The Midwest has been busily restricting our reproductive rights this year! Get ready for some hot, old-white-conservative-man-on-woman* legislation.
This is just some of the legislation proposed in 2013. For a full list of your state’s reproductive laws, check out the Guttmacher Institute. You can also usually find current proposed bills on Open States, or on your state legislature’s website if they allow you to search by subject.
Indiana:
- Passed: A bill that requires physicians to inform their patients 18 hours before the procedure of exaggerated risks of abortions, that life begins at fertilization, the medically unsound theory of fetal pain, and provide the patient with an opportunity to view the fetus and listen to the heartbeat.
- Passed: A ban on telemedicine abortions.
- Passed: A bill that requires non-surgical abortion clinics to adhere to the same standards as surgical clinics, even though medication abortion is not a surgical procedure.
- Failed: A bill that would allow employers to refuse to offer birth control, sterilization, or abortion coverage in their insurance plans.
- Failed: A ban on race- and sex-selective abortions.
- Failed: A bill that would require the patient to sign a form stating they did not wish to view a state-mandated ultrasound.
- Failed: A “conscience clause” bill, that would allow health care professionals to refuse to administer treatment or medication they believe would cause an abortion. Since we are a country that allows complete dimwits to become doctors and pharmacists, this applies to birth control and emergency contraception.
- Failed: A bill that would ban abortions performed in case of fetal abnormalities.
- Failed: A bill that would prohibit Indiana University hospital and any other medical education facilities from performing abortions, with exceptions for rape, incest, and the life or health of the pregnant person.
- Blocked: A 2011 ban on the use of Medicaid funds at any abortion clinic.
Iowa:
- Passed: The state budget, which allows Gov. Terry Branstad to personally decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether Medicaid funds can be used for abortions in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormalities, or to protect the life of the pregnant person.
- In progress: Iowa Right to Life has petitioned the Board of Medicine to ban telemedicine abortions.
Why is this a problem?
Because the idea of Terry Branstad deciding what goes on in my lady-parts gives me the jibblies.
Medicaid funds are used for people under a certain income bracket, meaning those who would be using Medicaid for an abortion likely can’t afford it any other way.
Kansas:
- Passed: Patients can no longer sue their doctors for withholding information the doctor believes might lead them to choose abortion.
- Passed: A 70-page omnibus bill codifying scientifically unsound claims about fetal pain and the abortion-breast cancer link, banning sex-selective abortions, granting personhood and every accompanying right at the moment of fertilization, ramping up anti-abortion rhetoric in “informed consent” materials, manipulating the tax code to disqualify abortion providers from being non-profit healthcare entities, and preventing any clinic staff from volunteering at their children’s schools or participating in sex ed.
Why is this a problem?
I’ll only touch on the abortion-breast cancer link, as previous posts in this series have already discussed fetal pain and personhood, and the rest of the provisions seem fairly straightforward in their terribleness.
In those weird corners of the science world where women have “ways to shut that whole [pregnancy] thing down” if it’s a “legitimate rape,” embryology is a lie straight from the pit of hell, and dinosaurs lived at the same time as humans, there is also the theory that abortion causes breast cancer. Through a combination of both carefully manipulated and sloppily thrown-together studies, a group of scientists has gathered enough evidence to convince those who really want to be convinced that abortion is one of the causes of breast cancer. This theory is refuted by the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Oh, and the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada. Good old Canada.
Michigan:
- Passed: (I’m counting this because it was passed Dec. 28, 2012) A ban on abortions at 20 weeks. Doctors who perform more than five abortions a month must do so in a licensed freestanding surgical facility and buy $1 million in liability insurance. Bans telemedicine abortions and any medication abortions not provided in a surgical facility.
- In progress: Michigan Right to Life is circulating a petition to prohibit public and private health insurance from covering abortion without purchasing an additional rider.
- In progress: A bill that would require an ultrasound at least two hours before an abortion. The screen must be turned toward the patient and accompanied by a verbal description of the embryo or fetus and the sound of the heartbeat. There are no exceptions for rape and incest.
