Abortion rights advocates call such rules “TRAP” laws, which stands for targeted restrictions on abortion providers.
Helena, Montana — Montana is proposing wide-ranging rules for licensing abortion clinics under a disputed state law, raising a new potential obstacle for patients even as a constitutional amendment to protect access appears headed for the November ballot.
In the public notice of the rules, state health officials said most of the proposed requirements are based on those for outpatient surgical centers or on minimum standards imposed on all health care facilities and “represent the appropriate level of regulatory requirements to impose on abortion clinics.”
Similar rules were popular in the 2010s among states whose political leaders opposed abortion, but few states have passed them. “Their main goal was to make it difficult to provide abortion services.” The Montana rules also would require the state to investigate any complaint against a clinic, and require clinics to keep employee and patient files that can be inspected by state regulators, conduct background checks and annual training of employees, and document that patients gave informed consent and were given a hotline number to help people who may be victims of sex trafficking or are being coerced into having an abortion.
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