In the beginning of 2013, the Arkansas General Assembly introduced a bill titled the “Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act” in an attempt to ban women from aborting a fetus 12 weeks or older. After several years of this law being contested in court, it has finally received the final nail in the coffin. The Supreme Court rejected the pleas to overturn lower court decisions by announcing this Tuesday that it would not be hearing oral arguments for Beck v. Edwards.

The  “Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act” became a law on March 6, 2013, even after being vetoed by then Governor Mike Beebe, and has faced controversy ever since. Around a month after the bill became a law, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the ACLU began the fight against the law by filing suit in a district court, claiming that this ban on abortion infringed on patients’ constitutional rights to privacy. The district court ultimately sided with the Plaintiffs, ruling that the ban on abortion after 12 weeks was an unconstitutional violation of a woman’s privacy. Arkansas appealed this case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in May of 2014, but didn’t have much luck. The court affirmed the ruling of the previous court in its opinion, stating,

This case underscores the importance of the parties, particularly the state, developing the record in a meaningful way so as to present a real opportunity for the court to examine viability, case by case, as viability steadily moves back towards conception.

In this case, Arkansas legislators are making the claim that a fetus is viable at 12 weeks, so therefore the cutoff for abortion legality needs to be at or before that benchmark. Overall, one of the biggest points of contention in the overall argument about abortion is the question of when a fetus becomes viable. But, what is viability? Justice Harry Blackman defined this term in his opinion on the well-known 1973 Supreme Court case, Roe v. Wade: “potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid.” Now, people have been bickering for decades over what this actually means; however, most states have stuck to the norm–also laid out in Roe v. Wade–of a fetus becoming viable somewhere around 28 weeks.

Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals cited a lack of scientific evidence on the part of the State when it comes to proving that viability of a fetus starts at 12 weeks. The plaintiffs, on the other hand, provided ample evidence–in the form of doctor testimony– to support the fact that a fetus at 12 weeks cannot survive outside its mother’s womb.

In a final attempt to keep this law in place, the state of Arkansas filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately for the Arkansas legislature, the Supreme Court only accepts around 0.8% of the cases it receives each year, and it just decided this Tuesday that it will not be hearing Beck v. Edwards, effectively striking down the Arkansas ban on abortions past 12 weeks, for good.

So what does this mean for the future of abortion rights? We can all rest easy knowing that a woman’s constitutional right to privacy won’t be violated by the Arkansas abortion law anytime soon, since the final decision from the Court of Appeals stands, banning the ban for good. In addition, although SCOTUS didn’t want to hear Beck v. Edwards, it does have a new abortion focused case coming up this March. Arguments for Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole are set to begin March 2nd, so a verdict on whether or not the Supreme Court will uphold women’s rights is rapidly approaching.

Alexandra Simone

Alex Simone is an Editorial Senior Fellow at Law Street and a student at The George Washington University, studying Political Science. She is passionate about law and government, but also enjoys the finer things in life like watching crime dramas and enjoying a nice DC brunch. Contact Alex at ASimone@LawStreetmedia.com

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Women have, for centuries, been fighting a battle to obtain equal rights and autonomy within the patriarchal society in which we live. From voting rights, equal pay, gender equality, and financial independence to stigmatized domestic violence ideologies and highly controversial contraceptive and reproductive rights, women continue to strive toward a gender equilibrium.

While their history is bountiful, reproductive rights–specifically those focused on abortion–have morphed from a religious, hot-button voting issue and politically polarizing topic of interest into a women’s rights and equality war zone, which has mixed reviews even from within. For years, various states have been testing the limitations of abortion laws by trying to implement restrictions to access, mandatory and burdensome requirements, and regulations upon women and healthcare providers. Most have not passed muster, however, in early November 2015, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a major and consequential abortion rights case for the first time since 2007. Read on to learn more about the history of abortion rights, the important facts of Whole Women’s Health v. Cole, and what it could mean for future generations of women.