- In progress: A bill that would greatly complicate the judicial bypass procedure, used by minors who cannot obtain parental consent for an abortion.
Why is this a problem?
Forcing clinics to upgrade to freestanding surgical facilities is intended to shut down those that can’t afford it – that is, most, if not all of them.
State-mandated ultrasounds are clear examples of emotional blackmail in an attempt to frighten or shame patients out of their decision. This is a huge disturbance of the patient-doctor relationship, which strikes me as strange, given the introduction to this same bill. The sponsors lamented that there’s likely no relationship between the physician and patient prior to the abortion, since most abortions are performed in clinics specializing in the practice. It really is a shame that’s the case – if only family planning and abortion providers weren’t being regulated out of existence, and that regular family care providers felt safe providing abortions without being shot or blown up.
Minnesota:
- Failed: A lawsuit challenging the state’s insurance coverage of abortion.
Missouri:
- In progress: Gov. Nixon has until July 14 to either sign or veto a bill that would ban telemedicine abortion. This would eliminate access to early abortion for those who don’t live near the state’s two providers.
- In progress: A bill that would allow healthcare professionals to refuse to offer treatment or medication, or referrals to those services, that they find “morally objectionable.” This includes abortion, emergency contraception, birth control, sterilization, IVF, and more.
North Dakota:
- Passed: A ban on abortions after 20 weeks in accordance with the medically unsound theory of fetal pain at that stage.
- Passed: A ban on abortions performed for the purpose of sex-selection and fetal abnormalities.
- Challenged: The Center for Reproductive Rights has filed a lawsuit against the “heartbeat” bill that bans abortions after six weeks, before most people even know they’re pregnant. This is a clear violation of Roe v. Wade, and the state has requested a $400,000 budget increase to fight the inevitable legal challenges.
- Challenged: The state’s sole abortion provider must obtain hospital admitting privileges – however, abortion is so safe that they cannot meet the annual admitting requirements.
- On the Nov. 2014 ballot: A “personhood” measure, which would grant newly fertilized eggs the same protections and privileges as any citizen of the United States.
Ohio:
- Passed: The Ohio budget, which bans hospitals from granting the privileges to abortion clinics that clinics are legally required to have, prohibits hospitals from providing abortion services, forces pregnant people to get an ultrasound to detect a heartbeat before getting an abortion, defunds Planned Parenthood and other comprehensive family planning clinics, defunds rape crisis centers that provide abortion referrals, and redistributes those funds to crisis pregnancy centers. This will make safe, legal abortions virtually impossible to obtain in the state of Ohio.
South Dakota:
- Passed: South Dakota holds the record for the longest state-mandated waiting period for abortion, and in March, Gov. Daugaard approved a measure to extend it even further. The 72-hour waiting period now does not include weekends and holidays.
- Passed: A resolution for the United States Supreme Court to revisit Roe v. Wade.
Why is this a problem?
Proponents of waiting periods claim they only want to give patients extra time to think about their decision change their minds. In fact, all waiting periods do is put extra strain on patients who have already made their decision all by themselves, like grown ups. In states with few clinics, it means more hours on the road, which means more missed work and arranging care for dependents.
Resolutions are purely symbolic, and just another way for South Dakota conservatives to reiterate that they are, in fact, dickweasels.
Wisconsin:
- Passed (kind of): Last week, Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill that requires patients to get an ultrasound 24 hours before an abortion, and that requires abortion providers must have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles. A federal judge issued a temporary block on the admitting privileges portion of the bill Monday, thanks to a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood and Affiliated Medical Services of Milwaukee. The restraining order will remain in effect until July 17, at which time a more in-depth hearing will take place.
*Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been using gender-neutral language in these posts. While I know that most anti-abortion legislation is rooted in misogyny, and using woman-centered language tends to have a more powerful effect on a larger group of people, the reality is that people of all gender identities who can get pregnant are affected by these laws. You can start reading more about this issue on my blog (here’s another good tag), and I’m happy to talk about it in the comments section.
Tomorrow: The final installment – the West!
(Image via iowa.gov)
