California Catholic Conference, Bishop Soto urge stopping extension of flawed abortion pilot program

Bishop Jaime Soto, vice president of the California Catholic Conference, is urging Catholics in the diocese and members of the Catholic Legislative Network to oppose Senate Bill 623, which would extend for two years a previously-authorized four-year UCSF pilot project of training mid-level medical practitioners (nurses, midwives) to perform first trimester abortions. The bill would provide an unwarranted extension to submit for peer review a professional report of the project that should have been completed under the terms of the original proposal.

According to a legislative alert from the CCC, SB 623 is “a hastily-concocted 'gut and amend' bill,” designed to address the failure earlier this year of SB 1338, which would have authorized the statewide training of nurses, nurse midwives and nurse practitioners to perform first-trimester abortions. It failed, in part, because the “success” touted by the project sponsors had not been professionally reported or peer reviewed.

“With SB 623, the sponsors and managers of that project will be ‘rewarded’ with more time and more money so they can not only ‘do their homework,’ but also continue training yet more mid-level medical practitioners, who have already performed more than 8,000 abortions,” the CCC alert said.

The CCC opposes this bill because: training midwives to kill the very babies they are trained to deliver is the saddest irony imaginable; putting more trained abortionists in the market for jobs will be a financial boon for abortion providers – such as Planned Parenthood – especially if they no longer have to pay a physician’s salary; and the primary sponsor of both SB 1338 and SB 623 is Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the nation.

In a letter earlier this year on SB 1338, Bishop Soto noted: “We all want to see an end to abortion because it is bad medicine. Until then, we should support efforts to restrict its use and promote efforts to give real health options to women and their families. This is why the efforts to block this legislation are so important.” Bishop Soto is alarmed by the shameful "gut and amend" tactic that is attempting to circumvent proper public scrutiny by rushing at the end of the legislative session a measure that will only put more women and children at risk.

SB 623 will come up for a final vote in the state Senate next week. Bishop Soto urges calls to Senate President pro tem Darrell Steinberg at his Capitol office, (916) 651-4006, or his district office, (916) 651-1529 or e-mails to urge him to STOP SB 623. To contact Sen. Steinberg via e-mail, visit his website http://sd06.senate.ca.gov/contact