SLS 19RS-2911 ORIGINAL
2019 Regular Session
SENATE CONCURRENT RESOL UTION NO. 130
BY SENATOR WALSWORTH AND REPRESENTATIVES HOFFMANN AND
JACKSON
CONGRESS. Memorializes the United States Congress to review the definition of abortion
and use of the term abortion for purposes of medical records when a woman has a
spontaneous miscarriage.
1 A CONCURRENT RESOL UTION
2 To memorialize the Congress of the United States to review the definition of abortion and
3 the use of the term abortion for purposes of medical records when a woman has a
4 spontaneous miscarriage.
5 WHEREAS, a spontaneous miscarriage is the unavoidable and untreatable process
6 of naturally ending a pregnancy before the twentieth week of gestation; and
7 WHEREAS, according to national estimates, approximately fifteen to twenty percent
8 of all pregnancies in the United States end in miscarriage; and
9 WHEREAS, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists,
10 roughly sixty percent of miscarriages occur when an embryo has an abnormal number of
11 chromosomes during fertilization, a problem that happens by chance, not as a result of
12 anything the parents did; and
13 WHEREAS, the devastation and grief associated with a miscarriage leave women
14 to feel as though they had done something wrong to cause it; and
15 WHEREAS, the trauma is compounded by physicians, hospitals, clinics, health
16 insurers, and other healthcare providers interchangeably using medical terminology such as
17 abortion, spontaneous abortion, missed abortion, inevitable abortion, incomplete abortion,
18 or septic abortion with spontaneous miscarriage; and
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SLS 19RS-2911 ORIGINAL
1 WHEREAS, towards the end of the last century, medical journals and healthcare
2 professionals consciously began using the term spontaneous miscarriage instead of abortion
3 as both an intuitive empathetic response to the stigma of abortion and as a reflection of legal,
4 technological, professional, and social developments relative to women who experience
5 miscarriage; and
6 WHEREAS, despite the evolution and clinical clarity of the use of the term
7 spontaneous miscarriage, many women are horrified to find that the medical diagnosis or
8 condition listed in their patient medical record indicates abortion; and
9 WHEREAS, although not technically incorrect based on customary and acceptable
10 medical terminology, the use of the term abortion has a widely recognized modern day
11 implication of intentionally causing the death of an unborn child; and
12 WHEREAS, charting, coding, and billing systems include Current Procedures
13 Terminology (CPT) codes, International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related
14 Health Problems, 9th revision (ICD-9), diagnosis-related group (DRG) codes, and other
15 diagnosis and procedure codes utilized in the United States healthcare system; and
16 WHEREAS, a conscious and collective assessment needs to be done at the highest
17 level of regulatory authority in the United States to provide for definitive and distinctive use
18 of the terms spontaneous miscarriage versus abortion.
19 THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana memorializes
20 the Congress of the United States to review the definition of abortion and the use of the term
21 abortion for purposes of medical records when a woman has a spontaneous miscarriage.
22 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution shall be transmitted
23 to the secretary of the United States Senate, the clerk of the United States House of
24 Representatives, and to each member of the Louisiana delegation to the United States
25 Congress.
The original instrument and the following digest, which constitutes no part
of the legislative instrument, were prepared by Jerry J. Guillot.
DIGEST
SCR 130 Original 2019 Regular Session Walsworth
Memorializes Congress to review the definition of abortion and the use of the term abortion
for purposes of medical records when a woman has a spontaneous miscarriage.
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