Abortion Legislation

10/12/2011

EMTALA

Watch Your Back — They're Gambling with Your Life

By Sarah Lipton-Lubet, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:28pm

The House is slated to vote today on an unprecedented bill that would allow hospitals to let women die at their doorsteps.

08/18/2011

Arizona

Arizona Law Says Choose Between Donations and Providing Care to Women

By Alessandra Soler, ACLU of Arizona at 12:40pm

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.

10/19/2012

Abortion Legislation

Enough Is Enough: War on Women Back in Virginia

By Elissa Berger, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 4:48pm

Good medicine cannot co-exist with the extreme, ideological attacks on access to abortion. The latest evidence of this comes from the state of Virginia, which has already served as a key battleground for the war on women.

For example, it was Virginia that sparked a huge outcry from women across the state and the country around legislation REQUIRING mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds.

And it is Virginia that is home to an Attorney General who twisted the law and threatened members of the Board of Health, so that they would vote for unnecessary and unprecedented regulations on doctors and facilities that provide abortion.

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.

07/16/2012

Abortion Legislation

Some Michigan Politicians “Wanna Be My Doc.” Use Our New Twitter Generator to Challenge Them

By Rana Elmir, ACLU of Michigan at 4:51pm

It looks like some Michigan politicians want to “play doctor” and take away a woman’s ability to make personal, private medical decisions for herself. In June, Michigan vaulted to the top of the list of states with outrageous, regressive legislation on women's health, placing a monster omnibus package - House Bills 5711, 5712 and 5713- on the fast-track to becoming law. HB 5711, or the War on Women Mega Bill, passed in the House and if it survives in the Senate, it would effectively make safe abortion services inaccessible in the state.

06/12/2012

Abortion Legislation

Move Over Mississippi: Michigan is the Latest State Vying to Shut Down All Abortion Clinics

By Elissa Berger, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 4:36pm

As you may have heard, Mississippi passed a law earlier this year, which was explicitly designed to shut down the only health care center in the entire state where a woman can get a safe, legal abortion. In passing the law, some politicians made quite clear that they knew the closure would jeopardize the health and lives of Mississippi women—and that they didn’t care.

06/07/2012

War on Women

Michigan’s War on Women Hits Dangerous New Low

By Kary L. Moss, Executive Director, ACLU of Michigan at 1:24pm

It seems that Michigan politicians are hell-bent on making the cliché “when the country catches a cold, Michigan gets pneumonia” a reality.

For proof, look no further than the more than 50 pages that make up a three-bill package: HB 5711, HB 5712, HB 5713. This legislative behemoth is on a fast track in our State House of Representatives, and will make safe abortion services virtually inaccessible to Michigan women.

06/01/2012

Abortion Legislation

Reproductive Health Victory in Kansas? Say that Again?

By Elissa Berger, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 2:10pm

The Kansas legislature is not known for being friendly to women’s health. Just last year, the Kansas legislature took away family planning and reproductive health services in an effort to defund Planned Parenthood and prohibited women from purchasing comprehensive health care coverage.

05/30/2012

Women in the Military

ACLU Lens: Shaheen Amendment Draws Support from Retired Military

By Amanda Simon at 10:14am

Last week, during its markup of the National Defense Authorization (NDAA) bill, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to include a much-needed and overdue amendment to help servicewomen when they need it most. The amendment, offered by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), would reverse the current ban on abortion coverage for servicewomen who are the victims of rape or incest.

When the news broke a group of senior military officers, retired medical personnel and veterans called Stand With Servicewomen, immediately registered their support releasing video featuring several retired military leaders.

05/17/2012

Abortion Legislation

Bubba And His Poor, Pitiful Women

By Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project at 12:10pm

Yesterday, a video leaked of Mississippi Representative Lester "Bubba" Carpenter (pictured above) gloating that he and his anti-choice cronies had passed a bill that could effectively put an end to safe, legal abortion in the state of Mississippi. The money quote:

It's going to be challenged, of course, in the Supreme Court and all — but literally, we stopped abortion in the state of Mississippi, legally, without having to — Roe vs. Wade. So we've done that. I was proud of it. The governor signed it into law. And of course, there you have the other side. They're like, 'Well, the poor pitiful women that can't afford to go out of state are just going to start doing them at home with a coat hanger. That's what we've learned over and over and over.'

But hey, you have to have moral values. You have to start somewhere."

And now everybody's reaching for their smelling salts because, oh my, a politician trying to outlaw abortion doesn't care if women die. You know what I say? Finally. Finally, someone willing to speak the truth. Finally, someone is willing to drop the bullshit about health, safety, and a "culture of life" and admit that he'd rather women die than abortion remain legal.

American Civil Liberties Union