Despite an electorate that is overwhelmingly pro-choice, there is no doubt that the GOP’s first goal is to deprive women of their reproductive rights and to frame that argument not as one of health but religion. It is in fact so important an issue to the GOP that out of some 40,000 laws of all types enacted in 2011, as RMuse wrote here recently, “there were nearly 1,000 bills in state legislatures to restrict a woman’s right to legal abortion services” (up from 950 in 2010). Alternet lists the 10 worst states in which to be a woman. The lone piece of good news was the unexpected sanity of Mississippi voters. Interestingly, the GOP is now trying to co-opt the War on Women for their own, accusing liberals of waging war on “pro-choice” women, or declaring that Obama is waging a war on women and that the Obama White House has been a hostile work environment. This is while Congress, already in 2012, has taken no less than eight votes against women – in just three months. It is frightening to think what the final toll might be by December 31.
o A recent report from the Guttmacher Institute details the extent of 2011′s war on Women’s Reproductive Rights. The report states,
By almost any measure, issues related to reproductive health and rights at the state level received unprecedented attention in 2011. In the 50 states combined, legislators introduced more than 1,100 reproductive health and rights-related provisions, a sharp increase from the 950 introduced in 2010. By year’s end, 135 of these provisions had been enacted in 36 states, an increase from the 89 enacted in 2010 and the 77 enacted in 2009. (Note: This analysis refers to reproductive health and rights-related “provisions,” rather than bills or laws, since bills introduced and eventually enacted in the states contain multiple relevant provisions.)
Fully 68% of these new provisions—92 in 24 states—-restrict access to abortion services, a striking increase from last year, when 26% of new provisions restricted abortion. The 92 new abortion restrictions enacted in 2011 shattered the previous record of 34 adopted in 2005.
Abortion restrictions took many forms: bans (6 states), waiting periods (3 states), ultrasound 5 states), insurance coverage (3 states joined the existing 5 with such restrictions), clinic regulations (4 states), medication abortion (7 states).
o Anti-abortion Laws
Republican legislators have introduced a wide array of laws designed to either outlaw abortion outright or to discourage it by making ridiculous and sometimes humiliating requirements of women who might consider having a pregnancy terminated. These include so-called TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) regulations.
Republicans in the House proposed a bill (HR 1179) called “Respect for Rights of Conscience Act of 2011.” The bill, introduced by Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb), allows health care providers and pharmacists to deny birth control to women if it conflicts with their religious or moral convictions. The Senate is expected to vote on its version of HR 1179 during the week of February 27 where it is known as S. 1467, whose primary sponsor is Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and has become an amendment to Transportation Authorization Bill S. 1813. The Blunt Amendment was defeated in the Senate on a narrow vote of 51 to 48 on March 1, 2012.
In Texas, Rep. George Lavender, R-Texarkana, has proposed a bill (House Bill 2988) that would prevent any abortion except in cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother.
In Georgia, a bill, the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” (SB 209) sponsored by Sen. Barry Loudermilk, R-Cassville, would close all abortion clinics in the state and require abortions to be performed in hospitals. This bill was tabled by the rules committee on March 11, 2011.
South Dakota wants to require “spiritual” counseling (House Bill 1217) at religious centers before allowing an abortion to take place. The bill was signed into law in March 2011 and challenged in court by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU in May. We still haven’t heard what the courts will decide in this case (though a federal judge has suspended most of the law in the interim) and Republicans aren’t waiting to find out. The South Dakota House of Representatives approved a bill on February 13 sponsored by Rep. Roger Hunt, R-Brandon that changes counseling requirements. Women seeking abortions will still have to wait 72 hours and endure spiritual counseling but now requires those counselors be licensed. The consulting doctor will now have to decide if it is likely the woman will develop mental health problems as a result of the abortion. As a side note, in both 2006 and 2008 voters rejected attempts to outlaw most abortions.
Also in South Dakota, H.B. 1166, which was enacted in 2005, was, says RHRealityCheck.org, billed as an “informed consent law,” but what it really mandated was misinformation, requiring doctors “to tell a woman seeking an abortion that she faces an ‘increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide,’ a claim for which there is absolutely no scientific or medical evidence.” On September 2, 2011, “Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out important provisions of a South Dakota law that literally forced doctors to lie to their patients.”
The Texas State House of Representatives has passed the Sonogram Bill (HB 15), a measure requiring women to get a sonogram before ending a pregnancy, forcing even victims of rape to have a sonogram at least 24 hours before the procedure. Gov. Rick Perry has signed the bill into law, which takes effect September 1, 2011. There are exceptions in cases of rape and incest. As Planned Parenthood reports: “While a woman can opt-out of seeing the sonogram image and hearing the heart tone, she cannot opt-out of a medically unnecessary sonogram, nor can she opt-out of the fetal description except within very narrow parameters for situations of rape, incest, judicial bypasses, and fetal anomalies.”
