American Civil Liberties Union

What passed the legislature in North Dakota?

Two bills are on their way to the Governor's desk: HB 1456 would ban most abortions. The ban on abortion starts very early in pregnancy, before a woman may know the health of her pregnancy and before she may even know she is pregnant at all.

HB 1305 would force health care providers to police their patients' reasons for having an abortion and would ban some abortions because of those reasons, including making it illegal for a woman to have an abortion because of a serious medical complication with her baby. Indeed, this bill would even ban abortions in circumstances when the complication is fatal.

By now, most of us have read (and wept over) the tragic story of Savita Halappanavar -- the woman an Irish hospital let die rather than provide the abortion that she needed to save her life. News of her death has generated outrage across the globe and a call from Secretary Clinton to the Irish government to ensure that women are protected.

Just months after Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl made false and misleading statements about Planned Parenthood's prenatal services, Arizona is once again attacking groups that provide abortion information or services. The latest scheme: A law to rewrite the tax code to exclude any nonprofit organization that provides abortion referrals or counseling from receiving donations through the state's Working Poor Tax Credit Program. This law is so broad that it could prevent groups from even discussing abortion or other reproductive health services with women in crisis. Today, we filed a lawsuit challenging that law.

Yesterday, Michiganders were illegally blocked from entering the State Capitol as their legislature passed controversial bills. Hundreds of people came to the Capitol to have their voices heard, but they were kept out of the political process by the very folks whose job it is to represent them.

Not only did they pass the so-called “right to work” legislation, but with the public locked outside, these politicians also advanced bills that will interfere with a woman’s ability to make her own reproductive health decisions. Politicians pushed a bill designed to shut down women’s health clinics in the state that provide abortion care. They passed a measure that would prohibit insurance plans from offering comprehensive health care coverage that includes abortion. And, a little more than a month after news broke that woman died in a hospital in Ireland because doctors refused to provide a life-saving abortion, the state senate passed a bill that could allow hospitals to use religion to discriminate in providing health care services, even in the case of an emergency.