Mike Fichter, president and CEO of Indiana Right to Life, told LifeNews, the new bill will give the state Department of Health “clearer direction by requiring cremation or burial” of aborted babies’ bodies.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee made major changes before approving legislation 7-1 that originally allowed the agencies to withhold body-camera video from the public unless the person or entity seeking the recording could convince a judge that releasing it wouldn’t harm anyone.
Legislators are closer to an agreement on when police body-cam videos should be released.
Supporters of the bill argued for the privacy of the person who may be shown in the footage, saying that public access would compromise this. That provision was amended out in the Senate Education Committee.
It also requires police agencies to store videos for 190 days and limits the fees they can charge to costs incurred if someone requests a copy.
Sen. Gregory Taylor, an Indianapolis Democrat, voted in favor of the bill and cited the case of Laquan McDonald, a black Chicago teenager who was shot 16 times by a white police officer. He says police are trained in escalating degrees of force, and says people seeing the climax of a violent incident might not see all the events which led up to it.
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“It does provide more information to the General Assembly so we can view and judge for ourselves whether policies we have established for clean air, land and water are being faithfully pursued”, Charbonneau said. “If you are born, we will love you, and we think you have equal rights and should be a member of society”.