A “Brief” History of Abortion Rights

Laws pertaining to contraception came to the Supreme Court in 1965 with Griswold v. Connecticut, where the court found that a state statute forbidding the use of contraceptives, punishable by fine and imprisonment, was unconstitutional. Justice William O. Douglas crafted the “penumbra” argument, stating that, “…the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from government intrusion,” finding that “the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms” is not a place that is subject to government control and infringement. Marital privacy was to remain private. The curtain would remained closed on the intimacies of married life.

Image Courtesy Of [Kate Ausburn via Flickr]

In 1973, the Supreme Court decided the landmark abortion case, Roe v. Wade. Justice Harry Blackmun, a conservative father to three daughters who served as resident counsel in the Mayo Clinic (1950-1959), authored the weighty opinion. The importance of the right to privacy and a woman’s autonomy over her pregnancy led him and the Court to find the restrictive Texas statute unconstitutional and abortion a private legal matter encompassing a woman’s right to choose. The Court quoted the Texas District Court below, agreeing that the “fundamental right of single women and married persons to choose whether to have children is protected by the Ninth Amendment, through the Fourteenth Amendment.” However, the opinion explained vested interests in abortion proceedings and outlined different levels of state interests in regulating abortion procedures in the second and third trimester.

While 1992 brought United States citizens “Aladdin,” Windows 3.1, and the birth of Miley Cyrus, it also bestowed upon us the sequel to Roe v. Wade in the form of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey—a complex multi-part decision that ultimately addressed what regulations were and were not acceptable by the states regarding abortion procedures under a undue burden/substantial obstacle analysis. The Court reaffirmed its Roe holding by adhering to the three major principles in Roe: 

1. That a woman has the right to abort prior to viability “without undue interference from the State:”
2. That the State has the right to restrict abortions after fetal viability so long as its laws contain exceptions for any pregnancy that endangers the life or health of a woman; and
3. That the State has a “legitimate interest” in the pregnancy to protect the life of the woman and fetus.

Planned Parenthood v. Casey challenged five provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982. One required women, prior to getting an abortion, to obtain informed consent. Informed consent is a process in which a woman is provided with the risks of abortion, fetal development, gestational age of the fetus, whether the fetus can feel pain during the procedure, and that personhood begins at conception, etc. The act also require women to wait a mandatory 24 hours following signed consent to proceed with the procedure, obtain parental consent for minors with the allowance of a judicial bypass, and obtain signed spousal consent. Additionally, the act defined a “medical emergency” within the context of abortion procedures and set out specific reporting requirements by the facilities performing abortion services. The Court, in a plurality decision, upheld the central holding in Roe, but did however, overturn Roe’s trimester analysis framework and only found one provision–requiring spousal consent–burdensome and an unconstitutional regulation on a woman’s right to choose. The rest of the provisions were upheld.

Legal discourse pertaining to abortion did not end there.  In 2000, Stenberg v. Carhart surfaced to challenge a Nebraska statute prohibiting and criminalizing “partial birth abortions,” also known as “dilation and extraction” in the medical community. The court’s scientifically detailed opinion ultimately held that the Nebraska statute was unconstitutional and therefore could not be enforced as it did not carve out an exception for the “preservation of the health of the mother.” Additionally, the statute, with its ambiguous wording and terminology, unduly burdened the mother’s ability to choose an abortion, noting that in certain situations and in the presence of specific circumstances, partial birth abortions were “safer” than alternative procedures and methods.

In 2003, Congress and President George W. Bush signed into law the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act which expressively banned the “dilation and extraction” abortion method cited in Stenberg. Advocates that challenged the federal statute in lower courts had the statute struck down, but the challenge to the federal statute did not reach the Supreme Court until 2007 in Gonzales v. Carhart.

The court in Gonzales v. Carhart addressed the issue of whether the federal statute imposed a substantial obstacle for late-term pre-viability abortions and found it to be constitutional. The act directly outlined the procedure prohibited–the delivery of a viable/living fetus to an anatomical landmark which required an additional “overt act,” an act separate from the delivery usually involving piercing or crushing the fetal skull, to be taken in order to kill the partially delivered fetus, hence countering any argument that the statute was “vague.” Further, the court addressed the possibility of other legal abortion options and stated that, “if intact [dilation and extraction] is truly necessary in some circumstances, a prior injection to kill the fetus allows a doctor to perform the procedure, given that the Act’s prohibition only applies to the delivery of ‘a living fetus.'” Here, Congress sought, and the court agreed, to create a hard line between abortion and infanticide.

