Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Safe & Early Access Bill (SB 1501)

Senator Kehoe introduced SB 1501, the Safe & Early Access Bill, which would allow nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and physician assistants to perform first trimester abortions.  This is a tremendously important bill--with nearly 1/2 of all CA counties not having an abortion provider, women in many communities--especially rural areas--find themselves traveling great distances at a high cost to seek care.

UCSF has studied the safety and efficiency of these procedures when performed by non-physicians--and the results have been overwhelmingly positive.  Not only is the complication rate extremely low (the same among both physicians and non-physicians) but patient satisfaction is actually higher.  Several other states already have similar laws on the books--and these clinicians already perform the same exact procedure (it's called a D&C technically) for women who have had a miscarriage. 

Many LA pro-choice champions are co-authoring this bill--including Speaker Perez, Asms. Butler, Mitchell and Lara, and Sens. De Leon and Leiu. 

You can read more about it in the LAT here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-abortion-20120229,0,7007621.story

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