04.26.12 Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to advance proposals that would impose new strictures on abortion providers, including a measure to require clinicians to make an ultrasound both visible and audible to a woman seeking to terminate a pregnancy.

Sen. Sharon Weston Broome, D-Baton Rouge, pitched Senate Bill 708 -- which cleared the Senate 34-4 and moves to the House -- as a subtle change to her 2010 law requiring abortion providers to perform an ultrasound and giving a woman the option of watching the fetus on screen. The change, she explained, "adds an additional feature of giving a woman the option to hear the heartbeat of the unborn child."