U.S. abortion restrictions absolutely do not align with European law

By Leah Hoctor
September 22, 2022

Three months after the Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate the constitutional right to abortion in the United States shocked people across Europe, Republican lawmakers have astonished Europeans again with claims that 47 of 50 European countries ban abortion after 15 weeks.

This is simply untrue — as is the claim, made by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and other lawmakers, that by introducing a 15-week federal ban on most abortions, the United States would move into line with Europe.

Unlocked: https://wapo.st/3LAImPT (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/22/europe-abortion-laws-vs-usa/)

22.09.2022

Featured

Opinion

15-week abortion ban

Center for Reproductive Rights

Leah Hoctor

Senator Lindsey Graham

Graham’s abortion ban stuns Senate GOP

His past, less conservative pitch won him some Democratic votes. But most Republicans stiff-armed him Tuesday as they face abortion-rights backers ascendant after Roe's reversal.

By BURGESS EVERETT, MARIANNE LEVINE and SARAH FERRIS
09/13/2022

Lindsey Graham’s anti-abortion legislation once unified the Republican Party. The 15-week abortion ban he pitched Tuesday had the exact opposite effect. The South Carolina senator chose a uniquely tense moment to unveil his party’s first bill limiting abortion access since this summer’s watershed reversal of Roe v. Wade. It was designed as a nod to anti-abortion activists who have never felt more emboldened. Yet Graham’s bill also attempted to skate past a Republican Party that’s divided over whether Congress should even be legislating on abortion after the Supreme Court struck down a nationwide right to terminate pregnancies.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/13/grahams-abortion-ban-senate-gop-00056423

13.09.2022

Dems grow alarmed by lack of fear over Roe’s future

Democrats argue that the party needs to act more aggressively ahead of the Supreme Court’s ruling expected this summer on a challenge to Roe v. Wade.

by LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ and ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
04/26/2022

For decades, Democrats insisted that Republicans would invite a major voter backlash if they took aggressive action to curtail abortion rights. Now, as a growing number of GOP-led states do just that, passing a slew of bills curtailing abortion with no exemptions for rape and incest, they fear that voters are uninformed or misinformed about the stakes. And they are sounding the alarm that more is needed to engage voters and warn them that the current slate of laws is just the beginning.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/26/dems-roe-wade-future-00027932

Kentucky Enacts Near-Total Abortion Ban

Abortion is now effectively illegal in Kentucky, with the state enacting the country’s harshest restrictions so far. We need a mass movement to fight for safe, legal, and free abortion, on demand.

Otto Fors and K.S. Mehta
April 16, 2022

On Wednesday, Kentucky lawmakers essentially banned abortion. Effective immediately, abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy are illegal, except in medical emergencies, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

While abortions before 15 weeks technically remain legal, other provisions in the legislation will make it virtually impossible for doctors to perform the procedure. For example, providers must comply with onerous and invasive reporting requirements about the pregnant person’s past pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. Providers also need to maintain admitting privileges at local hospitals — an enormous barrier, given that hospitals can deny such privileges at their discretion. Providers who want to prescribe medication abortions, which account for more than half of all abortions in the state, must now also register with the state, but since Kentucky lacks this kind of registration system, they have no way of performing the procedure.

Continued: https://www.leftvoice.org/kentucky-enacts-near-total-abortion-ban/

16.04.2022

Kentucky abortion law

Kevin Stitt

Myers Abortion Facility Database

More Americans Support 15-Week Abortion Ban—But Don’t Want Stricter Restrictions—Poll Finds

Alison Durkee, Forbes Staff
Apr 1, 2022

TOPLINE A slightly larger share of Americans supports a 15-week abortion ban—which more states are passing and the Supreme Court could soon greenlight—than oppose it, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds, even as most still want abortion to be legal before that point.

KEY FACTS
The poll found 48% of respondents at least somewhat support restricting abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, while 43% oppose it.
The share of those who strongly oppose a 15-week ban is higher than the share that strongly support it, however (34% versus 31%).

