CI-128 does not make reckless changes

In response to Rep. Amy Regier’s letter, she is right about one thing, and one thing only – in 1999, the Montana Supreme Court held that Montana’s constitutional right of privacy protects an individual’s personal autonomy, including procreative autonomy. CI-128 safeguards existing rights. Specifically, a woman has the constitutional right to obtain a “lawful medical procedure, a pre-viability abortion, from a health care provider of her choice,” free from government interference. But just as we’ve seen with the recent reversal of Roe v. Wade, there is no guarantee the Montana Supreme Court won’t become similarly politicized and reverse Armstrong. The only way to protect a woman’s right to reproductive choice is to make that right explicit in our Constitution. CI-128 will not make reckless changes, as Rep. Regier falsely alleges. It will not eliminate limitations on late-term abortions.  

CI-128 (2) explicitly states “the government may regulate the provision of abortion care after fetal viability,” but cannot deny abortion care when “in the good faith judgment of a treating health care professional” it is “medically indicated to protect the life or health of the pregnant patient.” 

It does not specify that a patient has no legal recourse for incompetent care. The right to seek redress for medical malpractice is firmly rooted in tort law; CI-128 does not eliminate this right.  

It does not allow “any individual” to perform an abortion without state-level standards. CI-128(4) prohibits standards that infringe the right to abortion, not those targeting a “medically acknowledged, bona fide health risk to a pregnant patient.” The only “emotionally charged rhetoric” is that put forward by Rep. Regier.  

Please vote on CI-128 based on what it actually does and does not do, not based on distortions of the truth by its opponents. 

Andrée Larose, Esq., Whitefish