H.B. 480 Medical Record Amendments: transcript

Representative gracious, is part of the presentation an integral part and grateful for her, uh, leadership and attention to this matter? And what, what group do you represent?

Um, and we are going to present to the first substitute. Um, so this bill came about when I had a constituent reach out to me whose daughter had had to undergo a medically necessary abortion in order to save her life. Um, this is a very pro-life individual, and for the past several years, every time she sees her medical records, it says abortion it. And she relives that trauma and, and trying to, and thinking about that. And it was too late in the session for me to open a new file and, and work on that. Um, so naturally I Uintah Representative Libe, who, as we all know is the pro-life queen of the legislature. And sure enough, she happened to have a bill. And so I, I shared this issue with her, um, and I will let her explain what she was able to work out.

So we worked extensively with, um, doctors in the pro-life space, but also a cog recognized and, and licensed and, um, licensed, uh, obstetricians and gynecologists. So the, we're speaking to the first substitute. The language has been refined, but there's really two parts to the bill. The first part sets up a definition of what medically indicated abortion means. And it includes, uh, a deceased fetus, an ectopic pregnancy, and then life of the, the exceptions that we normally recognize in Utah code, um, for abortion. And then if you move down to line 1 71 in the sub, then it says, an individual that has experienced a miscarriage or medically indicated abortion may request that a healthcare provider include in the individual's medical record and health history that the abortion was not an elective abortion. And then sub two says, A healthcare provider that receives a request described in sub one shall indicate, excuse me, include a note in the individual's medical record. So this just at the time, allows a woman who's experienced a traumatic event, um, to be able to request that her medical record reflect the reality of the situation. Because medical terminology is really centered around, um, technical terms. There's, doctors don't mean to, to say to women, look, you had an abortion, but it happens to many women who have miscarriages. And they, they take that to heart. And so this just clarifies that for those individuals to be able to have it reflected in their medical record. And this is something that's traumatic for, for women who don't wish to undergo this experience.

Um, in the case that I referenced, they celebrate that baby's birthday every single year. Um, and it's really, this is not a heavy handed request. I know Representative Lisonbee worked with several stakeholders on this policy. Um, and it's really just to give women the option to say, no, I did want my baby. This is different from those who didn't. And so it doesn't change anything in the abortion landscape. It just allows a woman to say that I wanted my baby.

Does. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name's Mary Taylor. I'm the President of Pro-Life Utah. And Pro-Life Utah strongly supports HB four 80, which is a compassionate measure for women who are facing a needlessly distressing situation. Many times through the years we've been contacted from distraught women who report to us that after a miscarriage, their medical records indicated they had an abortion. When a woman has undergone the trauma of a miscarriage or a medically indicated abortion, it can cause heartache and grief and confusion to her to see her records describe the ordeal that she's gone through in the very same way that it would if she was a woman who had elected for this abortion. And we would hope that medical facilities and medical reporting software companies would address this very insensitive reporting issue. But until they do, HB four 80 gives women an option to clarify their own medical records and obtain some peace of mind. We hope that you'll vote yes for HB four 80. Thank you.

My name is Danielle ERs and I'm with Pro-Life Utah. Um, we have a problem with semantics in the pro-life and pro-choice debate. Um, colloquial, colloquially, if I say abortion or I had an abortion or what have you, we all understand that I'm talking about the intentional termination of a pregnancy. Um, on the legislative side, sometimes we parse miscarriage, which is the unintentional and natural loss of pregnancy from abortion with terms like spontaneous abortion, elective abortion. So we're already confused. Um, and then we have this third side, which is the medical community. And many of these national coding softwares simply put abortion, uh, for miscarriage and termination. And, um, we can all understand why this can be a problem. Um, I've personally spoken with women and friends who have shared with me that they never would have supported, let alone had an abortion until the bill came, or they looked back at their records, um, and saw that word listed there. Um, and that this is after one of the most traumatic experiences of their lives losing their baby. Um, tragically to miscarriage. Uh, some women carry unnecessary shame and guilt quietly over this. And I've talked with these kinds of women, um, others I've spoken with now believe they have no option but to vote against any pro-life legislation because without their abortion, they would've died. We cannot blur this line, uh, for these women anymore. This bill gives women the opportunity to just add clarity to their records. It's about compassion and treating women with love and gentility in any way we can. So I, I urge you to support this bill.

I mo I moved to adopt, um, sub one to HB four 80.

It? Uh, nope. Thank you.

to substitute, appreciate The committee's time's a really important issue. And thank you for considering this.

I waive. Okay. We'll do a voice vote.

to Representative Fiefia for a motion. Yeah.

I'd like to favorably recommend HB four 80 sub one medical record amendments to the house floor.

