Abortion Battles

A nicely researched piece from CNN on the abortion battles raging in state legislatures all over the country this year.  Pay special attention to the map which lets you roll over individual states for a summary of their specific abortion laws, and changes made for 2011.

Consider that 374 anti-abortion bills were introduced in state legislatures this year, 200 more than last year, said Ted Miller, spokesman for NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Of those, 61 bills in 25 states focus on prohibiting health insurance coverage for abortions. Another 20 in 10 states make ultrasounds mandatory before abortions.

The article cites a recently published study by the Guttmacher Institute, contending that "hostility" towards abortion rights is on the rise.  Click here for a summary of the study, and here for a detailed analysis.  Here's a taste:

To date, legislators have introduced 916 measures related to reproductive health and rights in the 49 legislatures that have convened their regular sessions. (Louisiana’s legislature will not convene until late April.) By the end of March, seven states had enacted 15 new laws on these issues, including provisions that:

* expand the pre-abortion waiting period requirement in South Dakota to make it more onerous than that in any other state, by extending the time from 24 hours to 72 hours and requiring women to obtain counseling from a crisis pregnancy center in the interim;

* expand the abortion counseling requirement in South Dakota to mandate that counseling be provided in-person by the physician who will perform the abortion and that counseling include information published after 1972 on all the risk factors related to abortion complications, even if the data are scientifically flawed;

* require the health departments in Utah and Virginia to develop new regulations governing abortion clinics;

* revise the Utah abortion refusal clause to allow any hospital employee to refuse to “participate in any way” in an abortion;

* limit abortion coverage in all private health plans in Utah, including plans that will be offered in the state’s health exchange; and

* revise the Mississippi sex education law to require all school districts to provide abstinence-only sex education while permitting discussion of contraception only with prior approval from the state.

The study goes on to summarize information from states where measures would restrict coverage of abortion in insurance plans, put gestational limits on legal abortion, and mandate that a woman obtain an ultrasound procedure before having an abortion.

Thanks to the Guttmacher Institute for such a comprehensively researched report.  It seems every day the battle to maintain our reproductive rights heats up in yet another state.  Fabulous to be able to see it all in once place like this.  I will be looking to see if anyone else besides CNN gives it the time of day.