Committee, responded to the lawsuit, saying, “What are abortion advocates afraid of? Probably that when mothers see the recognizable images of their unborn children as they kick and move inside the womb, with beating hearts, abortionists will lose business.”

Balch added: “As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in Gonzalss v. Carhart in 2007, ‘Whether to have an abortion requires a difficult and painful moral decision….The State has an interest in ensuring so grave a choice is well informed. It is self-evident that a mother who comes to regret her choice to abort must struggle with grief more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns, only after the event, what she once did not know…’”

“Mothers and their unborn children are the victors today because this law would protect a mother’s right to receive vital information prior to making a life or death decision about her unborn child,” said Balch.“With final passage of this law,  no longer will mothers in North Carolina be left to the one-sided sales-promoting information provided by an industry that is in the business of killing unborn children.”

The informed consent bill provides that a booklet containing scientifically accurate information about risks, alternatives and information on the development of the unborn child, compiled by the Department of Health and Human Services, be offered to the mother at least 24 hours prior to an abortion so that she might have the opportunity to read and understand the information.  It also provides that an ultrasound image of the unborn child be displayed at least four hours prior to an abortion so that the mother might view it.

“The abortion industry, working in league with Governor Perdue, attempted to place a financial bottom line above the rights and protection of mothers,” Balch added.

During the committee debate on the legislation, lawmakers engaged in a jaw-dropping discussion to determine if it is better that children not be killed in an abortion or save the state money. Members of the appropriations committee debated a fiscal note legislative staff attached to the bill saying it would result in more than 2,900 births of children annually who may otherwise have become victims of abortion. The made the estimates based on similar legislation in Mississippi that resulted in abortion reductions and claimed the births would cost the state approximately $7 million a year in Medicaid expenses.

Rep. Burt Jones of Rockingham was incredulous and said, according to WRAL, that he couldn’t believe legislators were debating whether more abortions or more expenses were better.

“To me, it is incredible that we would even debate the idea that somehow we can improve the fiscal impact of this state by not allowing children to be born,” he said. “I’m a fiscal conservative, but if we’ve got to pay a little more money in this state because more children have the right to be born, then so be it.”

By Ben Johnson| Thu Jun 11, 2015 - 4:14 pm EST| LifeSiteNews| 

TALLAHASSEE, FL, June 11, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – No sooner had the ink dried on a bill that would give women in Florida time to consider their decision before having an abortion than the abortion industry sued to block the law.

If it prevails in court, Florida will become the 27th state to require a waiting period. Late last night, Gov. Rick Scott signed H.B. 633, which requires an abortionist to provide women with accurate information about the abortion in person 24 hours before performing an abortion.

The bill lifts the 24-hour waiting period in the cases of rape, incest, intimate partner violence, or human trafficking, but only if the woman produces documentation of the fact, such as a police report or restraining order. It is scheduled to take effect on July 1.

"Florida mandates waits of three days before getting a marriage license, 20 days before divorce, and three days before buying a handgun. Rarely is any surgery done the same day as the consultation,” wrote Jim Styer, the president of Sarasota-Manatee Right to Life. “So, why not a short wait before an abortion, certainly an irreversible decision?”

One of the bill's supporters said he had a very personal stake in its passage. State Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said his wife, Victoria, nearly had an abortion three decades ago. They now have a 29-year-old daughter named Erin.

“I’m glad she had 24 hours to think about it,” Sen. Gaetz said during debates in April.

Nonetheless, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is based in New York, filed a lawsuit today in Leon County Circuit Court, saying the bill violates a woman's “right to privacy.”

“It’s clear that the sole purpose of this law is to make it more difficult for a woman who has decided to have an abortion to get one, and to punish and discriminate against those who do,” said Renée Paradis, senior staff attorney for the ACLU. “Furthermore, it’s flat-out offensive.”

Autumn Katz, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said, “We are confident this demeaning measure will be struck down as a blatant violation of the state’s strong constitutional protections for women’s rights.”

Lois Backus, the executive director of the Philadelphia-based Medical Students for Choice – which is also part of the lawsuit – said the law made it “impossible” for abortionists to provide “care” for their patients. She also worried the pro-life law threatened future generations. “If allowed to go forward, this law will make it more difficult for women in Florida to obtain the quality health care they deserve for generations to come,” Backus said.

Rep. Jennifer Sullivan, R-Mount Dora, who sponsored the bill, said, "I am confident precedent will be respected, and I look forward to seeing this effort to protect life and a women's health become the law of Florida.”