That? Yeah, I would. I think, you know, it's, we always hear that words matter and, uh, something that I always think about is there's, uh, a movie where they always talk about precisive precision of speech. And I think when there are so many charged words in society today that we need to be very careful in the words that we're using. So thank you very much for bringing this forward.

Uh, I'll waive. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you. I had actually written down words matter also, but there is no more politically charged or emotionally charged word, probably, um, than the word abortion right now. And, and, um, and I like that idea of the precision of speech. But you know, our records, I'm also someone who keeps a lot of records myself. Um, and I know that our records will outlive us and we won't be there to explain. And so I can see why this would be very troubling. I know several years ago when I was working on a bill about abortion, um, someone opposed to my bill, um, made a donation to an abortion provider in my name. And my only concern about that was that it not be in my name perpetually. I did not want, you know, I was trying to make it clear that I was pro-life. Um, and so anyway, I think the records are really important and if a woman chooses this is something that is important to her, um, then I think we need to allow her to make that indication on her medical record. So thank you for bringing that bill.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, uh, I just wanted to thank the, the sponsor of the bill. And, um, like, I'm, I'm actually a little frustrated because, um, I, I'm sitting here thinking about, um, just the whole concept and, and like, I'm like struck right now. Like, this is heartbreaking, right? And it's like, I've never thought about it. It's like we never thought about it. We just go on, um, about things. So I'm just really grateful that, um, that you, that you're bringing this forward and that we're gonna be able to get this cleaned up for a lot of people. And, um, I think this is an excellent bill. I just wonder where else we've got messes like this that we need to clean up. But thank you for your work on this.

Thank you. I just, I really appreciate the comments from the committee. They're very thoughtful. This bill expands choice for women and in a space where often the, the conversation is emotionally charged. And so I'm just so grateful that we've been able to have this discussion. Thank you.

First substitute house bill four 80 medical record amendments by Representative Libe. This bill was heard in judiciary with the vote of 9 2 0 Representative Zaby.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. This bill is an important bill. Uh, medical records often use the term abortion to document pregnancy, uh, loss before viability, including miscarriage. While clinically accurate, this terminology can make women feel misrepresented. Cause shock and confusion cause grief and retriggering and trust concerns with providers. So I worked with all the stakeholders in this area to make sure that a woman could ask for, um, if she had to have a, a procedure that removed a dead Venus or had an ectopic pregnancy or had a miscarriage. Um, that it wasn't, if it was entered onto her medical record as a spontaneous abortion, that she could request a note stipulating that it was not an elective abortion and that the provider would then have to include that in the record. And with that, I'm open to questions. Oh, and I need to phone a friend. I apologize.

Motion to adopt. Second substitute.

I would not. Thank you. Representative gracious.

Yes. Thank you Mr. Speaker. This sub cleans up the language. There was some confusion with the language and so we just cleaned it up and moved, um, rape and incest down to another list so that it was more clear what we were talking about.

I waive. Thank you Mr. Speaker.

Yes. Thank you Mr. Speaker. This sub cleans up the language. There was some confusion with the language and so we just cleaned it up and moved, um, rape and incest down to another list so that it was more clear what we were talking about.

I waive. Thank you Mr. Speaker.

pregnancy and they lost the baby. And ultimately when they looked at their medical records, it said that the, that the baby had been aborted. That was something that they, uh, had a moral objection to. And so what this does is it allows in certain circumstances that a, that a patient can request that the medical records indicate that it is a medically indicated abortion as opposed to an elective abortion. And that's the substance of the bill. Thank you.

Senator Stratton. Senator Bremer, will you yield?

Uh, sure. Go ahead. Senator Blue.

Can a, can a patient already not make that request to a doctor?

So, uh, So typically the medical records, uh, they could maybe make the request, but this would allow them in certain circumstances and it would give guidance as to when the doctor could make that change, uh, within the framework of this statute, which is not currently in existence.

Thank you. I, it seems like there's already wide latitude here and we're just starting to inject politicized, nonsensical terms that don't have a medical definition into, uh, the medical sphere. So this seems entirely unnecessary and like it's gonna cause confusion. Uh, and just creates a, a moral situation that I don't think patients need when they go into, uh, to see a doctor to access the care that they're trying to access. This seems like a, a very, uh, improper place for us to be injecting ourselves once again.

Yes. Thank you. This is, uh, this is a little bit bigger of a policy than just a couple, few words here. And I understand the nature of this issue. It's very delicate. I think the bill goes much further and has unintended consequences that we're not being made aware of. We need to do more due diligence is what I'm saying. As a body in the legislature, we have committees for that purpose. And as chair of Healthy Human Services Committee, this was on our agenda to be discussed, have a rigorous debate, modify, amend, change, pass, whatever we needed to do. And the bill sponsor pulled it from our committee and to be debating this at 1115, I do not support this and I would make a motion to circle

Yeah, it was circled and this body just voted to encircle it, so I don't think we need to recircle it.