Bills, Bills, and More Bills

This week we were asked to look for a piece of legislation that had been proposed in the past two weeks and try to track it back to its origins to try to find out who is funding and benefiting from it.

I took my search to www.govtrack.us and found a bill that was referred to the committee on the 2nd of March. S. 510 is "A bill to protect a woman’s right and ability to determine whether and when to bear a child or end a pregnancy by limiting restrictions on the provision of abortion services."

The bill is sponsored by Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat Senator from Connecticut, as well as 40 other cosponsors. Of these 40 cosponsors, 38 are also Democrats, and the other two are Independents.

Since the bill itself is still quite new, there is not much information on the bill just yet when you look on govtrack.us or on the congress website. However, upon digging around on Senator Blumenthal's website, I found that he also introduced the Women's Health Protection Act of 2013. I looked up the bill on the congress website and verified that he was in fact the one to introduce and sponsor that bill as well.

While on Senator Blumenthal's website, I did also find an article in regards to this new bill that he is introducing and sponsoring. The Political leaders in favor of this bill are calling it "The Women's Health Protection Act." The article says that the bill has 40 cosponsors, as I mentioned earlier, in the Senate and another 102 in the House.

The article also says this about the bill:

"This legislation would prohibit laws that impose burdensome requirements on access to reproductive health services such as requiring doctors to perform tests and procedures that doctors have deemed unnecessary or preventing doctors from prescribing and dispensing medication as is medically appropriate. Other examples of laws that make it more difficult for a woman to access an abortion include: restrictions on medical training for future abortion providers, requirements concerning the physical layout of clinics where abortions are performed, and forced waiting periods for patients."

From my findings, I would say that this bill is attempting to benefit the health and well-being of women all over this country. Without more information on the bill itself, it is hard to say who exactly is funding it. As more information becomes available, we'll see exactly what this bill entails.