SB1 allows licensed physician assistants to perform certain abortions and repeals the requirement that abortions be performed at specific locations. It declares that State will not interfere with a “pregnant person’s” abortion or terminate a pregnancy for “health reasons.” The bill bars subpoenas and state cooperation in out-of-state investigations of legal reproductive health services performed in Hawaii and requires the Governor to deny extradition requests for reproductive health-related charges. It allows minors to consent to abortion care without additional consent.
The Hawaii State Senate passed SB1 on March 7, 2023 by a vote of 22 to 3. We have assigned pluses to the nays because this is one of the biggest abortion-protection bills to ever exist in the United States. The right to life is the most fundamental, God-given, and unalienable right asserted in the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed by the 5th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.