General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUS Abortion Rights 1971-2013: RIP
Last edited Thu Jul 4, 2013, 08:45 AM - Edit history (1)
For millions of women, there is no longer any practical access to abortion. And if millions of women are denied their Constitutional Rights under Roe, ALL of us are denied our rights.
Arkansas
Alabama
Mississippi
Nebraska
Kansas
Indiana
Oklahoma
North Dakota
South Dakota
Missouri
Georgia
Kentucky
Arizona
Tennessee
Virginia
Idaho
Texas
Wisconsin
Florida
Louisiana
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
North Carolina
Forgive me for not having all the states that have passed laws restricting abortion.
2011: A Year for the Record Books
Over the course of 2011, legislators in all 50 states introduced more than 1,100 provisions related to reproductive health and rights. At the end of it all, states had adopted 135 new reproductive health provisionsa dramatic increase from the 89 enacted in 2010 and the 77 enacted in 2009.1 Fully 92 of the enacted provisions seek to restrict abortion, shattering the previous record of 34 abortion restrictions enacted in 2005 (see chart). A striking 68% of the reproductive health provisions from 2011 are abortion restrictions, compared with only 26% the year before.
Several states adopted relatively new types of abortion restrictions in 2011. Five states (Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas and Oklahoma) followed Nebraskas lead from the year before and enacted legislation banning abortion at 20 weeks from fertilization (which is equivalent to 22 weeks from the womans last menstrual period), based on the spurious assertion that a fetus can feel pain at that point in gestation. And for the first time, seven states (Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee)all largely rural states with large, scarcely populated areasprohibited the use of telemedicine for medication abortion, requiring instead that the physician prescribing the medication be in the same room as the patient. Telemedicine is increasingly looked to as a way to provide access to health care, especially in underserved rural areas.
Many states adopted what have become more familiar types of restrictions. Five states (Arizona, Florida, Kansas, North Carolina and Texas) moved to require that a woman obtain an ultrasound prior to having an abortion, even when there is no medical reason to do so. And several states moved to restrict insurance coverage of abortion, with Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Utah restricting all private plans and Florida, Idaho, Indiana and Virginia limiting coverage just in the policies that will be available on insurance exchanges, which are slated to start up in 2014 under health reform.
<snip>
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/15/1/gpr150114.html
2013 State Level Abortion Restrictions at Mid-Year: An Extreme Overreach into Womens Reproductive Health Care
http://www.nwlc.org/resource/2013-state-level-abortion-restrictions-mid-year-extreme-overreach-women%E2%80%99s-reproductive-heal
States Where They Think Were Stupid: Abortion Access Under Attack in 2013
Scary and informative map here:
http://www.aclu.org/maps/states-where-they-think-were-stupid-abortion-access-under-attack-2013
YeahSureRight
(205 posts)Women are the majority in this country yet they still elect and vote for those who take away their rights.
It appears that subjection is what the majority of America women want.
I do not agree with it but their voting patterns reflect it.
MH1
(17,600 posts)I consider myself a Christian but the Christ I was brought up to believe in has NOTHING to do with what these fundamentalists so-called "Christians" teach. They teach everything that I - and I believe the Jesus I was raised on - would find abhorrent. They might acknowledge that the Iraq invasion was a bad thing, but they prioritize their efforts in subjugating women, fighting the teaching of science, and defending the right to use violence in their households. (in approximately that order, based on my experience.)
It makes me almost physically ill when I think of the way some women relatives or friends of friends have been sucked into this evil.
Politicub
(12,165 posts)I have a couple of female cousins whose primary reason for voting is restricting choice. One is a single mom who has a job at a plant that pays $9/hour, even after she's been there for years, and the other works part-time at Walmart.
I don't believe they have any issues that they care about other than abortion, and the GOP exploits this through the church. One is at the edge of poverty and the other is considered being in poverty. Yet they don't care about economic issues at all.
So it's people like them who are part of the problem, but I don't know how to break through. They don't seem to care at all that they enable the destructive GOP to remain in power.
Oh, and they live in NC, and we can all see how that state is circling the drain as it applies to civil rights.
MH1
(17,600 posts)This from people who can otherwise seem intelligent and thoughtful at times. But they have been so twisted up to believe in shit like the earth being 6000 years old (dinosaurs with saddles and all that), and there are websites and institutions that go into lengthy, logical-sounding (to their audience) arguments about why all that stuff is true. I wish I had the time to pick it apart piece by piece but still I think they would close their minds.
My current approach is to try to encourage appreciation for God's Creation as He* created it, in the hopes that they at least will realize that the mega-corporations that are destroying the planet are NOT on their side. It's a long shot and doesn't directly help with women's rights at all. But it's the only possible access point I've found so far.
* I tend not to think of God as gendered, but they do.