Since Gonzales, states have taken to further testing the limitations of abortion regulation, introducing “fetal pain” laws. Fetal pain laws proceed to assert that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks of gestation and therefore abortion should be prohibited after 20 weeks of pregnancy, but no challenges pertaining to these laws have reached the Supreme Court yet. In fact, Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole will be the first major abortion case to be reviewed by the Supreme Court since 2007.

Sifting Through Whole Women’s Health v. Cole

In 2013, the state of Texas passed into law House Bill 2 (H.B. 2), in an effort to “raise the standard and quality of care for women seeking abortions.” The statute, which contained four primary provisions pertaining to abortion regulation, is currently being challenged for two of its provisions. The first is a requirement of physicians performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital located within a radius of 30 miles from where the abortion is being performed. The second provision being challenged requires abortion clinics to comply with the same set of standards applicable to ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) along with compliance to standards set for abortion clinics.

The challenger? Whole Woman’s Health, a privately-owned women’s healthcare facility that offers comprehensive gynecology services, including abortion, and provides a holistic approach for the care of their patients. The organization was founded in 2003 by Amy Hagstrom Miller who saw a need in the communities of women to address pregnancy and reproductive choice not only as a medical matter, but also as something that requires a woman to evaluate her identity, goals, and future plans–an emotional and weighty process.  Whole Woman’s Health has seven offices within the United States and assists over 30,000 women per year for a variety of reproductive healthcare reasons.

Image Courtesy Of [Ann Harkness via Flickr]

At the time of trial, seven ASCs, located in five major Texas cities, were licensed to perform abortion services and would be able to comply with H.B. 2. Although Texas had over 40 abortion clinics prior to the law taking effect, it was stipulated that, at most, eight abortion-providing centers would be able to comply with the ASCs provision of H.B. 2, subjecting women exercising their right to choose to increased travel and transportation costs. During trial, the State offered expert testimony to suggest that the regulation would be “medically beneficial,” but did not prove necessity, and as such, the District Court found that the ASC requirement, in its entirety, was overly burdensome. Furthermore, the District Court also found that the physician privilege requirement “was not medically justifiable and that the burdens it imposed were not outweighed by any potential health benefits.”

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that res judicata barred any facial challenge and as-applied challenge (under a different analysis) on the admitting privilege and ASC compliance provisions of H.B. 2 and that the District Court erred in rejecting the State’s res judicata defense during the motion to dismiss stage of proceedings. Essentially, due to a previous lawsuit that was still pending a decision when Whole Women’s Health challenged H.B. 2 but was shortly thereafter decided, the Plaintiffs could not challenge the bill again as any injury arose out of the same claim and the parties had a legal relationship with one another.

The Court did, however, provide an analysis on the merits as well concluding that:

1. The Plaintiffs failed to prove that H.B. 2 was enacted with an “improper purpose,” mainly to close a majority of abortion clinics in Texas;
2. That the District Court incorrectly analyzed legislative factfinding of information that led to the passage of the Texas law under the “rational basis review,” which solely calls for the court to presume the law in question is valid and inquire whether that law is “rationally related to a legitimate state interest;”
3. The District Court’s analysis and the Plaintiff’s evidence did not satisfy the “large fraction test,” requiring a showing that the law imposes a substantial obstacle on a large fraction of women in Texas;
4. That the abortion services offered at the McAllen Whole Woman’s Health location, a clinic not complying with ASC standards, and lack of a “qualified” clinic for 235 miles created a substantial obstacle for a woman to obtain an abortion and therefore was granted injunctive relief until a licensed facility opened closer to the Rio Grand Valley;
5. That the Plaintiffs offered a considerable amount of evidence showing that the physicians at the McAllen location were denied privileges at the local hospital for reasons “other than their competence,” and were therefore granted injunctive relief enjoining the State of Texas from enforcing the privilege requirement; and
6. That the El Paso clinic was not granted injunctive relief based on an undue burden of women to travel over 550 miles to the nearest Texas abortion clinic in San Antonio because they could travel across state lines to Santa Teresa, New Mexico, which shares a metropolitan area with El Paso to obtain the procedure.

