Abortion Legislation

11/17/2011

ACLU Lens: Using Religion as an Excuse for Discrimination

By Robyn Shepherd, ACLU at 12:21pm

This week, the U.S. Conference on Catholic Bishops is holding its annual meeting in Baltimore. The bishops are the lobbying arm of the Catholic church, and they hold substantial sway over lawmakers. But instead of focusing on issues like poverty or the economy, the bishops are instead complaining loudly that recent laws broadening women’s access to contraception and granting same-sex couples the freedom to marry amount to an assault on their religion.

However, as this Media Matters piece attests, this is hardly the case.

04/23/2013

Abortion Legislation

Three's a Crowd

By Becca Cadoff, Reproductive Freedom Project at 4:18pm

Over the weekend extremist politicians continued their onslaught on restricting abortion care. What happened? Well, the saying goes "three's a crowd," and when it comes to interfering in personal decisions best left to a woman, her doctor and her family, that's especially true.

On Friday, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed a sweeping anti-abortion bill that threatens women's access to care in a multitude of ways.
Due to onerous regulations approved last week by the Virginia Board of Health, Hillcrest Clinic was forced on Saturday to shut its doors to women seeking care.
A Thursday debate about an abortion bill in the Florida House of Representatives became so insulting that five Representatives had to leave the debate.

Three is, indeed, a crowd – especially when our privacy and our health are at stake. Tell your elected officials to leave us alone.

04/17/2013

Abortion Legislation

Bringing Down Arkansas' House of Cards

By Becca Cadoff, Reproductive Freedom Project at 4:44pm

Yesterday, we filed a lawsuit in Arkansas to challenge what was, for a short time, the most extreme abortion ban in the nation. Don't be mistaken though, the Arkansas law is still outrageous - banning most abortions just a few weeks after a woman finds out she is pregnant. By passing this law, politicians are preventing a woman and her family from being able to make the most personal decision they might ever make.

07/10/2012

Abortion Legislation

Abortion Ban Plays Politics with Women’s Health

By Sarah Lipton-Lubet, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:03am

The House Judiciary Committee has held eight anti-abortion or anti-family planning votes or hearings so far this Congress. This morning, they’re scheduled to make it nine. The Committee will be considering the so-called “District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” which would ban abortion in the District of Columbia at 20 weeks.

01/22/2013

Abortion Legislation

Forty Years After Roe, the American People Have Spoken. Will Politicians Finally Listen?

By Jennifer Dalven, Reproductive Freedom Project at 11:12am

Forty years ago today, the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that recognized that a pregnant woman...

04/19/2013

Abortion Legislation

Kansas No Longer A Place to Call Home?

By Becca Cadoff, Reproductive Freedom Project at 1:01pm

After her adventures in Oz, Dorothy couldn’t wait to get back to Kansas. But if she lived there now, she might not be so eager to return. Governor Sam Brownback has just signed yet another bill that makes it more difficult for Kansas women to get the health care they need.

This behemoth 70-page sweeping anti-abortion bill attacks women’s health care from a variety of angles. It could impose new taxes on a woman who obtains an abortion and on the health center where she obtained it, and it could require doctors to inform patients about a supposed link between abortion and breast cancer — a risk that the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and other medical experts roundly reject. The law also includes language about the legal rights of fertilized eggs, which lays the groundwork for even more extreme measures blocking access to reproductive health care.

03/06/2013

Abortion Legislation

Arkansas Passes Most Extreme Abortion Ban in the Nation

By Elissa Berger, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 4:24pm

Today the most severe abortion ban in the country passed in Arkansas. This is a sad day, not only for the women and families of Arkansas, but for women across the country.

This afternoon, the Arkansas House voted to override Gov. Mike Beebe's veto of a bill that would ban most abortions after 12 weeks, just days after the state Senate also voted to do so, making the bill law.

09/11/2012

War on Women

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Dance!

By Merissa Kovach, Field Organizer, ACLU of Michigan & Maggie McGuire, Communications Associate, ACLU of Michigan at 5:22pm

As Michigan legislators observed states quickly upping the ante with extreme war on women policies like the personhood amendments and mandatory vaginal probe laws, they must have grown tired of our state merely being a face in the crowd; so they decided to dole out their own special brand of bat-crackers crazy in the form of an outrageous, monster War on Women Mega Bill.

We’ve written about the War on Women Mega Bill before, which combines every attack on women's health into the greatest assault on reproductive rights in our state’s history.

08/30/2012

Abortion Legislation

Voters to Personhood: Stick a Fork In It. You’re Done.

By Dahlia Ward McManus, ACLU at 6:09pm

This year, voters have overwhelmingly rejected personhood initiatives sending messages to personhood proponents, as in: ‘over.’ ‘Finito.’ Not interested. The fat lady has sung and your idea is a loser.

You would have thought the writing was on the wall. Last November, voters in Mississippi decisively defeated a personhood initiative which, if passed, would have amended the state Constitution to grant legal rights to fertilized eggs, and in the process ban many forms of hormonal contraception and in-vitro fertilization, not to mention all abortions – without exceptions. Mississippians resoundingly rejected that proposal by a 16- point margin. And that was in Mississippi, arguably the most conservative state in the nation.

05/11/2012

Abortion Legislation

Will Kansas Legislators Encourage Doctors to Lie and Deny Sick Women Care?

By Elissa Berger, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 1:47pm

The Kansas House passed an unwieldy 70-page bill, chock full of troubling provisions aimed at depriving a woman from receiving accurate information about her pregnancy, preventing her from accessing medical care and punishing health professionals who treat her. We need to make sure the Senate doesn't do the same.

Here are just a few examples of what this bill would do:

• It would provide legal protection to a doctor who discovers that a baby will be born with a devastating condition and deliberately withholds that information from his patient because he doesn't want her to seek an abortion. That means a doctor could decide to lie about the results of a woman's prenatal test so that she won't have information that she needs to make the best decision for her circumstances.
• The bill attempts to scare women by forcing doctors to tell patients about a supposed link between abortion and breast cancer — a risk that the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, and other medical experts roundly reject .
• This bill would also require public hospitals to turn away a woman who desperately needs an abortion to prevent serious harm to her health. The extremists pushing this bill would have a hospital tell a very sick woman that she should come back when her pregnancy is about to kill her, even if that risks her future fertility or causes organ failure.
• And there's a provision that targets workers at women's health centers that provide abortion care. The bill could prohibit those workers from volunteering at their kids' school. We've seen a lot of bizarre provisions about women's health care, but this is one of the strangest. Imagine the nurse who helps care for women at the local clinic. When she wants to accompany her son on a class field trip will she be told to stay home unless she quits her job?

American Civil Liberties Union