Continued: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/04/01/more-americans-support-15-week-abortion-ban-but-dont-want-stricter-restrictions-poll-finds/?sh=39957d23bf5b

01.04.2022

anti-choice restrictions

Roe Is Dead. Long Live Roe?

The first state constitutional protection of reproductive rights hints at the contradictions and fears of a divided movement.

Judith Levine
March 14 2022

IF THE SUPREME COURT overturns Roe v. Wade, 26 states are “certain or likely to ban abortion,” according to the Guttmacher Institute. In December, the court heard arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, addressing Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act banning abortion after 15 weeks’ pregnancy. The law is a deliberate violation of Roe, the 1973 ruling legalizing abortion. Most observers expect the conservative majority to rule in Mississippi’s favor. In that case abortion law would revert to the states, where in vast red swaths of this nation it has been so slashed and shredded that it’s already practically confetti.

Continued: https://theintercept.com/2022/03/14/abortion-roe-wade-vermont-human-right/

USA – Amid abortion rights threat, OB-GYNs more vocal with support

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has been defending abortion in recent lawsuits challenging state restrictions

By TRAVIS LOLLER, Associated Press
8 March 2022

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- As the Supreme Court mulls whether to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists filed a brief against the state law, calling it “fundamentally at odds with the provision of safe and essential healthcare.”

But the organization’s support for abortion hasn’t always been unequivocal. After the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteed the right to abortion, American OB-GYNs remained divided on the issue. Many declined to perform elective abortions either out of moral opposition or because they wanted to avoid the “butcher” stigma that still clung to abortion doctors from the pre-Roe days.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/amid-abortion-rights-threat-ob-gyns-vocal-support-83319403

Why so many abortion restrictions are working their way through state legislatures now

Anti-abortion lawmakers are trying a variety of approaches to limit access to the procedure — so that they are prepared to restrict access, no matter how the Supreme Court rules.

Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
March 7, 2022

Florida’s legislature passed a bill that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Idaho’s Senate approved a bill to block the procedure after six weeks, modeled after Texas’ law. Georgia’s Senate advanced legislation that prohibits using telemedicine for abortion medication. And in Kentucky, the state House voted to pass new restrictions on abortion providers that, if enacted, could effectively shut down clinics in the state.

Legislatures around the country are voting on a variety of abortion restrictions, many of them not in line with the protections that have existed since Roe v. Wade was decided 49 years ago. They’re doing so with an eye on the Supreme Court, set to rule in a case that is widely expected to give more power to states to add limits to the availability of abortion.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2022/03/why-abortion-restrictions-pushed-state-legislatures-dobbs/

States Aren’t Waiting for the Supreme Court to Tighten Abortion Laws

In anticipation of the court’s decision, a frenzy of legislative activity to shut down access to abortion forms a picture of a post-Roe America.

By Kate Zernike
March 7, 2022

Both sides of the abortion debate anticipate that come July, the Supreme Court will have overturned Roe v. Wade and with it the constitutional right to abortion, handing anti-abortion activists a victory they have sought for five decades. But from Florida to Idaho, Republican-led state legislatures are not waiting: They are operating as if Roe has already been struck down, advancing new restrictions that aim to make abortion illegal in as many circumstances as possible.

Under Roe, states cannot prohibit abortion before a fetus is viable outside the womb — around 23 weeks into pregnancy. But bills moving through legislatures are outlawing abortion entirely, or at six, 12 or 15 weeks of gestation. On Thursday, Florida passed a 15-week ban even as opponents warned it was unconstitutional so long as Roe stands. In Oklahoma, a Senate committee approved a bill that would prohibit abortion starting 30 days after the “probable” start of a woman’s last monthly period.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/07/us/abortion-supreme-court-roe-v-wade.html

Abortions after 15 weeks are one signature away from being banned in Florida

March 4, 2022
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Abortions after 15 weeks would be banned in Florida under a bill Republican senators sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis late on Thursday, capping a bitter debate in the statehouse as a looming U.S. Supreme Court decision may limit abortion rights in America.

DeSantis, a Republican, has previously signaled his support for the proposal and is expected to sign it into law.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2022/03/04/1084440962/florida-republicans-send-15-week-abortion-ban-to-governor

04.03.2022