2019 Regular Session ENROLLED
SENATE CONCURRENT RESOL UTION NO. 130
BY SENATORS WALSWORTH, ALARIO, APPEL, CLAITOR, CORTEZ, DONAHUE,
ERDEY, FANNIN, GATTI, HENSGENS, HEWITT, JOHNS,
LAMBERT, LONG, MARTINY, MIZELL, PEACOCK, RISER, GARY
SMITH AND WHITE AND REPRESENTATIVES HOFFMANN AND
JACKSON
A CONCURRENT RESOL UTION
To memorialize the Congress of the United States 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.
WHEREAS, a spontaneous miscarriage is the unavoidable and untreatable process
of naturally ending a pregnancy before the twentieth week of gestation; and
WHEREAS, according to national estimates, approximately fifteen to twenty percent
of all pregnancies in the United States end in miscarriage; and
WHEREAS, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists,
roughly sixty percent of miscarriages occur when an embryo has an abnormal number of
chromosomes during fertilization, a problem that happens by chance, not as a result of
anything the parents did; and
WHEREAS, the devastation and grief associated with a miscarriage leave women
to feel as though they had done something wrong to cause it; and
WHEREAS, the trauma is compounded by physicians, hospitals, clinics, health
insurers, and other healthcare providers interchangeably using medical terminology such as
abortion, spontaneous abortion, missed abortion, inevitable abortion, incomplete abortion,
or septic abortion with spontaneous miscarriage; and
WHEREAS, towards the end of the last century, medical journals and healthcare
professionals consciously began using the term spontaneous miscarriage instead of abortion
as both an intuitive empathetic response to the stigma of abortion and as a reflection of legal,
technological, professional, and social developments relative to women who experience
miscarriage; and
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WHEREAS, despite the evolution and clinical clarity of the use of the term
spontaneous miscarriage, many women are horrified to find that the medical diagnosis or
condition listed in their patient medical record indicates abortion; and
WHEREAS, although not technically incorrect based on customary and acceptable
medical terminology, the use of the term abortion has a widely recognized modern day
implication of intentionally causing the death of an unborn child; and
WHEREAS, charting, coding, and billing systems include Current Procedures
Terminology (CPT) codes, International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related
Health Problems, 9th revision (ICD-9), diagnosis-related group (DRG) codes, and other
diagnosis and procedure codes utilized in the United States healthcare system; and
WHEREAS, a conscious and collective assessment needs to be done at the highest
level of regulatory authority in the United States to provide for definitive and distinctive use
of the terms spontaneous miscarriage versus abortion.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana memorializes
the Congress of the United States 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.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution shall be transmitted
to the secretary of the United States Senate, the clerk of the United States House of
Representatives, and to each member of the Louisiana delegation to the United States
Congress.
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
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