By Laurel Jones
The past few weeks have
been exceptionally tumultuous for reproductive rights advocates around the
country as many state governments have hurried to finish their legislative
sessions. While some states have struggled
merely to pass budgets, others have called for extended
special legislative sessions solely for the purpose of passing
controversial laws that severely impede a woman’s right to seek safe and legal
abortion care. Texas House Bill 2 was passed by the state legislature on July
12, 2013, despite an almost 11-hour
filibuster by Rep. Wendy Davis and massive public backlash. The Texas bill
is only one of several significant laws that have been enacted in the 11th
hour of states’ legislative sessions over past month. In particular, four
states – Texas, Ohio, North
Carolina, and Wisconsin
– have all spent the last few weeks pushing through restrictive laws that
hinder the ability of women in those states to access to abortions.
These laws are the latest,
and frighteningly successful, efforts of anti-choice officials to chip away at
the rights of women who seek abortion care. These unnecessary regulations
create a myriad of new barriers, including a ban on all abortion procedures
past 20 weeks, requiring that all clinics
be certified as ambulatory surgical centers, barring
public hospitals from entering into emergency care agreements with abortion
clinics, and requiring
abortion providers to have admitting privileges at local hospitals.
A multifaceted attack on abortion rights: Two types of laws, same
effect for women
Gestational-age bans
Under the Supreme Court’s
decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, abortions could be restricted to
protect potential life after the point of fetal viability (at
or around 24 weeks, according to the American Congress of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists.) The Supreme Court has yet to hear a challenge on any of the
many
recent laws, such as Texas HB 2, that restrict abortions well before the
point of fetal viability. Despite the fact that these early-gestational bans impose
significant restrictions on the right to an abortion well before the point of
fetal viability, these laws will remain in place until they are successfully
challenged and struck down by the courts; similar gestational-age bans have
already been overturned by an Idaho
district court and in Arizona
by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. But for women living in states where
these laws are still valid, those who require abortion services after the point
at which the law takes effect (e.g., 20 weeks) will be forced to carry the
pregnancy to term, travel
out-of-state in order to seek a safe abortion elsewhere, or seek an illegal
abortion.
Legislative attacks on abortion
clinics
Similar to the
gestational-age bans on abortion services, these new attacks on abortion
clinics requiring new and unnecessary services, certifications, permits, zoning
permission, and other regulations have a significant effect on the ability of
women to seek the medical care they require.
Texas
HB 2 will likely cause all but 5 of the state’s abortion clinics to close
for no other reason than the imposition of unnecessary regulatory requirements
that clinics will not be able to comply with before the law takes effect. This
means that women
will have to travel over 300 miles in order to reach the nearest abortion
clinic, which requires time, money, and the ability to leave home, possibly
for days at a time.
In Fairfax, Virginia, for
the city’s sole abortion clinic, a new law changing
the zoning and permitting requirements for abortion clinics may prove to be
financially and logistically prohibitive. The
clinic is already being forced to relocate after having their current lease
terminated due to the disruption caused by anti-choice protesters. With the
new municipal regulations in place, the clinic may not be granted the permits
necessary to reopen in a new location.
Bottom line: the impact
of these state and local laws may prove to be that clinics
are forced to close their doors, making abortions either illegal or
inaccessible to women.
These laws may be passed
under the guise of “protecting maternal health”, but statistics have repeatedly
shown that abortion
is 14 times safer than carrying a pregnancy through to labor and delivery.
These new laws dictating additional certifications and requirements are not
about protecting women as anti-choice lawmakers would have us believe – they
are about preventing abortions.
Women have the right to
decide when – and if – to have children, including the right to terminate a
pregnancy. But this right means nothing if it is in words alone. The right to
make these intrinsically private decisions about one’s life, body, and family is
being systematically stripped away by denying women access to the safe, legal
abortion care they deserve. As reproductive justice advocates, we have a
responsibility to fight back against these laws – to protect the clinics
dedicated to providing safe, legal abortion care, and to guarantee that women
have the ability to exercise their legal right to choose.
Laurel Jones is a rising third-year law student at the
University of Washington, and is loving her experience as a summer intern at
Legal Voice. She has spent over four years working to provide housing and human
services for Seattle’s homeless population, and is committed to using her legal
career to fight for reproductive justice, economic equality, and human rights.
Laurel has a BA from the University of Washington in International Studies.
photo credit here
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