Forty-Two Years After Roe v. Wade, The Sad State Of Abortion Rights In America

[sheshe2]

Abortion rights advocates gather at a rally in Mississippi

CREDIT: AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis

Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion throughout the country, marks its 42nd birthday on Thursday. But for women across the United States, it’s a somewhat complicated anniversary.

“On the one hand, it’s a time to reflect on an important historical moment. But it’s also a time to reflect on what is ultimately an unfulfilled promise,” Kimberly Inez McGuire, the director of public affairs for the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, told ThinkProgress. “In the last couple of years, we have seen an absolute barrage of policies on a state level that are, right now, denying women that right every single day.”

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a think tank that tracks reproductive rights, states have imposed more than 200 restrictions on abortion over the past four years. Many of those legislative barriers — including mandatory waiting periods that force women to make multiple trips to a clinic, unnecessary regulations on clinics that drive them out of business, and bans on insurance coverage for abortion that increase the out-of-pocket cost of the procedure — are simply insurmountable for many women.

For the Latinas that comprise the constituency of Inez McGuire’s organization, abortion rights are far from guaranteed. A large swath of the population in Texas, where a harsh abortion law has started to take effect, live hundreds of miles from the nearest clinic. Without any means of transportation, and wary to pass by immigration checkpoints, the state’s most impoverished residents have no way to realize the rights that are technically afforded to them under Roe.

Read More http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/01/22/3614096/roe-v-wade-42/

[Thinkingabout]

1. Abortion rights is very near and dear to me. Though I never had to make

This decision in reality I had made it in my heart. I still have had the choice to have the opportunity to have an abortion in a safe clinic instead of a back street.

[wavesofeuphoria]

2. Body autonomy is a right of all humans. ALL.

thank you for posting this.