whatNOW - Fall 2011 e-Newsletter

Undoing Roe: States Are Pushing the Envelope

By Yarisbel Rodriguez

More than four hundred bills restricting abortion access have passed in state houses across the country since the Roe v. Wade decision, and last year’s health care reform law spurred a rash of even harsher bills that seek to chip away at access to reproductive healthcare. Increasingly, abortion opponents are seeking to directly invalidate Roe and are even taking aim at criminalizing doctors and women. Here are some of the latest examples:

• In Indiana, Republicans passed a law that prevented Medicaid patients from being reimbursed for healthcare services at Planned Parenthood clinics. The law also required doctors to tell women seeking abortions that a fetus can feel pain at twenty weeks or less, despite a lack of medical evidence supporting this claim.  After the Obama administration warned that this type of legislation violated federal law by restricting the health provider choices of Medicaid beneficiaries, U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt granted a preliminary injunction preventing Indiana from enforcing the law. Physicians in the state are still required to tell their female patients that “human life begins at fertilization.” 

• A federal trial judge in South Dakota issued an injunction blocking an intrusive state law that required women to wait at least seventy-two hours after a doctor’s visit before seeking an abortion. Had the law been implemented immediately, it would have required female patients to attend counseling at “pregnancy help centers” run by anti-choice activists.  All in all, eighteen states are pursuing mandatory counseling and waiting periods, with counseling sessions often including statements that are not backed by scientific evidence.   

• The fight continues elsewhere across the country, where bans on abortion at arbitrary points in a woman’s pregnancy—not based on scientific evidence or medical expertise—are being passed in direct violation of Roe. In Alabama, the Republican-dominated state legislature passed a bill that bans abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the unsupported claims of fetal pain, making it a felony to perform an abortion after that time unless the pregnancy endangers the woman’s life. There are no exceptions for a woman’s health or in cases of rape or incest. The 20-week ban directly violates Roe, which allows abortion up to viability or to protect the life and health of the woman. Sadly, the bill has been signed into law. Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Nebraska have all enacted similar restrictions at 20 weeks.

• A Louisiana lawmaker proposed an all out ban on abortions in all cases except for a woman’s life.  The bill set out to repeal exceptions for rape or incest and even called for jail sentences for up to 15 years for doctors who perform abortions. The very fact that Louisiana proposed such a bill signals the increasing boldness of the anti-choice movement.

• The Iowa House of Representatives passed a bill that if enacted would push the ban to 18 weeks and punish doctors who performed abortions after the ban with up to a decade in prison and a $10,000 fine.  In this same spirit, the Ohio House of Representatives has voted to criminalize abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detectable—as early as six weeks.  If enacted, the law would be the most audacious challenge to Roe.

The anti-choice wave may be on the rise, but so is respect for women’s physical autonomy and well-being.   Federal judges took action to block a number of state laws that sought to unfairly limit abortion access, and in state’s like New York, pro-choice advocates are working to strengthen laws and policies that govern access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare.   Efforts to protect abortion access are needed more than ever before since Roe.