The Fifth Circuit largely upheld the challenged provisions of H.B. 2.

So…What Could That Mean for the Rest of Us?

H.B. 2 showed the level of impact that such abortion regulation could have on the availability of abortion services, bringing down the 40+ available abortion clinics in Texas to a mere 8-10 as outlined in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decision. Such legislation could create a large and costly barrier, not only to the 5.4 million women in Texas, the second largest female populated state in the country, but to all women in the United States.

In four states–Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming–only one abortion clinic remains and it is unclear whether or not those clinics would be able to survive with the Texas-based legislation.

If such regulation passed muster in the Supreme Court, there could be an increase in self-attempted abortion and risky abortion procedures, which was noted, by the Plaintiffs in Whole Women’s Health, as a growing trend after H.B. 2 was passed in Texas. Additionally, costs would increase in travel, transportation, lodging, and in the procedure itself, potentially costing women their actual right to choose. Qualified abortion clinics would be overwhelmed, appointments would be scarce and harder to coordinate with travel and work schedules, and ultimately, those most impacted would be individuals in poverty and those with transitioning immigration status. Such legislation would force an unhealthy psychological effect on woman already making a difficult decision and consequently impose a great burden on a major woman’s right without proof that the abortion clinics functioning today are doing so at a sub-par or dangerous level.

So, one question remains–what’s next for abortion regulations in the United States?

RESOURCES

Primary

FindLaw: Whole Women’s Health v. Cole

JUSTIA: Griswold v. Connecticut

JUSTIA: Roe v. Wade

JUSTIA: Stenberg v. Carhart

JUSTIA: Gonzales v. Carhart

Legal Information Institute: 18 U.S. Code § 1531

State of Texas Legislature: House Bill 2

Additional

The New York Times: Supreme Court to Hear Texas Abortion Law Case

Planned Parenthood: Federal and State Bans and Restrictions on Abortion

Linda Greenhouse: Becoming Justice Blackmun

Guttmacher Institute: State Policies in Brief – Counseling and Waiting Periods for Abortion

USA Today: Idaho First State to have Fetal Pain Law Rejected

National Public Radio (NPR): High Court’s Pass on ‘Fetal Pain’ Abortion Case Unlikely to Cool Debate

Whole Woman’s Health

Bloomberg: The Vanishing U.S. Abortion Clinic

Ajla Glavasevic

Ajla Glavasevic is a first-generation Bosnian full of spunk, sass, and humor. She graduated from SUNY Buffalo with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and received her J.D. from the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Ajla is currently a licensed attorney in Pennsylvania and when she isn’t lawyering and writing, the former Team USA Women’s Bobsled athlete (2014-2015 National Team) likes to stay active and travel. Contact Ajla at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Planned Parenthood has long been a divisive organization in national politics, but it received particularly focused and intense ire after a group called the Center for Medical Progress released a series of videos reportedly showing PP’s inappropriate behavior. The videos sparked renewed protests, calls to defund the organization, and plenty of political talking points for the seemingly limitless field of primary candidates. Now, an independent analysis has reported that videos were heavily edited. Unfortunately, that probably won’t slow the controversy.

The argument over Planned Parenthood isn’t over the organization itself, it’s over abortion. Abortion as a political issue has an almost uniquely solidified history. Many social issues in the United States have seen marked changes in support over the years, but the percentages of the population that are pro-choice or pro-life, or somewhere in between, have remained remarkably consistent since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973. According to Gallup, from 1975-2015, somewhere between 48-55 percent of Americans have reported that they believe that abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances. The percentage of the population that believes it should be illegal under all circumstances is exactly the same today as it was in 1975, at 19 percent, with some fluctuation into the mid teens and low twenties over the years. Those who believe it should be legal under any circumstances has also seen relatively little change, hovering somewhere in the 20-30 percent range for the past 40 years. While obviously individual opinions change over the years, and the simple comparison of numbers from vaguely worded polls should be taken with a grain of salt, it’s safe to say that overall the American population really hasn’t altered its beliefs as a whole much. The rhetoric and arguments used in 1975, and 1995, and 2015 all look fairly similar.

