Gov. Mike Beebe has signed into law a measure that will put new requirements on the two clinics in Arkansas that distribute medications that are used to induce abortions, rules that the operator of the facilities said Tuesday won’t do anything to improve patient care.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Butch Wilkins, D-Bono, didn’t directly single out the clinics in his bill, but set a threshold that facilities conducting 10 or more nonsurgical abortions per month would be subject to regulations equal to that of a surgical clinic. Wilkins said he believed there wasn’t enough information available for regulators about the procedures.
Murry Newbern, director of community affairs for Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma, said the clinics in Fayetteville and Little Rock would have to add procedure and recovery rooms, space that’s not needed in facilities that don’t perform surgery.
“It does nothing for patient safety,” Newbern said, adding that she felt Wilkins’ bill sent the message that the two clinics are not regulated. “We’re regulated like any other health-care facility. Our physicians and nurses abide by the state Medical Practices Act,” Newbern said. “It’s absolutely not true that we’re not regulated.”
She also said the “morning-after pill” is safe and rarely results in complications.
Arkansas has one clinic that performs surgical abortions, which is in Little Rock.
Wilkins’ bill did not spell out a full set of new rules. The Arkansas Health Department will now develop regulations to conform to the language in the new law.
“We’ll be opening up our existing regulations for surgical abortions that are covered in the regulations we already have,” Health Department spokesman Ed Barham said.
The agency’s Facilities Licensing Service section will develop a set of rules and send them to the state Board of Health for approval. The agency has a deadline of the start of 2012 to have the draft ready.
Barham said it is too early to say how the regulations mandated in the new law would affect the Planned Parenthood clinics.
The law also requires the clinics to regularly provide the Health Department data on the number of nonsurgical abortions for which it provided the medicine.
Beebe’s office said the governor signed the bill because it passed both houses and he didn’t have an objection to it. The Arkansas attorney general’s office took no position on the bill, though lawyers from the office addressed legislators at a number of House Public Health Committee meetings, saying other measures would not stand up to court challenges.
The committee blocked passage of about 10 other bills that would have further restricted abortions. The bill by Wilkins, who is a member of the committee, passed on a voice vote.
Opponents of Wilkins’ bill said during a March 24 committee hearing that the law would be unconstitutional because adding surgical regulations to a nonsurgical clinic would be government regulation with no purpose.
Wilkins said he wanted to close a regulatory gap and add Health Department inspections.
“I’m not out to get anybody on that,” Wilkins said. “This leaves (the Health Department) to write the regulations on it.”