HB 3156 (State Representative Darlene Senger) 
Amends the Illinois Ambulatory Surgical Treatment Center Act to require abortion clinics to comply with all statutory and regulatory rules within the Act.

 

ILLINOIS CITIZENS FOR LIFE SUPPORTS HB 3156

 

Did not pass the House in the Spring Session after missing by three votes

 

HB 3156 was introduced to amend the Illinois Ambulatory Surgical Treatment Center Act (ASTCA) to see that facilities doing out-patient surgeries that primarily do abortions in this State shall comply with the ASTCA just as all other out-patient facilities are required to do.  The premise behind HB 3156 is that the State has as much of an interest in ensuring the safety of patients seeking abortions at such facilities as it has in ensuring the safety of patients desiring nonabortion surgical procedures at similar facilities.

 

The reason abortion facilities, doing abortions under 18 weeks of gestation, are not required to comply with most of the ASTCA is that in 1989, a settlement was reached, called the “Ragsdale Settlement”, which exempted these facilities from a number of the ASTCA requirements. Richard M. Ragsdale was/is an abortion doctor in Rockford, Illinois who was one who challenged the ASTCA requirements for abortion clinics.

 

The Ragsdale Settlement was agreed to after then Illinois Attorney General Neil Hartigan pulled back an Illinois case dealing with this matter just days before the U.S. Supreme Court was to hear oral arguments on the case. Hartigan, who had taken a pro-life position in the past, changed his position while making a 1990 run for governor and sided with the ACLU and Dr. Ragsdale.  The settlement was to exempt or weaken many ASTCA rules for all ASTC abortion clinics that did abortions prior to the 18^th week of gestation from what the ASTCA rules required.

 

The ASTCA was enacted in 1973 by the Illinois General Assembly to provide better and less expensive health care by authorizing outpatient surgical facilities, including abortion clinics. In November 1978, the Chicago-Sun-Times and the Better Government Association published a series of articles entitled, “The Abortion Profiteers” which disclosed that at least twelve women had died following abortions in Chicago abortion clinics; that abortions were performed under unsterile conditions, on women who were not pregnant, or without anesthesia; that patients were forced to leave the recovery room prematurely, that medical records were falsified; and that kickbacks were paid for abortion referrals.  In 1979, in response to this series of articles, the General Assembly passed amendments to the ASTCA.

 

In addition to these amendments, a number of regulations promulgated by the Illinois Department of Public Health for the ASTCA were made to help protect the safety and health of women seeking abortions.

 

The “Ragsdale Settlement” weakened the requirements for patients’ safety and health at abortion clinics compared to patients’ safety and health regulations at other types of  ASTCs.