Also from Texas, the passage of SB 257, passed by House and Senate on May 5, 2011 and signed by the governor on May 17, 2011 provides for “Choose Life” license plates. As explained by Planned Parenthood: “The state will now produce “Choose Life” license plates and distribute revenue from the sale of the plates to anti-choice groups such as crisis pregnancy centers (CPC). The “Alternative to Abortion” program currently receives $4 million dollars a year in taxpayer money through the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) that is distributed to CPCs. CPC are unregulated anti-choice organizations that do not provide any medical services and are known to spend nearly half of the tax dollars they receive on advertising and administrative costs, not client services.”
Georgia State Representative Bobby Franklin has introduced a bill that would not only make abortion illegal but would make miscarriages illegal.
Indiana (House Bill 1210) wants to force doctors to lie to women about abortion causing breast cancer despite medical evidence to the contrary in order to discourage women from having abortions
Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” (HR 3) that would limit the rape exemption for abortion to “forcible rape” which would have defined many rapes, for example, statutory rape of a minor, as non-forcible and therefore not covered by federal assistance. Mother Jones has reported another aspect of this legislation, that the IRS would be turned into abortion-cops: “Were this to become law, people could end up in an audit, the subject of which could be abortion, rape, and incest,” says Christopher Bergin, the head of Tax Analysts, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit tax policy group. “If you pass the law like this, the IRS would be required to enforce it.”
Representative Joe Pitts (R-PA) introduced a bill (HR 358 – the “Protect Life Act”) would allow states to deny insurance coverage for birth control meaning hospitals could deny abortion procedures and transport to a facility that would provide a woman with an abortion even if failure to provide an abortion would mean the death of the woman. The “Let Women Die Act” passed the House on 10/13/11.
Louisiana State Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, in what he calls a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, wants to make both women and doctors who have and perform abortions guilty of the crime of “feticide”. This “personhood amendment” (House Bill 587)would make no exceptions for cases of danger to the health of the mother, incest or rape but would for “medically necessary” abortions. Feticide is currently punishable by 5 to 15 years in prison. LaBruzzo once wanted to pay poor women $1,000 to have their tubes tied because he was afraid they were “reproducing at a faster rate than more affluent, better-educated people who presumably pay more tax revenue to the government,” says Nola.com. Update: HB 587 became HB 645 on May 25, 2011 and to the relief of sane people everywhere eventually derailed in the state House.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed (by a 234-182 vote) an amendment sponsored by Virginia Foxx (R-NC) prohibiting teaching hospitals from receiving federal funding if they teach doctors how to perform abortions. Unfortunately, as a result of this legislation new physicians will not receive the training needed to save women’s lives. As Correntewire.com puts it, “234 members of the House voted to ban the teaching of medical procedures that are vital in saving the lives of women who have miscarried, or have complications that endanger their health, or who aren’t even pregnant.”
In Ohio, Janet Porter’s “Heartbeat Bill” criminalizing abortion and which was backed by Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann, passed the Ohio State House on June 28, 2011. “It prohibits abortions after only about six weeks, a time when many women do not yet even know they are pregnant,” said Armond Budish, leader of the Democratic caucus in the House. The bill is currently being held up in the Senate. See the latest update on Porter’s antics at Right Wing Watch.
Also in Ohio, The state budget, approved June 28, 2011 by the Senate, bars state hospitals from performing abortions.
Mother Jones reports that “Every abortion provider in the state of Kansas has been denied a license to continue operating as of July 1 [2011].” This is the result, according to Mother Jones, of passage in April of a law “directing the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to author new facility standards for abortion clinics, which the staunchly anti-abortion GOP governor, Sam Brownback, signed into law on May 16.” It turns out that if you want to know how these new rules were developed, you can’t, because the Republicans don’t want to tell you, and won’t.
On July 1, 2011 a budget impasse shut down the government of the state of Minnesota. The Republican majorities in the house and senate refuse to negotiate in good faith, insisting that a list of social issues be included in the budget, including abortion restrictions.
In Arizona, the House of Representatives passed House Bill 2443 sponsored by Republican Rep. Steve Montenegro, on February 21, 2011. The bill, if passed into law, would criminalize abortions being performed because of the race or sex of the fetus. Montenegro claims that “there are targeted communities that the abortion industry targets.” If made law, HB 2443 would require that “women seeking abortions in Arizona will have to sign a statement declaring that race or sex was not the reason they sought the procedure.”
Also from Arizona, there is House Bill 2036 which would ban abortions after 20 weeks. It was passed by the Senate on March 29, 2012 and will now go before the House for consideration. As Mother Jones reports, the legislation “is modeled on the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” designed by the National Right to Life Committee” and the ACLU has called it the “most extreme bill of its kind.” Update: Governor Jan Brewer signed HB 2036 on April 12, 2012, which as Raw Story points out, “takes Nebraska’s 20-week abortion ban one step further by starting the clock on pregnancies at the woman’s last last menstrual period, which could be two weeks before fertilization.” In other words, your pregnancy legally begins before conception! Take that, science!
