Dear Delaware taxpayer, The following are some of the bills that went through the 152nd Delaware General Assembly the past two years. Do these bills reflect your values? Are you pleased with the performance of your Representative or Senator? Taxpayers have a right to know what their elected officials are doing and how their decisions are affecting their daily lives. You can check the voting record of your elected officials at legis.delaware.gov on any of these bills. The authority in our democratic republic comes from 'We the People' when we know more about who we are electing to represent us and how they are voting on the issues. House Bill 140 Assisted Suicide •Bill Status: Passed •Despite bipartisan opposition to this bill, the bill passed with the minimum number of required votes in the House and Senate. •The vote in the House was 21 yes, 16 no and four absent. The vote in the Senate was I I yes and 10 no. •HB 140 says you have the "choice" to take your life when it is "no longer worth living." •The sanitized view of suicide that HB 140 presents will change the ethos of medical care in Delaware. It easily leads to people feeling pressured to end their life. •No disability groups support HB 140. House Bill 110: Taxpayer Funded Abortion •Bill Status: Passed •HB 110 forces Delaware taxpayers to fund abortion on demand through insurance. Of course, this includes Medicaid insurance, which means the dollars of those opposed to the taking of human life will fund the deaths of the unborn. Senate Bill 301: Abortion Pills on Campus •Bill Status: Passed •Senate Bill 301 requires public universities with a health center on campus to provide access to medication for the termination of pregnancy and emergency contraception. •The medication and contraception must be provided on-site, but consultation to provide them may be performed by a provider at the student health center or by a provider who is associated with a university-contracted external agency. This Act takes effect on July 1, 2025. Senate Bill 300: Pregnancy Care Centers •Bill Status: Passed Senate Bill 300 requires pregnancy care centers to do the following: •Provide on-site a notice in English and Spanish and in each language for which more than 10% of the overall population of this state speaks at home, as measured by the U.S. Census. •Post on site a sign at least 11 inches by 17 inches and written in no less than 80-point type. The notice must say, "This facility is not licensed as a medical facility by the state of Delaware and has no licensed medical provider who provides or directly supervises the provision of services." •This Act also requires the Department of Justice to bring an action to impose a civil penalty for a violation of this Act. The civil penalty for the first violation is $500, and $2,500 for each subsequent violation. •No woman has been harmed by visiting a Pregnancy Care Centers. No child has died. Women are offered free help and advice through the pregnancy and parenting support programs. •When the California legislature attempted to enforce a similar requirement, the U.S. Supreme Court found it to be unconstitutional. House Concurrent Resolution 2: Roe v Wade Anniversary •Status: Passed •House Concurrent Resolution memorializes the 50th anniversary of Roe v Wade and declares abortion as an "essential human right." Roe v Wade cited the 14th Amendment as the justification for abortion even though that amendment contains the phrase, "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property." The resolution passed with a voice vote in the House and in the Senate with 15 of the 21 senators voting yes. House Bill 70: Elimination of Death Penalty •Bill Status: Passed •Be aware that HB 70 will eliminate the death penalty in Delaware. Delaware's death penalty was for pre-meditated murder, murder of children, the elderly, pregnant women, and law enforcement officers and other specific instances. Democrat Senator Darius Brown, who lost a friend to murder, joined the six Republican senators to vote against HB70. House Bill 230: State Custody to Transition Minors •Bill Status: HB230 - Introduced on June 15, 2023, and stricken on March 12, 2024. (Replaced with House Bill 346.) •HB 230 would have allowed the state to take "emergency jurisdiction" over children both in and out of the state who are "unable to obtain gender-affirming care." It also would have shielded medical professionals from liability, thus eliminating medical accountability and preventing any recourse for any individuals permanently harmed by gender transition. •The sponsors of HB 230 claim that gender transition is necessary to prevent suicide. It is in fact quite the opposite. — Transitioning a child often increases the risk of suicide. •The bill was stricken and replaced with HB 346, which focuses solely on removing the medical liability from gender transition procedures. House Bill 346: Remove Medical Liability for Medical Personnel Performing Gender Transition Procedures •Bill Status: Voted out of committee in the House by a vote of 7 favorable and two on the bill's merits. •Introduced March 13, 2023, and voted out of committee on March 27, 2024. •The 152nd General Assembly had ended session. While the bill is done for this session, it likely will be reintroduced in the 153rd General Assembly. House Bill 275: Sexual Orientation definition expanded •Bill Status: Passed •HB 275 adds "asexuality" (little to no sexual attraction) and pansexuality (attracted to anyone regardless of their sex or gender identity) to the list of possible sexual orientations in Delaware Code. Opponents asked when did we abandon the truth of the gender binary, where is the line drawn? House Concurrent Resolution 31: International Transgender Day of Visibility •Bill Status: Passed in the House by Voice Vote, passed in the Senate 15 yes, I no, 5 not voting •HCR 31 refers to the "record number of anti-transgender bills introduced across the country targeting areas including education, including bans on books and curricula relating to gender identity, health care identification documents." •(What is referred to as "anti-transgender bills" are bills that protect children from being sexualized in schools, protect minors from making life-altering medical decisions, and protect individuals from erasing the fundamental documents they need to be properly identified in the event of an emergency or death.) •Why March 31? Same date as Easter Sunday. Was this intentional? Senate Bill 106: Erase Women from Delaware Code •Bill Status: Passed •The maternal health-care policy of this State shall serve to increase the likelihood that a person who has given birth and demonstrates symptoms of perinatal mood and anxiety disorder will receive the necessary mental health treatment. The goal of this policy is to provide sufficient resources of information and support including patient screening soon after childbirth, for people with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders to decrease child abuse or neglect and the need for inpatient treatment. •In the context of pregnancy, SB 106 replaces "woman" with "person" explicitly erasing womanhood. These bills did not pass: Senate Concurrent Resolution 206: Establishing the Family Unity Task Force •Bill Status: Defeated in the Senate with a vote of six yes, 12 no, one not voting and two absent. •The purpose of the Task Force was to examine changes in laws and practices that could act to benefit family unity and thusly our state. There is a growing body of research that is discovering disincentives to marriage and family stability in tax and safety-net policies. Through targeted legislative priorities, progress can be made in reversing the disincentives. Sadly, a majority of senators feel we are no longer allowed to examine the impact of family structure on the stability of society. Senate Bill 317: Woman's Right to Know •Bill Status: Locked in committee •Senate Bill requires that medical personnel offer their patients the opportunity to see an ultrasound and listen to the fetus heartbeat prior to deciding on the abortion procedure. •Opposition says this is to shame the mother. If abortion is basic healthcare, as proponents like to refer to it, what is there to be ashamed about? •Under the Women's Right to Know Act, if a woman comes into a clinic where abortions are performed and is determined to have an abortion and is not interested in any information to dissuade her from following through with her decision, the Act does not interfere with her decision. •However, if a woman comes in unsure of her decision to abort, or worse, being coerced into having an abortion, the decision to see an ultrasound should be her choice. •Withholding information is deceptive and tantamount to imposing the will of the abortionist over the will of the patient. Senate Bill 191: Fairness in Girl's Sports •Bill Status: Locked in committee •Senator Bryant Richardson proposed SB 191, which would have required athletes to compete in the sport that matched their biological sex, it was heard in committee but not released. Please pass along to your friends and neighbors.