The following comes from a July 9 story on the Washington Post’s Wonk Blog.
The Guttmacher Institute, which tracks these things, on Monday released its regular look at the state of abortion regulations.
Taken together, these 17 states (full list here) have passed 43 abortion restrictions. That pales in comparison to the 80 such laws that had passed by this time in 2011 and is just slightly higher than restrictions enacted last year. It’s also a huge jump over the dozen or so laws that states would typically pass just a few years ago.
As to how states are restricting abortion, the most common restrictions Guttmacher saw were those that tried to regulate abortion clinics in a specific way, such as requiring them to become certified as surgical centers. Five states have passed laws like this so far this year, including North Dakota and Alabama.
Four states passed laws that prohibited the use of telemedicine in abortion procedures. Two states, Arkansas and Pennsylvania, have taken steps to restrict abortion coverage in the health plans sold on the new health law marketplaces. See more here, in a chart from Guttmacher detailing all the new restrictions.
To read the original story, click here.
Has there been a decrease in abortion?
“Has there been a decrease in abortion?” It doesn’t take much effort with Google to figure this one out: Yes, but it doesn’t have much to do with changes in laws.
What decrease over the past several decades, Francis, from one and a half million to one and two tenths million? The former Soviet Union used abortion to increase or decrease population, depending on its various five year program intentions. Besides, is it not obvious that my question begs the context of this topic about various states’ rulings and laws? Have these, Francis, brought the abortion rates down???
Skai:
If you really want to know, do some research with Google. If you stick to relevant data, the USSR won’t matter. You’ll find that the abortion rate in the US correlates much more strongly with poverty and wealth disparity than anything else. The next strongest correlation is effective use of contraception.
How does a law (pre-Roe) repealing a ban on abortion qualify for this list ? It affected nothing, since the Supreme Court did the same thing in 1973. Some
of these laws were great, others include the completely phony clause that allows abortion to save the mother’s health.
Progress is good, as slow and minor as it seems, I guess.
Ted:
Before I was born, my mother had an ectopic pregnancy. If the Catholic hospital where she was rushed for emergency surgery hadn’t terminated my sibling’s life, neither I nor my mother would be here today. If my mother had been in Pennsylvania at the time, she would have been denied treatment; that’s the way Pennsylvania’s laws were written at the time.
I am disappointed that you think a mother’s health is “completely phony.” Perhaps if you read a little about Catholic moral theology, you would have a more nearly Catholic perspective.
I said that because while an ectopic pregnancy is a serious matter, for example, it is survivable for the mother, but not the baby. The intent was to let your mother live, not to kill the baby. Had that pregnancy been normal, you’d simply have an older sibling. Most medical people have the opinion I expressed, and I stand by it. Most of the cases where the life of the mother are claimed to be in danger, it isn’t.
Ted,
I once heard one of the founders of NARL state exactly what you just wrote. He converted to Catholicism, his name was Dr. Bernard Nathanson, he was a friend.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Francis it’s not abortion when it is an ectopic pregnancy because the baby would not have lived. In other words they can still safe the mum’s life if it does not directly end the life, they can have an emergency surgery removing, without directly killing a life….in order to save the mum’s life.
Abeca and Ted:
I agree that “to save the mother’s life” is an exception which can be abused. However, that’s not an acceptable reason to set up a regime in which mothers die who might otherwise be saved.
You are correct, that most pre-1972 statutes explicitly permitted terminating an ectopic pregnancy. But as I pointed not, that was not universally the case. And in any case, any law which enumerates only a few specific diagnoses under which the mother’s life may be saved is not ethically acceptable to most people (me, for one!).
Terminating an ectopic pregnancy is not permissible “because the baby would not have lived.” The reason it is permissible is because any procedure which saves the mother’s life also kills the child, as an unwanted side-effect. Though it is legal across the US, Catholic ethics does not permit terminating an otherwise normal pregnancy in most cases where “the baby would not have lived.”
And so, we are back to “except to save the mother’s life” because any legal formulation without that exception is ethically unacceptable.