The Alaska House of Representatives Health and Social Services Committee held its first hearing Thursday afternoon for a bill that would criminalize abortion in Alaska and establish that life begins at conception.
House Bill 205 is also known as Life at Conception Act or the Preborn Child Equality Act of 2024. The 24-page bill would criminalize abortion, repeal Medicaid coverage for abortions, make unborn children residents of the state if their mother is a resident, create language surrounding abortion and change criminal statutes.
“Intentionally causing the death of a natural person before, during, or after birth” would not be protected under the right to privacy and would be criminalized, according to the bill.
Wasilla Republican Rep. David Eastman, the bill’s sponsor, adds definitions for abortion, birth, child, conception, natural person and preborn child, and amends Alaska statute from “unborn child” to “preborn child.” According to the bill, a child is a person who is alive if they have spontaneous respiratory or cardiac function, or are in the process of developing spontaneous respiratory or cardiac function. The bill also replaces “fertilization” with “sperm-egg fusion” and “conception.”
“With passage of this law, Alaskans will no longer be forced to watch as their state facilitates and pays for the premeditated murder of Alaskan children waiting to be born, an act which the state prosecutes as a crime when committed outside the doors of an abortion clinic,” Eastman wrote in his sponsor statement.
The bill would require the government to “recognize the right to life of all persons, without discrimination because of age, race, religion, size, sex, color, citizenship, parentage, ancestry, location, disability, deformity, stage of development, life expectancy, or condition of dependency.”
According to Eastman, abortion in Alaska “infringes on a child’s right to life...”
The definition of child in the bill may make long-acting reversible contraceptives illegal, a fiscal note from the Department of Health states.
“Criminalization of these methods of contraception would increase birth rates and significantly increase Medicaid costs to cover the increased number of pregnancies, postpartum care following delivery, and medical care for the newborn,” the fiscal note reads.
According to a memo from the Division of Legal and Research Services, House Bill 205 would be unconstitutional. “Under this bill, abortion would be illegal regardless of whether the fetus is viable and with no exceptions for the life or health of the mother,” the memo states.
The Alaska Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that reproductive choice is protected by the privacy clause of the Alaska Constitution.
It is not clear how this bill would impact surrogacy, fertilization treatments and the Permanent Fund Dividend.
Pat Martin, outreach director of Alaska Right to Life, said that while the Alaska Constitution states that “all persons have a natural right to life,” under statute, “these children are not human, that they’re not persons that they’re not alive and they don’t have rights,” he said.
Martin said that while criminals are prosecuted by the state for murdering children in the womb, healthcare professionals are paid by the state to do the same. According to Martin, 4,822 people have signed petitions asking legislators to end abortion.
Rose O’Hara-Jolley, Alaska state director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, said, “It is increasingly frustrating that we must waste precious time and resources opposing legislation that would not stand up to constitutional muster instead of focusing on legislation that would actually help the people of Alaska such as providing twelve months of birth control or paid family leave.”
The committee held the bill, and may or may not act on it again.