When opinions are so firmly engrained, and when we’re so used to something being a constant debate, it’s really easy to feel confirmation bias. We look for information that validates our world view, and explain away information that does not. That’s where it seems we are with the Planned Parenthood video debate right now. An independent group–Fusion GPS, based in Washington D.C., has said that the videos were altered and are inaccurate representations of the events. Fusion GPS stated about the videos:

A thorough review of these videos in consultation with qualified experts found that they do not present a complete or accurate record of the events they purport to depict.

Meanwhile, the Center for Medical Progress claim that the discrepancies only came from negligible sources such as bathroom breaks, or waiting periods between meetings, saying:

The absence of bathroom breaks and waiting periods between meetings does not change the hours of dialogue with top-level Planned Parenthood executives eager to manipulate abortion procedures to get high-quality baby parts for financially profitable sale.

So, who’s right? Well quite frankly, it doesn’t really matter. Those who believe in Planned Parenthood’s mission and the importance of a woman’s right to choose aren’t going to change their minds based on the Center for Medical Progress’s explanation. And those who demonize Planned Parenthood and believe that abortion is morally wrong aren’t going to change their minds on abortion just because the videos were seemingly hoaxes.

If anything, this renewed debate only serves one, depressing, singular purpose–to bring up the question during a long, arduous, and increasingly nasty primary election. It was the perfect catalyst for multiple inquiries during the first Republican debate, and continues to be a sticking point for many of the candidates on both sides of the aisle. Most recently, Hillary Clinton’s comments about how pro-life Republicans are wrong for America have fired up the debate even more, when she stated:

Extreme views about women, we expect them from some of the terrorist groups, we expect that from people who don’t want to live in the modern world, but it’s a little hard to take coming from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States, yet they espouse out-of-date and out-of-touch policies.

But Clinton’s statements are just the latest in a long list of quotes, controversies, and events that continue to entrench the conversation. Once again, the abortion debate has become a talking point–over the last 40 years, very little has changed in that respect.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Planned Parenthood Controversy Won’t Change the Abortion Debate appeared first on Law Street.

Planned Parenthood is an organization with a mission to promote a healthy sexual lifestyle and family planning. But recent news of a few controversial videos surfacing may be changing some people’s opinions toward the organization. In the more widely viewed video, Center for Medical Progress–an advocacy group that claims to report on medical ethics–had two undercover actors pose as representatives of a human biologics company and went to lunch with Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services. Nucatola was secretly recorded and what she said during the video has led to serious arguments about both the video’s validity and Planned Parenthood’s actions.

The Center for Medical Progress released the video early last week and called it the first in its “Human Capital” series, “a nearly 3-year-long investigative journalism study of Planned Parenthood’s illegal trafficking of aborted fetal parts.” There were two versions of the video posted on YouTube, an eight-minute version and a “full” version that is close to three hours. The Center for Medical Progress says the video was shot on July 25, 2014 in a California restaurant. David Daleiden, who led the undercover project, said, “Planned Parenthood’s criminal conspiracy to make money off of aborted baby parts reaches to the very highest levels of their organization” in a written statement.

Throughout the video Dr. Nucatola makes shocking statements such as,

We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.

In another part of the video she states, “Every provider has had patients who want to donate their tissue, and they absolutely want to accommodate them. They just want to do it in a way that is not perceived as ‘This clinic is selling tissue. This clinic is making money off of this.'” She did not specifically say the price for the purchase of tissue, but many have questioned if the organization was trying to make a profit.

The Center for Medical Progress also posted an advertisement from a big purchaser of aborted fetal tissue that was posted in Planned Parenthood clinics. The advertisement features words such as “financial profitable,” “financial profits,” “financial benefit to your clinic,” and “fiscal growth of your own clinic.”

