.png)
SB252 requires health-care practitioners to offer ultrasound imaging and fetal heart tone auscultation to patients before a pregnancy is terminated, while preserving each patient's right to decline.
OUR POSITIONThe American Council supports SB252, the Woman's Right to Know Act, and urges every Delaware legislator to vote yes. This bill reflects a conviction we hold deeply: that every person deserves full information before making an irreversible decision, and that the medical profession is most trustworthy when it is most transparent.
Under SB252, health-care practitioners authorized to terminate a pregnancy must offer the patient an active ultrasound image that includes the dimensions of the fetus and an accurate portrayal of any external members and internal organs, as well as an auscultation of fetal heart tone that is audible to the patient. Both must meet the quality standard already expected of standard medical practice. This is not a novel burden on providers; it is an extension of the informed-consent ethic that governs every other consequential procedure in medicine.
Critically, the bill does not compel any patient to look or listen. The patient retains the explicit right to decline to view the ultrasound image or to hear the fetal heart tone. What the bill guarantees is the offer, not the outcome. We believe information offered and refused is still information honored; information never offered is information withheld. The American Council reads this balance as respectful of both conscience and autonomy.
The legislation also provides accountability structures we consider essential. Before the procedure, the practitioner must obtain the patient's signed confirmation that the offer was made. Facility accreditation under Title 16 is conditioned on demonstrated compliance. These provisions give the law teeth without placing the compliance burden on patients themselves.
A narrow and clearly defined medical emergency exception exists for conditions requiring immediate termination to avert death or prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function. That exception appropriately protects patients in genuine crises while preventing the exception from swallowing the rule. We believe this balance reflects serious, good-faith drafting.
The American Council calls on every member of the Delaware Senate and House to pass SB252 without delay. A society that respects women will ensure they are offered every available piece of information before a decision this permanent. This bill does exactly that.
SB252 was introduced and assigned to the Senate Health and Social Services Committee on March 5, 2026, placing it at the earliest stage of the legislative process. The bill carries a short title, the Woman's Right to Know Act, which signals intentional messaging by its sponsors and suggests it was drafted with a public-facing advocacy strategy in mind. The Health and Social Services Committee must act before the bill can advance to a floor vote, and Delaware legislative sessions operate on a fixed calendar, meaning committee inaction is itself a form of disposition. Constituent contact directed at committee members is most consequential right now, while the bill awaits a hearing and a vote to move it forward.