One bill targeting

pregnancy centers

dies in Olympia

By JOHN FORTMEYER
CNNW publisher
   OLYMPIA, Wash. — Legislation that leaders of pregnancy centers statewide claim would force the ministries to close their doors has come to a quiet end in a state Senate committee, but a companion measure is still alive in the state House.
     Although the state House Health & Wellness Committee on Feb. 10 approved on a 6-4 near party-line vote to send HB 1366 to the full House, its companion bill in the Senate, SB 5274, was pulled from the Feb. 21 agenda of the Senate Committee on Health and Long-Term Care.
      Feb. 21 was the last day for bills to be voted out of the Senate panel, so the decision by Committee Chair Karen Kaiser was seen as a victory for pro-life forces. While Kaiser issued no statement, it appears there were insufficient votes from the majority Democrats on the panel to advance the legislation further.

     However, if as expected the full House by early March goes ahead and approves HB 1366, that bill still could come to the Senate for consideration, said Renee Wooten, founder and director of the Options 360 pregnancy centers in Clark County.
    “It’s just a merry-go-round of things it has to go through,” she said.
     Back on Jan. 24, the House committee held a hearing on 1366, drawing a huge crowd of more than 500 people opposing the bill and perhaps several dozen in favor.
     Ministry leaders contend that both HB 1366 and SB 5274 are a renewed attempt to shut down the centers by abortion rights advocates and abortion providers. Those in favor of the legislation charge that the centers offer false or misleading information about what services are offered and that clients are “denied needed referrals of reproductive health care.”
     But leaders of the ministry centers term the legislation the most dangerous seen in any state regarding the centers. They say the proposed regulations are not only onerous and unfairly and inaccurately reflect upon the centers, but also would put the centers in such immediate legal jeopardy that the potential for lawsuits would force them to immediately shut their doors if the proposed law passed.
     While the Senate bill’s death gave pregnancy centers a “lot of hope” that all such legislation might ultimately fail, said Wooten, she emphasized that the House bill must still be closely watched.
    “We’re expecting it to pass out of the House Rules. Committee,” she said. “It would be great if it doesn’t because it would mean the whole thing’s dead, but we expect it to go to the House floor. If it passes in the House, then goes back to Senate, it would be like starting all over there.”