March 26, 2017

168 Anti-Abortion Bills Have Already Been Introduced In 2017

Posted by laurasmith20200 under Abortion Information | Tags: , , |
[10] Comments 

Here’s a look at 90 of them.

Joseph Silk, David Brumbaugh, Matthew Hill, Mark Chelgren, Justin Humphrey, and Brad Klippert—just six of the many legislators who have introduced anti-abortion bills so far in 2017.

We’re just three months into the new year, and lawmakers—a handful of whom are pictured above—have already proposed 168 anti-abortion bills at the state and federal levels.

Why does this matter? More than four decades ago, Roe v. Wade affirmed a person’s constitutional right to privacy, effectively legalizing abortion nationwide. But lawmakers have continued proposing and passing bills that make abortion—a medical procedure—harder to access.

Yet these anti-abortion legislators persist—in spite of research that shows that countries with the strictest anti-abortion laws actually have some of the highest rates of abortions in the world, and that there’s a correlation between defunding Planned Parenthood and an increase in maternal mortality rate. Overwhelming evidence indicates that smarter, more humane ways to actually lower the abortion rate involve improving healthcare and healthcare access—such as by making contraception and family planning services more available, not less. But in our country, (overwhelmingly male) politicians continue proposing and passing laws that impede access to safe and constitutionally protected medical care.

Here are 90 of the 168 anti-abortion bills that have been proposed so far in 2017.

There’s a bill that says patients have to receive permission to have an abortion from the person who impregnated them.

Oklahoma Representative Justin Humphrey introduced a bill that would prevent people from having abortions until they’ve received official permission to do so from the people who impregnated them.

“I believe one of the breakdowns in our society is that we have excluded the man out of all of these types of decisions,” Humprey said, explaining his bill. “I understand that [women] feel like that is their body. I feel like it is a separate—what I call them is, is you’re a ‘host.’ And you know when you enter into a relationship you’re going to be that host and so, you know, if you pre-know that, then take all precautions and don’t get pregnant. So that’s where I’m at. I’m like, hey, your body is your body and be responsible with it. But after you’re irresponsible then don’t claim, well, I can just go and do this with another body, when you’re the host and you invited that in.”

There’s a bill that requires medical providers to interfere with an abortion if the fetus shows any signs of life.

The Arizona Senate has passed a bill that requires medical professionals to try to resuscitate aborted embryos and fetuses if they show any signs of life—whether the embryo or fetus is viable or not. Right now, doctors only perform these measures on a case-by-case basis when the chance of survival is high. One doctor told CBS that attempting medical interventions at early stages in gestational development is “cruel” to the parents and would inflict unnecessary harm on a fetus or embryo that likely wouldn’t survive anyway.

There are eight bills that force medical providers to bury or cremate fetal remains—or otherwise specify how medical providers should dispose of fetal remains.

Doctors already have established protocols for how they sanitarily dispose of medical waste. But these eight bills would require them to treat fetal tissue differently. “Many doctors and medical organizations have said that [these laws] do nothing for any public health purpose,” David Brown, senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, previously told SELF. “It’s a way of putting additional pressure on clinics in the hopes that some won’t be able to withstand the pressure and close. It’s one more potential obstacle to them having to keep their doors open.”

There are five bills that allow patients to sue their abortion providers, even decades later.

These bills would allow patients to sue their abortion providers for emotional distress—even years after receiving the procedure. And while some, like Iowa Senator Mark Chelgren, see bills like these as a way to protect people seeking abortions, legal experts say the consequences could be severe. “When you look at it more carefully, it’s a threat to the woman because it creates deterrents for doctors to do this,” Mark Kende, J.D., director of the Constitutional Law Center at Drake University, told the Associated Press. In other words, the threat of being sued retroactively could scare doctors out of providing abortions at all—which ultimately hurts people who are seeking them.

There are seven bills that ban abortion entirely.

Some of these bills recognize life as beginning at conception, and view abortions at any state of gestational development as murder. Others seek to criminalize medical providers who perform abortions. All seven view abortion as unlawful in some form or fashion, and all would ban the procedure entirely (with select exceptions, depending on the bill).

There are 10 misleadingly named “Heartbeat Bills” that ban abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detectable—usually around the six-week mark.

So-called “Heartbeat Bills” ban abortions from the moment fetal cardiac activity is detectable. This typically happens around the five- or -week mark—before many people even realize they’re pregnant. (Learn more about what it means to be six weeks pregnant here.) Nine of these bills have been introduced at the state level, but Iowa congressman Steve King proposed the first federal six-week abortion ban: the “Heartbeat Protection Act of 2017.”

Other states, like North Dakota and Arkansas, have attempted to pass similar bills in the past—but their efforts were blocked in higher courts for being unconstitutional.

There are 18 bills that ban abortions after 20 weeks, based on the unsubstantiated claim that fetuses can feel pain at this point.

Twenty-week abortion bans are based on the idea that fetuses can feel pain at this stage in development—despite there being no medical evidence to support that reasoning. These bills are similar to laws already in place in 16 states and to two that were blocked for being unconstitutional.