Planned Parenthood issued a response statement denying having done anything wrong and accused the Center for Medical Progress of releasing a video that was heavily edited in order to twist its meaning. It also denied that any money was made from selling aborted baby parts. “There is no financial benefit for tissue donation for either the patient or for Planned Parenthood,” Spokesman Eric Ferrero said. “In some instances, actual costs, such as the cost to transport tissue to leading research centers, are reimbursed, which is standard across the medical field.”

The video has been met with many horrified reactions–including from the government. The sale or purchase of human body parts, including fetal tissue, is a federal felony that can land someone in prison for ten years. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has called on the state’s Department of Health and Hospitals to conduct an investigation of this incident which he refers to as an “alleged evil and illegal activity.”

There are two sides to every story and Planned Parenthood has stated that Nucatola was not talking about the illegal sale of fetal body parts but instead the legal donation of organs to biomedical research laboratories that use the body parts to save lives. There have also been allegations that the video has ties to James O’Keefe, a well-known video fraudster. According to a statement made by Planned Parenthood today, there are new videos surfacing that the organization once again claims are very heavily edited. However, Planned Parenthood’s reputation is still certainly reeling, and it remains to be seen how it will deal with the continued controversy.

Taelor Bentley

Taelor is a member of the Hampton University Class of 2017 and was a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Taelor at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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By now, it is not unusual to hear stories of states trying to circumvent Roe v. Wade by closing medical facilities that conduct abortions, or imposing laws that restrict the amount window for a woman to get an abortion. But it seems like recently states have been looking for even more out-of-the-box ways to restrict access to this service. Let’s take a look at the four newest bills presented to state legislatures, and what’s wrong with each of them.

1. Making women wait 72 hours to get an abortion

New bills in Missouri would require women to wait 72 hours after deciding to have an abortion to actually get one. In some states, there is a 24-hour waiting period, but Missouri would be the first to extend that by two full days. There would be no exceptions for cases of rape.

There really isn’t an explanation for this law besides the fact it stalls women looking for an abortion, and may provide an opportunity to talk them out of it. By making women wait three days after deciding to have the procedure, and actually going through with it, she may feel pressured into changing her mind. And without exceptions to the law, women who have been raped or face medical emergencies are put in a dangerous situation.

2. Letting women sue their doctors up to 10 years after their abortion if they regret having it

In Iowa, a bill has been introduced that would allow women to sue their abortion provider long after the abortion has taken place. The reason is not because of medical malpractice, lack of information, or the procedure was done incorrectly, but because they regret their abortions.  Women would have up to 10 years to sue their doctor after having the procedure. Women would be allowed to sue for compensation because of emotional distress. Even women who sign a consent form for the procedure would be eligible to sue their doctors if they think more information about alternatives, or potential dangers from abortions could have been provided to them.

Some women do regret the abortions they have, but that isn’t the fault of the doctor. If a woman is given accurate information about the procedure, signs consent forms, and the doctor does the procedure correctly, why would he or she be held responsible for emotional damage afterward? A doctor is supposed to inform a patient of her options, and should not be held accountable for someone’s regret, no matter how painful, down the road.

3. Make sure not just one, but both parents of an underage girl seeking an abortion are notified

Also in Missouri, there is a new bill that would require not one, but both parents of a girl seeking an abortion to be notified before the procedure take place. Currently, at least one parent of a minor is notified before a girl can have an abortion, but this law goes beyond that. It presents a number of problems, among them being children who may not know both of their parents, but be restricted from receiving an abortion because of this legislation. Additionally, young women may choose to cross state lines or have riskier abortions if they think their parents won’t find out. While the bill does include exceptions for parents who have been convicted of sexual abuse of the child, or if the courts had previously terminated their rights, it doesn’t include any exceptions for medical emergencies. So, if a parent were out of town, or just not a part of the girl’s life, her access to abortion would be cut off.

Parental notification has been contentious throughout the abortion debate because it concerns people who are underage. But most states have adequate parental notification laws with just one parent- adding this law serves as nothing but a hinderance and waste of time for women looking to get an abortion.

