A little bit of noise, but I think it’s justifiable. DOH holds private meeting with Planned Parenthood to discuss how strongly they’re going to regulate.
God forbid I agree with the blogger from Mitchell, but here’s one of those rare occasions. In a report at KELOland.com, it’s reported that he Department of Health met with Planned Parenthood, but almost all of the details are being kept confidential:
Staff members of the South Dakota Department of Health and Planned Parenthood have met to discuss the proposed language in a disclosure form the clinic must use with women seeking abortions.
According to a statement from the department, details of last week’s meeting won’t be made public because the issue is part of the regulatory process.
If this meeting was with regards to the lawsuit, and was part of the process of a negotiated settlement between the parties, I could potentially see that information being held as confidential.
However, if the meeting was “to discuss the proposed language in a disclosure form” as described – especially one that was mandated by state law – I think something is amiss. This seems close to the spirit, if not the letter of rule making authority, as they set forth the specifics of the language which is to be contained in the disclosure, a disclosure which was mandated by state law…
34-23A-10.3. The health department shall publish, in culturally sensitive languages, within one hundred eighty days after July 1, 2005, the following printed materials in such a way as to ensure that the information is easily comprehensible:
(1) Materials designed to inform the pregnant woman of all the disclosures enumerated in section 7 of this Act;
(2) Materials designed to inform the pregnant woman of public and private agencies and services available to assist a pregnant woman through pregnancy, upon childbirth and while the child is dependent, including adoption agencies, which shall include a list of the agencies available and a description of the services they offer; and
(3) Materials designed to inform the pregnant woman of the probable anatomical and physiological characteristics of the unborn child at two-week gestational increments from the time when a pregnant woman can be known to be pregnant to full term, including any relevant information on the possibility of the unborn child’s survival and pictures or drawings representing the development of unborn children at two-week gestational increments. Such pictures or drawings shall contain the dimensions of the fetus and shall be realistic and appropriate for the stage of pregnancy depicted. The materials shall be objective, nonjudgmental, and designed to convey only accurate scientific information about the unborn child at the various gestational ages.
The materials shall be printed in a typeface large enough to be clearly legible and shall be available at no cost from the Department of Health upon request and in appropriate number to any person, facility or hospital.
It says the DOH is to publish. Not “the Department of Health will publish after negotiating the language with Planned Parenthood.” If they’re going to do that, it would seem as if they were holding a hearing that nobody else was invited to. Am I wrong to think that someone other than just the regulator and the regulatee might have an interest in what by all appearances seems to be a meeting to determine such language as will be contained on a form as mandated by state law?
Someone such as the media and/or the general public?
This was a closed, private meeting, and it seems as if there’s little justification for it being so.
They need to hold such meetings under the light of day. And if they don’t have to, there ought to be a law.
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Comments
There is a law…Its the new open records law that just went on the books.
There is a specific exception for memos and other parts of the deliberative process in rule making.
According to a presentation by the Attorney Generals office, that part was left in at the insistence of the Rounds Administration.
Why should Planned Parenthood have to disclose that they are ending a life?