Ilsa
(61,695 posts)Before they care about This again like they did before. They'll have to have a dead daughter or sister, a dead friend.
ananda
(28,865 posts)It has to get personal.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)And another
cali
(114,904 posts)Laws that single out abortion providers by imposing irrelevant and onerous regulations are not good-faith efforts to make an already-safe procedure safer, but instead aim to make abortion care less accessible, according to a new analysis by Guttmacher policy experts Rachel Benson Gold and Elizabeth Nash. The authors trace how opponents of abortion rights are employing a state-level strategy to not only make it burdensome for women to obtain an abortion, but also block clinics from providing abortions in the first place.
"In many states, antiabortion legislators have mostly exhausted legal means to badger women into not seeking an abortion, for instance, by requiring multiple in-person visits or mandating biased counseling and medically unnecessary ultrasound exams," says Rachel Benson Gold, Guttmacher's director of policy analysis. "A wave of laws is now bluntly focused on driving providers out of business via a thicket of regulations designed not to benefit patients but, as some of their proponents admit openly, to make it impossible for many providers to come into compliance."
TRAP laws or regulations are now in place in 27 states, where 60% of women of reproductive age live. Some of these provisions require that:
bortion facilities or their clinicians have unnecessary and burdensome connections to a local hospital (21 states). As the analysis details, such links to hospitals do little to add to long-standing patient safeguards while effectively granting hospitals veto power over whether an abortion clinic can exist;
abortion facilities meet standards for ambulatory surgical centers (26 states), even though the latter provide procedures that are more invasive and risky than abortion. Twelve states specify the size of procedure rooms and the same number specify hallway widths, often giving a minimum width well in excess of what is actually needed to transport a patient in case of an emergency; or that
facilities that provide only medication abortion adhere to the same standards as those that also provide surgical abortion care (18 states).
<snip>
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2013/06/27/index.html
MH1
(17,600 posts)Many here at DU just don't give a shit.
But man, let the possibility that the government has 1/10th the info that most of us give private corporations for free, be raised by some "hero" hacker who happens to be a Paulite, and straight to the top of the greatest page for that.
WOMEN ARE DYING NOW.
But the possibility the big bad government may someday use some info against someone to harm said someone, just maybe, sometime in the future, is FAR more important to many.
No wonder the far right extremists are getting away with gutting women's rights.
cali
(114,904 posts)we are in complete accord about this.
That's good enough for me.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Everyone would have condemned it other than a few freeper trolls.
It takes two to argue, perhaps if there wasn't a solid contingent bound and determined to defend government spying then we could spare some attention for other issues, like the legislative attacks on women who happen to make up over half of the voting public.
Abortion is more or less a settled issue on DU, OPs about abortion don't generate a lot of posts because it's not remotely controversial here. Government spying on the other hand is controversial and hence generates a lot of posts, a lot of clicks and a lot of recs.
Another thing to keep in mind is that North Carolina was chosen by the Democratic party as the state in which to hold the 2012 DNC. Clearly NC is looked upon as a model for the rest of the country by the Democratic party, why else hold the national convention there?
cali
(114,904 posts)on this issue.
Yes, they're ignoring it.
cali
(114,904 posts)no wonder we're losing the war for women's rights.
MuseRider
(34,111 posts)the women voting have little to no choice who they vote for.
Many races in Kansas do not have a Democrat running.
The Democratic party does little to nothing and if you do run you run with your own money and people for the most part.
There is no money and/or no will from the party to even attempt to reach the rural areas, they barely reach the populated areas.
When your governor has a 32% approval rating but there is not one democrat that is polled against him that can beat him then you are in major trouble. Mainly most people don't even know who the person running against him is, they are no names and personally I would rather not vote in a race than vote for someone I don't know about.
**I do take the time to learn about who is running, I was speculating on what I or others might do if they did not and believe me, Sam Brownback had a Democrat running against him. Just ask the people in Western Kansas who were surprised as hell when they saw his name for the first time on the ballot.
SO, there are many reasons for this and much of it in the really rural states, long abandoned by the party. Perhaps the women are not voting for them, perhaps they either are not voting or have no choice at all.
cali
(114,904 posts)It's so frustrating that the 50 state state strategy was abandoned.
MuseRider
(34,111 posts)I was never a fan of Dean, still don't much care for him BUT this strategy worked. It would take a long term strategy in places like Kansas but it would work. We actually replaced a long loved Republicans (by some) old sports figure (that seems to mean more to Kansans than even being a veteran) with a female Democrat. This was in the more liberal populated area but still, he had been in Congress for a long time. Since the strategy was dropped we have Lynn Jenkins (R) often called "the great white dope".
At some point you learn to give up, then you fight, then you give up. The Koch brothers own us completely and there are no rich Democrats who can even touch this with businesses here.
