State Rep Van De Wege Shows Stunning Ignorance in Meetings with Constituents on 'More Dead Babies' Act

We recently caught up with River Sussman, who runs two pregnancy medical clinics on the Olympic Peninsula. Mrs. Sussman has been working desperately to try to convince her state representative Kevin Van De Wege to end his co-sponsorship of House Bill 1366, the bill being pushed by the abortion industry to destroy crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs).

Rep. Van De Wege is new to state politics, having been a fireman before. But he seems quickly to have gone from saving babies from burning buildings to delivering them up to be killed by the abortion industry that helped land him his new job.

Mrs. Sussman met with him recently in his office in Olympia, along with 35 other CPC supporters from his district who crossed the Puget Sound for the occasion. Not only had he not read the 5-page bill before he signed on as a co-sponsor; he hadn't even read it before their meeting.

One of the points Mrs. Sussman raised was the fact that not only were the penalties described in the bill without any sort of precedent for the infractions outlined, but the abortion industry itself was not subject to anywhere close to this kind of oversight. In fact, the abortion industry is either unregulated or "self-regulated".

Van De Wege's response: "That's not true."

Mrs. Sussman repeatedly tried to educate the legislator on this point, but he kept repeating his false "facts" back to her.

It seems that Rep. Van De Wege's enablers in the abortion lobby who sold him on this bill set him up for humiliation. They've been going around to legislators asking them: "Did you know that these clinics aren't licensed?" The fact is that their own clinics, which murder unborn babies, are also not licensed. In fact, in Washington State, we don't license buildings. We license individuals. Only doctors need licenses. This is deliberate sleight-of-hand by the abortion lobby.
It turns out that almost none of the legislators who put their names and their professional reputations on this terrible bill read it, and many are now feeling burned by the public humiliation they've been experiencing thanks to selling their souls to the abortion lobby. One can only imagine the conversations happening behind closed doors.

Rep. Van De Wege, allow us to educate you.

• Read the state law pertaining to abortion in Title 9 RCW. Read the RCWs closely and you'll realize something interesting. These RCWs aren't regulations on abortion, abortionists or abortion facilities. They are regulations on the state and legislature. Title 9 RCW prohibits the state from doing anything to regulate abortion except under terms and exceptions defined by the abortion industry.
• Referendum 20 and Initiative 120 successfully granted broadened powers to doctors to perform abortions and included no "regulations" of abortion facilities or abortion providers. They simply allowed doctors to perform abortions and not be prosecuted for felony manslaughter. Both were written by abortionists for abortionists.
• There is no separate section of Washington state law that applies to doctors or facilities performing abortions. See businesses and professions here. See physicians here.
• There is no section of Washington law that dictates that abortions must be performed in a hospital or clinic facility. We know of one abortionist who was working out of a hotel outside of SeaTac Airport. We are currently investigating an abortion facility that appears to be working out of a house operated by someone with no medical credentials.
• There is no provision in state law that would hold abortionists liable in the case of forced abortions, unwanted abortions, or underage abortions.
• No abortionist has ever been prosecuted in the state for failing to report statutory rape or sexual abuse of a minor when presented with evidence, like, oh say, coming in for an abortion.

We would also point out to Rep. Van De Wege that the state has actually been deregulating abortion facilities since the 1970s in the following ways. This list is by no means exhaustive.

• Legalization. Decriminalizing abortion was the first step in deregulating abortionists and abortion facilities. The effort for legalization actually came from doctors who were were performing illegal abortions and wanted to be free to advertise and increase business without going to jail. (You can read about the efforts of abortionist Dr. A. Frans Koome who funded the R-20 campaign here and Planned Parenthood of King County here.) After legalization he kept doing abortions with this important change: There was now no statute under which he could be arrested and prosecuted.
• Under AG Christine Gregoire, the state reinterpreted I-120 on extrememly flimsy grounds to allow for Registered Nurse Practicioners to perform abortions. If, for example physicians assistants or medical students or other unlicensed persons, want to perform an abortion, what's to stop them?
• Another AG opinion includes allowing for "...the performance of second trimester abortions in medical facilities other than an accredited hospital."
• The state medical board recently voted to allow facilities that perform abortions to self-regulate with their own insiders while other medical facilities are require to submit to state authorities.
• On the Departement of Health web site for verifying the licensing and registration of Professions and Facilities, abortion facilities, abortion clinics, abortion providers, etc. are not to be found.
• Abortion also appears to be exempt from state laws regulating the disposal of medical waste, water safety laws, as well as state environmental laws. Women procuring a chemical abortion and abort their children at home simply dispose of the aborted fetus into the waste water system. Abortionists providing women with "safe" abortions are now making the drinking water unsafe for the rest of us.
• And if you needed any more evidence, here's some of what we've discovered is going on in Washington's "regulated" abortion industry.

What Rep. Van De Wege needs to understand is that the same attitude that allowed Dr. Kermit Gosnell to operate freely in Pennsylvania is the same one in play in Washington: Any regulation of abortionists or abortion facilities will deny women access to abortion. It's encoded in our law Title 9.02 RCW: "The state may not deny or interfere with a woman's right to choose to have an abortion prior to viability of the fetus, or to protect her life or health." Furthermore, one thing you'll notice about the state's abortion laws, they protect abortionists not women seeking abortions. It is the policy of the state of Washington and those doing abortions here that "abortion is a moral good", and that it is safer than childbirth. We cannot over emphasize this enough: the public policy of the state of Washington favors abortion over childbirth and this is precicely what we see with the push to pass HB 1366. Acknowledging that the people in favor of this bill are "pro-abortion" is not a slur. It's a statement of fact.

Back in Port Angeles, Mrs. Sussman's is hoping that Representative Van De Wege, with his crucial swing vote on the Health Committee, will take the time to process these facts, and show the grace to admit he was wrong. She's hope that somewhere inside himself, the firefighter who looked death in the face to rescue the vulnerable and the innocent in danger will re-awake.