Stanek weekend Q: Momentum has shifted in the abortion war, but which way?
The New York Times posted a piece yesterday, “Access to abortion falling as states pass restrictions,” with these money quotes:
A three-year surge in anti-abortion measures in more than half the states has altered the landscape for abortion access, with supporters and opponents agreeing that the new restrictions are shutting some clinics, threatening others and making it far more difficult in many regions to obtain the procedure….
Advocates for abortion rights, taking heart from recent signs in Virginia and New Mexico that proposals for strong or intrusive controls may alienate voters, hope to help unseat some Republican governors this year as well as shore up the Democratic majority in the United States Senate.
Anti-abortion groups aim to consolidate their position in dozens of states and to push the Senate to support a proposal adopted by the Republican-controlled House for a nationwide ban on most abortions at 20 weeks after conception.
“I think we are at a potential turning point: Either access to abortion will be dramatically restricted in the coming year or perhaps the pushback will begin,” said Suzanne Goldberg, director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia University.
The anti-abortion groups, for their part, feel emboldened by new tactics that they say have wide public appeal even as they push the edges of Supreme Court guidelines, including costly clinic regulations and bans on late abortions.
“I’m very encouraged,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “We’ve been gaining ground in recent years with laws that are a stronger challenge to Roe.”
“I think it is more difficult to get an abortion in the country today,” she said….
In 2013 alone, 22 states adopted 70 different restrictions, including late-abortion bans, doctor and clinic regulations, limits on medication abortions and bans on insurance coverage, according to a new report by the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.
Anti-abortion legislation in the states exploded after the major conservative gains in the 2010 elections, the report said, resulting in more than 200 measures in 30 states over the last three years….
A partial test is expected this month, when the Supreme Court announces whether it will hear Arizona’s appeal to reinstate its 20-week ban, which was overturned by federal courts.
Many legal experts expect the court to decline the case, but this would not affect the status of similar laws in effect in Texas and elsewhere. Still, those on both sides are watching closely because if the court does take it, the basis of four decades of constitutional law on abortion could be upended.
“If they take the Arizona case, it seems like at least four of the justices are willing to reconsider the viability line as the point at which states can ban abortions,” said Caitlin Borgmann, an expert on reproductive rights at the City University of New York School of Law….
Amid all the setbacks, abortion rights groups say they see encouraging signs.
A referendum to impose a 20-week ban in Albuquerque was defeated. Although Texas adopted some of the country’s most stringent controls, State Senator Wendy Davis’s filibuster in June energized women and led to her campaign for governor.
In Virginia, these groups say, Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II’s strong anti-abortion stance became a liability, contributing to his defeat in the governor’s race.
“I honestly believe we have shifted the momentum,” said Ilyse Hogue, the president of Naral Pro-Choice America.
How do you see the abortion landscape? Are we indeed at a tipping point? If so, which direction?
[Graphic via Guttmacher]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Despite the cumulative effect of all these restrictive abortion laws, the dire warnings and scare tactics of the pro-abortion side are not coming to pass. I have yet to hear of women dying in droves or self inflicting abortion with coat hangers. Let’s face it the closing of unscrupulous providers using “back alley” methods is a good thing for women’s health.
I don’t know about a “tipping” point, but I think the tide is going our way. Some statistics support that younger adults (ages 18-29) consider themselves pro-life or anti-abortion in greater numbers than the same age group would have twenty years ago. This is encouraging, because besides the obvious fact that younger people are in their child-bearing years and hopefully will say no to their own abortions, it means that the next big voting generation has more and more pro-life ideals.
There’s also the fact that the teen pregnancy rate is down, which considering how many teenagers get coerced or encouraged to abort, that’s good. You also have that age group following the trend of young adults and being less pro-choice than previous generations.
And you also have clinic closing, restrictive laws, and other legal matters that are going our way. Of course we haven’t won them all, but I think that the fact that we are winning some is encouraging, plus it raises the profile of abortion “rights” in the minds of the public. And many people, especially an increasing number of young people, find abortion with no restrictions unpalatable.
So I think both culturally and legally it’s starting to go our way.
I do think things are beginning to go our way for the reasons previously mentioned. But I’d like to add one more.
One thing I think really has made a difference in helping things to go our way are the advances in medicine and technology in recent decades. We now have 3D and 4D real-time ultrasounds allowing for visuals of the developing child that simply weren’t available when Roe was decided. Advances in neonatal care continue to push the viability limit and allow babies born earlier and earlier to live. The whole field of teratology (study of the origins of congenital abnormalities and substances toxic to babies in the womb) and its contributions to helping women have healthy pregnancies is relatively new as well. And medicine continues to help babies, children and adults with disabilities lead happier and healthier lives. Things that may well have been death sentences in 1973 are now often treatable, manageable and/or preventable. Spina bifida is a good example, in 1973 it had a 50% death rate with nothing much known about its prevention or treatment. Today we know it can be largely prevented by folic acid supplementation during pregnancy, and even treated in the womb with fetal surgery techniques. All this makes a real difference in changing people’s attitudes. I personally remember taking an embryology course and learning that at six weeks gestation a baby’s heart is dividing into chambers and her vocal cords are forming. Knowledge is very very powerful.
Two more clinics in Texas have received hospital admitting privileges, so knock them off your closed list.
The abortion industry is not going to give up easily.
And remember — It was the abortion industry who issued all those dire warnings about clinics closing and women dying. They are liars, and they know it, and they never believed their own predictions. That was just “scare tactics,” hoping to confuse the issue and win support for an unwinnable position. When forced, they will spend the money to get in compliance and keep their cash flow coming.
Our job is to keep the conversation going. Shine the truth wherever we can: Abortion hurts women; children don’t have to die; the abortion industry does not care about the women they exploit.
Legislation and court decisions will be won and lost. We are like the anti-slavery activists of old: with every battle, we must continue to win hearts for life and human rights.
Our way of course.
One need only look at the photos of the March for Life 2014 that is coming up.
The younger generation is OVERWHELMINGLY prolife!!
They are simply NOT buying the crapola that PP is selling. That the pill brings freedom. That promiscuity is power. That STD’s are the norm. That abortion is empowering and solves anything. That “everyone’s doing it.”
They have seen their own ultrasounds and those of their siblings. They have listened to the women that have been hurt by abortion.
We have passed the prolife torch to them and they walk in TRUTH.