The words matter

Governor, lawmakers decry Board of Health action

Gov. Asa Hutchinson and conservative state lawmakers want to force medical professionals to adopt the language of anti-abortion forces as they implement restrictions on the delivery of abortions to women in the state.

That’s the takeaway from the ongoing and potentially explosive clash between lawmakers, the governor and the state Board of Health.

At a recent meeting, the board voted 12-6, with five members abstaining from the politically volatile vote, to remove the phrase “death of the unborn child” from proposed regulations implementing abortion-related laws passed by the Arkansas Legislation last year.

The Board of Health opted, instead, to maintain language in its regulations that define abortion as a procedure resulting in the “termination of the pregnancy.”

No matter which of those terms one uses, the effect of the regulation would be the same. But the Hutchinson administration and some lawmakers are sincere in their push to make the Board of Health adopt the language of those who fight to end abortion.

Department of Health Director Nate Smith, a Hutchinson hire, and others in the Health Department warned board members the Legislature would likely reject the wording in the regulations and might retaliate against the board for its defiance.

Gov. Hutchinson, who would have to approve the regulations before they go to lawmakers, said he opposes the board’s definition.

“This change does not seem consistent with the intent of the people of Arkansas, and I would fully expect this change that the Board of Health suggested to be reviewed with a very critical eye and likely be overturned,” Hutchinson said.

Board member George Harper, who proposed the wording approved by the board, said language referring to a death “has gone too far.”

“I understand that probably, in part, it was designed to be a deterrent to abortion and make a woman and her doctor feel guilty about what they’re doing,” said Harper, a retired Health Department official who represents consumers on the board. But, he said, the board’s role is to adopt regulations “in a way that is scientific and that avoids ideology and religion and politics to the extent that that’s possible.”

As appalling as abortion is, it should be left to the politicians and advocates to brandish terms like “unborn child” if they want, but the regulations drafted by the Health Department should indeed be focused on science and medical specificity.

But don’t expect this battle to be over. Conservative lawmakers want abortion-related victories and are willing to pass restrictions that predictably won’t hold up under constitutional review. There’s no reason to believe they won’t gladly take on the Board of Health and attempt to shove their terminology down the panel’s throat.

Nobody appears to be trying to subvert the requirements of the laws passed by the Legislature. Indeed, the charge of the Board of Health is to develop the regulations that implement the requirements of those laws. This argument is over whose words — the politically charged ones or the medically accurate ones — will be used in communicating the laws’ impact to medical professionals across the state.

Advocates for the anti-abortion language won’t see it that way, though. They’ll see this as a battle line in the war against Roe vs. Wade, the 1972 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. In a fight with the governor and the Legislature, the Board of Health is probably going to lose.

“I would certainly advise against playing a game of chicken with the Legislature because it would probably not go well,” Smith advised the board.

The Board of Health is taking its responsibilities seriously, as Hutchinson and state lawmakers should hope its members would. But they won’t be satisfied that the board did what was needed to implement the laws passed in the last year or two. The regulations are being hijacked in service to anti-abortion forces.

That seems an odd approach for people from a party that has eschewed Obamacare as a federal program that would put politicians in charge of people’s health care rather than medical professionals.