Abortion Rights Groups Say It's Time To Stop Playing Defense
Abortion rights activists are working on a counterattack to the 200 bills that have passed in states across the U.S. since 2010.
In the past three years, Republican-led legislatures have backed bills to regulate abortions and the doctors and clinics that perform them.
Bills to ban abortions at 20 weeks are among the laws that cropped up three years ago and have now passed in about a dozen states. This year, North Dakota pushed to end abortions at around six weeks of pregnancy.
"It really has been a wave of abortion restrictions moving across the country and it has affected providers and women and their families," says Elizabeth Nash, who tracks the laws for the Guttmacher Institute.
About a dozen clinics in Texas stopped providing abortions after a new law passed last summer. At least a dozen other clinics have closed across the country because of laws that say doctors must have admitting privileges at local hospitals, or because of another regulation requiring clinics to become mini surgical centers.
New York Takes A Stand
So abortion rights activists say they're pushing a new legislative strategy. In New York, lawmakers introduced the Women's Equality Act in 2013, backed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
"Why the state of New York?" asked Cuomo. "Because the state of New York has had a long and proud history of being the first one to stand up on issues like this, on issues of inequality."
It includes pay equity for women and strengthens domestic violence laws. Andrea Miller, president of NARAL Pro-Choice New York, says it also codifies Roe vs. Wade, the decision that legalized abortion.
"It says you have this right to make these decisions prior to the 24th week of pregnancy or thereafter if your life or health is at risk," Miller says. "It's quite simply, Roe vs. Wade put in state law to make sure that it's always there."
The bill didn't pass this year, but it will come up again in 2014.
Those who oppose abortion, including the New York State Catholic Conference, oppose the measure. Kathleen Gallagher, the conference's director of pro-life activities, says it's too broadly written.
"In our review, it's an expansion of late-term abortions here in New York, which we don't believe New York needs," Gallagher says.
U.S.
Laws Tightening Abortion Rules Gain Traction In States