As red states push for more restrictions, California expands access to abortions
When you read about abortion these days, the news is mostly about restrictions—new state laws, regulations, and court challenges that aim (depending on your point of view) either to make the procedure safer for women or to put providers out of business. But California is going in the opposite direction, with two bills that could lead to the one of the biggest expansions of access to abortion in the United States since the FDA approved mifepristone, aka the abortion pill, in 2000.
AB 154 would allow specially trained nurse practitioners, nurse midwives and physician assistants to perform first-trimester abortions without a doctor’s supervision. AB 980 would hold abortion clinics to the same building standards as other primary care facilities, instead of the stricter rules that some cities and counties would like to impose. Both are aimed at making the procedure more widely available in rural, largely conservative parts of the state where incomes are low, teen pregnancies are rampant, and finding an abortion provider often means taking the day off from work or school, getting on a bus, and traveling for hours or days.
Reaction has been predictably split. Margaret Crosby, the ACLU‘s lead voice on reproductive issues in California, says one of the most significant things about the bills is that they “treat abortion like any other medical procedure. The fact that abortion is singled out for special consideration is a relic of the days when it was a felony,” she says. “It’s a reflection of where this country is politically rather than medically.”
More at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/01/as-red-states-push-for-more-restrictions-california-expands-access-to-abortions/
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