And another gem from Arizona is House Bill 2800, introduced in February and now referred to the Senate Rules Committee, which would deprive Planned Parenthood of public funds, depriving women of healthcare unrelated to abortion. Update [4.24.12]: the Arizona State Senate approved the bill on Tuesday, April 24; the House has previously approved it. Planned Parenthood says the ban would affect some 19,000 women in the state.
Oh, and we can’t forget Arizona’s House Bill 2625, which as azcentral.com reports, “would allow companies to opt out of covering contraception in their health-care plans for religious reasons,” proving once and for all that Arizona Republicans are legislating religion in violation of the Constitution, and that their religion trumps your beliefs.
In Illinois Rep. Darlene Senger, R-Naperville in March 2011 submitted a bill – anti-abortion legislation mind, which would require clinics that perform more than 50 abortions a year to meet the same regulatory requirements as other medical outpatient surgery clinics – to the House Agriculture and Conservation Committee. Why, you ask? Because the agriculture committee is dominated by conservative downstate Democrats and Republicans. And guess what? They passed it: unanimously.
In Florida, during a debate about a bill “that would prohibit governments from deducting union dues from a worker’s paycheck,” Rep. Scott Randolph (D-Orlando) said “if my wife’s uterus was incorporate” the legislature “would be talking about deregulating.” Rep. Randolph was then taken to task for using the word “uterus” by the House leadership, which said that the word was “language that would be considered inappropriate for children and other guests.”
In Florida Republicans passed House Bill 501 redistributes funds from “Choose Life” license plates to the Ocala-based Choose Life, Inc, which the Florida Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates says will “result in more funds being given to ‘crisis pregnancy centers,’ anti-abortion organizations that falsely market themselves as professional health facilities.”
In Virginia, RH Reality Check reports that “Governor Bob McDonnell found time to issue regulations for first trimester abortion providers that go well beyond any existing regulations seen in other states, including South Carolina, according to the Virginia Coalition to Protect Women’s Health.” Apparently, these “draft” regulations ” (SB 924) were formulated under an emergency process that bypasses public review and comment periods and standard economic assessments for new regulations and is undemocratic on its face.” They will be put into effect up to 18 months to 2 years in advance of any permanent regulations. In a blatant attempt to eliminate first trimester abortions, reports RH Reality Check, the regulations “contain what can only be called ridiculous mandates for abortion providers, such as requiring specific sizes of rooms and lengths of hallways which have nothing to do with either patient care or safety.” See also the article in Mother Jones about how these new rules would affect the Falls Church Planned Parenthood Clinic.
In the U.S. House the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA) otherwise known as HR 3541, is being called a “civil rights” bill by its Republican sponsors. Under this bill, physicians would be banned from performing abortions based on the race of the fetus, something that does not happen anyway, apparently, since nobody could offer any evidence that it did.
WRAL.com reports that “A Cabarrus County lawmaker wants to bring back public hangings in North Carolina as a deterrent to crime, and he says doctors who perform abortions should be in the line to the gallows.” According to WRAL, “Republican Rep. Larry Pittman, who was appointed to the District 82 House seat in October, expressed his views in an email sent Wednesday to every member of the General Assembly.” Pittman said in his email: “If murderers (and I would include abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers, as well) are actually executed, it will at least have the deterrent effect upon them. For my money, we should go back to public hangings, which would be more of a deterrent to others, as well.” Pittman calls himself a pastor and says he didn’t mean to send the email to everybody, only to Rep. Tim Moore, R-Cleveland. Republicans need to learn to be careful around demon-technology.
In Iowa, House File 2298, introduced by Rep. Kim Pearson, R-Pleasant Hill, would criminalize all abortions, including those resulting from rape and incest and would make no exceptions for the life of the mother when put at risk by her pregnancy. The punishment for ending a life (excepting of course the life of a mother) would be life in prison and women who miscarry will face criminal investigation.
In Georgia, Senate Bill 434, sponsored by Sen. Judson Hill, R-Marietta, (he proposed calling it the “Federal Abortion Mandate Opt-Out Act”) would ban healthcare providers from covering abortion except in cases where the mother’s life is endangered.
Also in Georgia, Senate Bill 438, sponsored by Sen. Mike Crane (R-Newman), would “provide that no health insurance plan for employees of the state shall offer coverage for abortion services.”
Again in Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on February 15, 2012, “A bill to limit abortions is also being considered in the House. House Bill 954, sponsored by Rep. Doug McKillip, R-Athens, was filed last week and is what is commonly referred to as a ‘fetal pain’ bill. It says that a fetus can react to pain at 20 weeks, and it seeks to outlaw abortions at or past 20 weeks of pregnancy.”
