The following is a media advisory from Right to Life Indiana:
Indiana’s abortion complications reporting law goes into effect today, one week after the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals declined to rehear Planned Parenthood’s challenge to the law.
Abortion businesses had challenged the constitutionality of the “Complications Statute” in Indiana’s Senate Enrolled Act 340, but the Seventh Circuit upheld the law on August 2. The complications reporting provisions of SEA 340 have been blocked since the law’s passage in 2018.
Indiana Right to Life President and CEO Mike Fichter issued this statement:
“This complications reporting requirement is long overdue. It is extremely telling that abortion businesses fought to shield these complications from being reported. Now that these reporting requirements go into effect, any abortion business refusing to comply must be denied a license renewal according to the new licensing law passed in the 2021 Indiana legislature.”
HEA 1577 , which went into effect on July 1, states, “The state department may not renew the license of an abortion clinic until any noncompliance discovered during the course of an inspection is remedied in a manner prescribed by the state department.”
Fichter notes Indiana Right to Life will request confirmation from the Indiana Department of Health that every Indiana abortion business is complying with the law.
“Full compliance with the complications reporting law must be one of the many areas subject to thorough state inspections of every licensed abortion business,” states Fichter. “Complications reporting is the law, not a suggestion.”
The statute’s list of abortion complications that must be reported includes:
(a) As used in this section, “abortion complication” means only the following physical or psychological conditions arising from the induction or performance of an abortion:
(1) Uterine perforation.
(2) Cervical laceration.
(3) Infection.
(4) Vaginal bleeding that qualifies as a Grade 2 or higher adverse event according to the Common
Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE).
(5) Pulmonary embolism.
(6) Deep vein thrombosis.
(7) Failure to terminate the pregnancy.
(8) Incomplete abortion (retained tissue).
(9) Pelvic inflammatory disease.
(10) Missed ectopic pregnancy.
(11) Cardiac arrest.
(12) Respiratory arrest.
(13) Renal failure.
(14) Shock.
(15) Amniotic fluid embolism.
(16) Coma.
(17) Placenta previa in subsequent pregnancies.
(18) Pre-term delivery in subsequent pregnancies.
(19) Free fluid in the abdomen.
(20) Hemolytic reaction due to the administration of ABO-incompatible blood or blood products.
(21) Hypoglycemia occurring while the patient is being treated at the abortion facility.
(22) Allergic reaction to anesthesia or abortion inducing drugs.
(23) Psychological complications, including depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety, and sleeping disorders.
(24) Death.
(25) Any other adverse event as defined by criteria pro-vided in the Food and Drug Administration Safety In-formation and Adverse Event Reporting Program.