Anyway, back to the initial point. I think most women do NOT vote against their interests. Many in these tiny farming communities have no other place than the church to congregate and spread the news. Many of the even lack grocery stores. My community has a church, a VFW and a tiny post office. Abortion is unlikely to be approved by many of those churches in such a staunch Republican area.
The other thing, probably church approved, is the voting the way my husband tells me to vote. Having done phone banks until my ear is deformed I can tell you that happens more than you would ever believe. I don't think that is just here at all. I have had husbands grab the phone away from their wives and yell at me for bothering her, "she don't know nothing about any of that, she does what I tell her and you should go home and submit instead of causing trouble."
Blaming women does not fly with me and we need to stop doing this.
The indifference on DU is appalling
mountain grammy
(26,623 posts)and the old white men are working to take it all away. Women can stop this.
cali
(114,904 posts)and white lots of white women of all ages.
I don't know how we can stop it. We're pretty dependent on the Courts and the record of success in challenging TRAP laws is not encouraging.
But we certainly need to raise our voices. And we need more young women. There's been a serious "graying" of the abortion rights movement.
AngryOldDem
(14,061 posts)A corpse has more rights in this country than a woman does anymore.
caseymoz
(5,763 posts). . . because they believe, with good reason, that the Roberts Court will uphold everything. I dare, after the previous three sessions, they're probably right. Those strict constructionists are total hypocrites when it comes to legislating from the bench. The fix is in.
This is awful. Just awful. The only thing that can possibly turn it around now was the same thing that turned it around before. People, men and women, found that illegal abortion was intolerable. Now, a new generation has to learn what should be an obvious lesson.
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)while we have a (D) in the White House.
This court can't be trusted with a challenge to these laws even though they are unconstitutional.
There is no doubt that we have been losing ground on this fight but the fight is not over yet.
cali
(114,904 posts)I'm always glad to see men contributing to threads on abortion.
I agree that we need a conservative justice to retire. It would be great if it was Thomas but even Kennedy would do.
To say we're losing ground is a huge understatement.
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)Scalia and Kennedy were both born in 1936 and Breyer in 1938. Thomas was born in 1948.
Stevens stuck it out until he was 90 but that seems to be unusual. I assume some of it was not wanting Shrub to name his replacement. Souter retired a few months before he turned 70 and O'Conner retired at age 76.
I am guessing that Scalia is going to try and stick it out so that Pres. Obama will not name his replacement, but if a (D) wins in 2016 he might then decide to give it up. Waiting until 2021 for him to go does not seem reasonable. I think that once he is in his 80's he will hang up his robe even if we do have a (D) in the White House.
It has been rumored for years that Ginsburg was considering retirement (she turned 80 in March). That would not give us a more liberal court but it would give us a younger one. If she does retire while Pres. Obama is in office I suspect we will get another woman to replace her.
The very best case would be Both Scalia and Kennedy retiring while we have a (D) selecting replacements so that we have a nice solid block to stomp on Alito, Thomas and Roberts for years to come. I think this is a real possibility if we can hold The Presidency in '16.
mountain grammy
(26,623 posts)Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)It is always implied that "retire" has two meanings.
It is just impolite to point it out.
mountain grammy
(26,623 posts)Sometimes my heart overrules my head.
SamKnause
(13,107 posts)Ohio's abortion restrictions took effect July 1st.
They are some of the most restrictive in the country.
Kasich signed it on Sunday surrounded by men only.
cali
(114,904 posts)in this link horrifies me (apologies for being so tech challenged that I can't even post a pic)
as do the provisions that asshole signed into law
<snip>
The new budget, which takes effect on Monday, includes at least five new anti-abortion provisions. HB 59 will defund Planned Parenthood clinics, reallocate family planning funding to right-wing crisis pregnancy centers, strip funding from rape crisis centers that give their clients any information about abortion services, impose harsh restrictions on abortion clinics that will force many of them to shut down, and require doctors to give women seeking abortion information about the presence of a fetal heartbeat.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/07/01/2237701/ohio-budget-signed-into-law/
SamKnause
(13,107 posts)No need to apologize.
I am tech challenged as well.
forestpath
(3,102 posts)not pro-choice their position on other issues is irrelevant to me because they will never get my vote.
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)while ALL public institutions are being gutted and the economy is in the ditch as we careen toward third world status.
The destruction of the American economy is a bipartisan affair.
Sorry, but abortion should NOT be the "most important" issue facing this country.
forestpath
(3,102 posts)If a woman doesn't have a right to be autonomous then as far as I'm concerned politicians will respect nothing else, either.
MotherPetrie
(3,145 posts)want to - it doesn't get ANY more repressive and anti-society than that, since women are over half the population.
MotherPetrie
(3,145 posts)DirkGently
(12,151 posts)I think it could. The horrors that may happen until that occurs are the problem.
felix_numinous
(5,198 posts)on the horizon. It has to happen-- we are not a theocracy.