4. Restrict abortions to the first 20 weeks of pregnancy

West Virginia has been the most upfront in their aim to restrict access to abortion- by trying to limit them to the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. Doctors who perform abortions after this time period could be fined up to $5000, and face between 1 to 5 years of jail time. As a reminder for everyone- Roe v. Wade (the Supreme Court decision that settled this decades ago) said that women are able to have abortions until the pregnancy is “viable,” and went on to say that 24 weeks into pregnancy is the earliest a child is viable. Simple math shows us that West Virginia is at least four weeks short with this bill.

Perhaps the most troubling part of each of these bills is the way the people who introduce them try to cover their true intentions. Rather than just saying, “I’m against abortion and trying to restrict it,” lawmakers bring in pleas for “family values,” and perhaps most insulting, by insinuating a woman who wants an abortion isn’t capable of making the decision to get one without a plethora of “help” from lawmakers in her state. State legislatures are allowed to pass laws for the betterment of that state, but it’s hard to take some of these laws seriously when they were so obviously written to restrict access to abortion.

[Slate] [RH: West Virginia] [Iowa Bill] [RH: Missouri 1] [RH: Missouri 2]

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Molly Hogan (@molly_hogan13)

Featured image courtesy of [ProgressOhio via Flickr]

Molly Hogan

Molly Hogan is a student at The George Washington University and formerly an intern at Law Street Media. Contact Molly at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post 4 New Laws Restricting Women’s Access to Abortions appeared first on Law Street.

This June, Texas State Senator Wendy Davis took the nation by storm. Sporting her now-infamous pink running shoes, she began a filibuster to stop Senate Bill 5. Senate Bill 5 would have severely restricted the rights of abortion providers in Texas. Opponents of the bill argued that the bill’s passage would lead to the vast majority of abortion providers closing down. Davis spoke for about 12 hours against the bill, all while following Texas’s extremely strict filibuster rules. In the end her filibuster was successful, sort of. Senate Bill 5 did not pass that night, but then Governor Rick Perry called a special Senate session in which the legislation passed without a hitch.

The idea of the bill arguably makes some sense. The stated purpose was to help reduce health risks for women undergoing abortion procedures. Any attempt to help women receive safe healthcare is laudable. Unfortunately, that is not what the bill actually did. It mandated that any doctors providing abortions at any point during a woman’s pregnancy be required to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic.  However, there is very little evidence to suggest that this actually mitigates any medical risks from abortions.

To begin, abortions are relatively safe medical procedures. As Dr. Douglas Laube, a board-certified and respected OBGYN in Wisconsin testified during a similar debate in his state, “the risk of death associated with childbirth is 14 times higher than that associated with abortion. The risk of death related to abortion overall is less than 0.7 deaths per 100,000 procedures. Less than 0.3% of women experiencing a complication from an abortion require hospitalization.” Hospitalization after an abortion procedure is exceedingly rare. Further, a doctor’s admitting privileges at a given hospital does not affect the patient’s care once she arrives. If a woman experiences a complication during an abortion, her doctor’s lack of admitting privileges does not preclude the medical care she will receive at the hospital.

The effects were almost immediate—abortion providers across the state began closing or suspending services because of these stringent new rules. Women who already had appointments scheduled are being turned away, leaving many with no further options. These abortion providers, led by Planned Parenthood, are fighting back.

The law was struck down as unconstitutional  earlier this fall, but last week the Fifth Federal Court of Appeals reinstated most of the provisions of the abortion law. Now the fight will move to the highest court in the land. These women’s rights groups and abortion providers have filed a request for an emergency injunction to hold up the lower court’s ruling until the issue can be firmly resolved.

Abortion is an issue that has been in the periphery of the Supreme Court for years. Precedents such as Roe and Doe have dictated the constitutionality of abortion regulations for years. However it seems to be common knowledge that a law challenging abortion, or on the flip side, abortion regulations will end up in front of the Supreme Court at some point. How the Court decides this Texas abortion regulations case may be able to provide some foreshadowing of how this conservative court will decide in the future.

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Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [ann harkness via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Don’t get pregnant in Nebraska, ladies. Back in January 2011, Republican State Senator Lydia Brasch introduced legislative bill 690. The bill mandated that if a woman under the age of 18 wanted to abort a pregnancy, she must receive written permission from a parent or guardian. Otherwise, no abortion procedure for you, sweetheart. Good luck with that!