Kansas Republicans have unleashed a blitzkrieg on women’s reproductive rights. A Kansas house subcommittee will began considering a bill Wednesday that draws inspiration from anti-abortion laws in Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona. Reports HuffPo: “The bill includes provisions similar to those found in other state laws now facing federal lawsuits, including Texas’ requirement that the mother hear the fetal heartbeat, and Oklahoma’s mandate that mothers be told about a potential risk of breast cancer with an abortion. It also would replicate Arizona’s provision prohibiting tax deductions for abortion-related groups.” Women would also have to undergo a sonogram before having an abortion. The bill’s sponsor is Kansas’ House Federal and State Affairs Committee. The Kansas City Star reports that “The bill is one of four abortion-related measures pending in the Legislature.”
Think Progress reports that “In the escalating war on women’s rights in statehouse across the country, Iowa state Rep. Kim Pearson (R) may have just dropped the biggest bomb yet.” House File 2298 introduces the crime of “Fetacide”: “Any person who intentionally terminates a human pregnancy, with the knowledge and voluntary onsent of the pregnant person, after the end of the second trimester of the pregnancy where death of the fetus results, commits feticide. Feticide is a class “C” “A” felony. Any person who attempts to intentionally terminate a human pregnancy, with the knowledge and voluntary consent of the pregnant person, after the end of the second trimester of the pregnancy where death of the fetus does not result, commits attempted feticide. Attempted feticide is a class “D” “B” felony.” A class A felony is punishable by life in prison, class B by 25 years. Keep in mind abortion is legal in the United States (see Roe v. Wade).
Louisiana seems intent on following the general Republican practice of taking extreme stances against abortion. Case in point: a new piece of legislation (SB 330), filed March 1, 2012 by Sen. Rick Ward III, D-Maringouin, would outlaw abortion by anyone but a licensed physician and label any abortion performed “by any individual who is not a physician licensed by the state of Louisiana” would be deemed a brand new crime: “dismemberment” (“aggravated criminal abortion by dismemberment” to be precise). Violators, reports Nola.com, “would face a prison term of one to five years, a fine of $5,000 to $50,000 or a jail sentence and a fine.” The bill “defines a physician as someone who holds a medical or an osteopathic degree from a medical college in ‘good standing with the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners’ and has a license, permit, certification or registration issued by the board to practice medicine in the state.”
Also in Louisiana, reports Planned Parenthood, “House Concurrent Resolution 54, by Rep. Frank Hoffman (West Monroe – R), aimed to encourage Congress to defund Planned Parenthood, but was tied up in Senate Finance at the close of the [2011 legislative] session” which ended June 23, 2011. Hoffman claims, reports Nola.com, that “that giving the organization federal funding for services such as screenings for breast and cervical cancer indirectly helps Planned Parenthood provide abortions.”
A last item from Louisiana: On July 6, 2011, Gov. Bobby Jindal signed into law Rep. Frank Hoffman’s HB 636. As Planned Parenthood reports: “HB 636 requires Abortion providers to post coercion prevention/abortion alternative signs and gives DHH the authority to develop a new abortion alternatives website. Visitors to the website will not receive comprehensive information about pregnancy options; agencies that provide comprehensive pregnancy options education or provide abortion care will not be allowed to post information on the site.”
A New York Times editorial calls into question a recent Republican brainstorm on Capitol Hill: “The Judiciary Committee in the Republican-controlled House held a hearing to promote a mean-spirited and constitutionally suspect bill called the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act.” This bill would create “a mandatory parental notification requirement and 24-hour waiting period on women under 18 who travel outside their home state” to get an abortion and punish anyone who helps the minor with “criminal and civil penalties that include up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.” As the editorial points out, “It is both an attack on women’s rights and on the basic principles of federalism.” And of course, it won’t create one single job.
In what can only be seen as a punitive and hateful punishment of women who have abortions, Georgia Republican Rep. Terry England, in support of a bill which would ban abortions after 20 weeks (HR 954), says (video here) that women should be forced to carry dead fetuses to term. Why? Because cows and pigs have to do it and that’s apparently how his god wants it. Never mind the health risk to mothers being forced to carry dead fetuses to term. Republicans hate mothers and want them to die early and often.
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From Alaska comes HB 363, which, as Planned Parenthood tells us, “forbids full disclosure of pregnancy options and referrals for abortions, in flagrant violation of requirements made by federal funding laws,” further pointing out that “[a]bortion is a fundamental right in Alaska, as protected by two State Supreme Court rulings in 1997 and 2001. Any law limiting access, particularly one such as HB363 that targets poor women, is an attack on our Alaskan values: individual freedom from government interference, privacy and fair treatment under the law.”