Worth mentioning: Almost 99 percent of abortions occur before the 20-week mark, according to Planned Parenthood. Often, people who seek late-term abortions do so because they’ve discovered serious fetal anomalies that weren’t apparent earlier. “These are often desperately desired pregnancies that have gone wrong,” Lauren Streicher, M.D., an associate professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, previously told SELF.

There are 12 bills that ban abortions through dilation and evacuation, the safest and most common way for a woman in her second trimester to have an abortion.

Dilation and evacuation abortions—or D&E abortions—involve two steps. First, a woman’s cervix is dilated. Second, a doctor surgically removes the contents of the patient’s uterus. The American Medical Association recognizes this as the safest way a woman can terminate a pregnancy beyond the 14-week gestational mark. It’s also the most common way for people in their second trimesters to end pregnancies, as D&E is used in 95 percent of second-trimester abortions.

There are 12 bills that require patients to be offered ultrasounds, have ultrasounds, or listen to sonograms before they can have the abortions they’re seeking.

Ten different states have introduced bills that would require patients to jump a series of hoops before they can have the abortions they’re seeking. (Both New Jersey and New York have introduced two.) Some of these bills require people to have ultrasounds, and others require them to listen to sonogram results. Some just require medical providers to offer to perform ultrasounds on people seeking abortions. If passed, all of them would force people to take additional steps to have the abortions they want or need.

There are 16 other bills that make patients undergo counseling or wait a certain period of time before they’re allowed to have abortions.

State legislators have also introduced bills that would require patients to undergo specific kinds of counseling or wait a certain period of time before they can actually have the abortions they’re seeking. Sometimes, these bills result in people having to make more than one appointment, which can be especially difficult for people who live in rural areas and have to drive long distances to get to a medical provider in the first place.

Source: Self

http://www.self.com/story/anti-abortion-bills

 

10 Responses to “168 Anti-Abortion Bills Have Already Been Introduced In 2017”

  1. Unknown's avatar John Dunkle Says:

    March 27, 2017 at 3:34 am

    I counted six lies in the first four paragraphs, so I stopped reading.

    Like

    Reply
      1. Unknown's avatar John Dunkle Says:

        March 28, 2017 at 3:40 am

        Here are the ones in paragraph 4:
        1 countries with the strictest anti-abortion laws actually have some of the highest rates of abortions in the world
        2 there’s a correlation between defunding Planned Parenthood and an increase in maternal mortality rate.
        3 Overwhelming evidence indicates that smarter, more humane ways to actually lower the abortion rate involve improving healthcare and healthcare access—such as by making contraception and family planning services more available, not less.
        4 politicians continue proposing and passing laws that impede access to safe and constitutionally protected medical care.

        You find the other two.

        Like

        Reply
      2. RESPONSIBLE Right to Life/chuck/charles/aborticentrism's avatar RESPONSIBLE Right to Life/chuck/charles/aborticentrism Says:

        March 28, 2017 at 9:58 am

        And what are your sources for your statements?

        Like

        Reply
        1. Unknown's avatar John Dunkle Says:

          March 28, 2017 at 12:16 pm

          That takes more time than I have right now, but if I were like Laura, my source would be the lie that someone else told. Fake sources are even worse than fake news.
          In all these fakes common sense suffers. Just look at 1 above. Iran has a higher rate of abortion than England? Gimme a break.

          Like

          Reply
      3. RESPONSIBLE Right to Life/chuck/charles/aborticentrism's avatar RESPONSIBLE Right to Life/chuck/charles/aborticentrism Says:

        March 28, 2017 at 4:26 pm

        Mr. Dunkle, common sense also says the sun goes around the Earth.

        Like

        Reply
        1. Unknown's avatar John Dunkle Says:

          March 29, 2017 at 9:29 am

          No it doesn’t. Common sense don’t stare at the sun or it will hurt your eyes.

          Like

          Reply
      4. RESPONSIBLE Right to Life/chuck/charles/aborticentrism's avatar RESPONSIBLE Right to Life/chuck/charles/aborticentrism Says:

        March 29, 2017 at 10:12 am

        Nice attempt to drop the subject, Mr. Dunkle, but let’s talk about common sense and the sun apparently going around the earth.

        It took decades if not centuries to overcome the common sense notion that the sun goes around the earth– a lot of thought, reams of carefully noted physical data, much argument and a fair amount of dodging some very heft religious opinion. Even today, although we know that the earth goes around the sun, it still looks like the sun goes around the earth.

        Which is why for you so-called “pro-lifers” to use “common sense” as the foundation for your arguments is simply to show to the world the shallowness of your whole enterprise.

        This suggests something about the real reasons for the movement’s existence. . .

        Like

        Reply
        1. Unknown's avatar John Dunkle Says:

          March 30, 2017 at 4:25 am

          You’re confusing common sense with “what everybody thinks.” Today everybody thinks people are making the earth too warm so we have to reduce the numbers by contracepting and killing. Common sense says wait and see and God says contraception is sinful and it leads to murder because the wages of sin is death.

          Like

          Reply
        2. RESPONSIBLE Right to Life/chuck/charles/aborticentrism's avatar RESPONSIBLE Right to Life/chuck/charles/aborticentrism Says:

          March 30, 2017 at 7:14 am

          Wow, If you’re the voice of God, it doesn’t say much for God . . .

          Like

          Reply

Leave a comment