LB 690 was a wild success in the Nebraska legislature. It passed by a landslide in May 2011, and was signed into law the very same day. These kinds of bills are called “parental consent” bills by the anti-abortion lobby. But for those of us who believe in Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose?

This is just a straight-up, anti-abortion bill.

Why? After all, abortion is still legal in Nebraska, even after LB 690’s passage. No big deal, right? Wrong. Anonymous 5, a 16-year-old Nebraskan ward of the state who was denied her right to an abortion this week, can personally tell you that it’s a very, very big deal.

At a hearing back in July, Anonymous 5’s parents were stripped of their parental rights because they had been abusive and neglectful of their three children. Anonymous 5 and her two younger siblings were placed in foster care, under the legal protection of the state. At this same hearing, Anonymous 5 informed the judge that she was 10 weeks pregnant, and wanted to get an abortion.

She was, to put it lightly, in a pickle. She needed written parental consent, but legally, she no longer had any parents. What to do? Her only option was to ask a judge for permission to circumvent LB 690—something young girls are supposed to be allowed to do, in cases of medical emergency or abuse.

But that really didn’t work out for her. This week, the Nebraska court made a final decision on her abortion request, ruling that she had not sufficiently proved that she had been a victim of abuse, and—most importantly—she had not proved herself to be mature enough to decide that she wanted an abortion.

That’s right, folks. The Nebraska court ruled that a 16-year-old girl was not mature enough to have an abortion. But, she’s mature enough to become a mother!

Because that makes a lot of sense.

Especially considering that Anonymous 5 had some really good reasons for not wanting to give birth to a child. Besides the obvious factors—she’s a high school student without the financial or emotional resources to be, in her words, the kind of “mom [she] would like to be right now”—a very religious foster family is currently housing her and her two young siblings. Anonymous 5 expressed concern that she would lose her foster placement if her foster parents found out about the pregnancy.

Meaning that, in this case, adoption is not a viable option. The mere act of carrying this child to term could cause Anonymous 5 and her siblings to wind up homeless. And haven’t they already been through enough, after growing up in an abusive, neglectful household?

You’d think so, but the Nebraska judge didn’t agree. He denied Anonymous 5 the right to make this deeply personal choice by herself, and instead, decided for her, ruling that she would not be allowed to receive an abortion in the state of Nebraska.

So, what does this mean for LB 690, and other parental consent bills like it?

It means that they have the power to deny young women access to abortions. That’s a really big problem. But perhaps more importantly, these bills take the right of bodily decision-making away from young women, and hand it over to someone else.

And that’s just not OK. Every person, regardless of gender, needs to be able to choose what happens to his or her (or zir!) body. How would you like it if someone else had the power to decide what hairstyle you should wear, or how provocative your clothes should be, or what you could eat, or when you could sleep?

You’d hate it. You’d get angry and frustrated. You’d feel powerless. And these feelings would be in response to relatively trivial kinds of control.

I mean, seriously, everyone freaked out when Mayor Bloomberg tried to control how big our sodas could be.

So, can you imagine how powerless you’d feel if someone else forced you to grow a child inside your abdomen for nine months, after which, you’d have to literally tear your body apart trying to expel it? And then, you’d either have to raise it for the next 18 years, or make the heart wrenching decision to hand that responsibility off to someone else?

That’s not trivial. That’s a life-altering kind of control. It’s too important to be placed in someone else’s hands.

Walter White, for the win.

Only the person who’s pregnant can make that call. It’s a deeply personal decision, and one that she’ll have to live with forever. Simply put, women need to be in control of their own bodies.

And the fact that, in 2013, this concept still hasn’t sunken in is horrifying. How far have we really come from the days when women’s bodies were bought and sold by men through marriage—when women were nothing more than property?

Not far, apparently, when a man in Nebraska has the power to decide what’s going to happen inside of Anonymous 5’s body.

So, whaddya say, folks? Can we stop controlling and policing women’s bodies, so that no one else ever has to go through what Anonymous 5 did this week?

I really hope so.

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Featured image courtesy of [Rudy Eng via Flickr]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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