Abortion foes see opportunity in GOP majority

Community News Service

UM School of Journalism

HELENA — In a soft and affable voice, Republican Rep. Pat Ingraham introduced herself and said she represented the people of Sanders County. Those words were the last the entire room would agree on in an emotional two-hour hearing Friday on her bill to require that women have an ultrasound before they get an abortion.

Last week marked 38 years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a woman has a right to an abortion. But as the tears, outrage and gavel-slamming that attended Ingraham's House Bill 280 showed, the issue remains one of the most...