With six weeks left in the session, my fellow lawmakers in Augusta and I should be focused on pulling together and finding bipartisan solutions to a struggling Maine economy and other real problems touching Mainers.

Instead, we have to turn away from this important work to consider three bills aimed at infringing on well-established rights.

There are two bills that rehash attempts to weaken reproduction rights that were soundly defeated just two years ago. And yet we are being asked to consider them again.

LD 760 would add burdensome, unnecessary elements to Maine’s long-standing “informed consent” law, forcing doctors to read from an even longer script of coercive information — designed by lawmakers — before a woman could end a pregnancy.

Current Maine law already requires a doctor to provide information including the approximate weeks of gestation and the specific risks associated with pregnancy and with the abortion technique to be performed. This bill isn’t about improving the informed-consent process. It is about shaming, judging and trying to make a woman change her mind.

A second bill — LD 1339 — ignores the fact that young women who choose not to involve their parents often have very real concerns about violence or being forced to leave their homes.

For the last 25 years, our adult-involvement law has encouraged family involvement in the decision and requires a teen who can’t involve her parents to be counseled by a trained professional.

There is no reason to pass a law that would have the unfortunate effect of making it harder for our most vulnerable young women to get the help they need.

The third bill is the most troubling to me: LD 1193, cloaked in the pretense of domestic violence, seeks to establish a fetus as a person, separate and distinct from the woman who carries it. It seeks to convey legal status to the fetus, including the right to “heirs and an estate” and the right to sue for damages.

This bill is a version of the thinly veiled attack that has been eroding reproductive rights for decades in other states.

Anti-choice activists across the country have introduced bills like this one to redefine the legal definition of “person” by establishing that a fetus is viable after 12 weeks of gestation. While details vary from state to state, the underlying purpose of these measures remains to chip away at a woman’s right to choose what is best for herself.

In fact, Maine’s criminal law already provides special treatment for those who knowingly cause harm to pregnant women.

Additionally, survivors of domestic violence and families who have lost loved ones to domestic violence have recourse through civil action in the courts. As a part of these actions, courts have discretion to consider the loss of a pregnancy when awarding damages.

Under current law, Maine has one of the lowest teen abortion rates in the country. All three of these bills are a solution in search of a problem.

They also send the message that we don’t trust Maine women to make the decisions that are best for them.

Thankfully, legislators on both sides have a history of pulling together to protect the health and rights of Maine women. I am confident this year will be no different.

We will not let Maine join the many states where legislators have compromised a woman’s right to choose. I look forward to working with my colleagues to defeat these threats to women’s health and continue Maine’s long tradition of respecting women’s rights to make decisions about their health.

REP. JENNIFER DECHANT is a Bath Democrat.