Abortion Laws That Didn’t Make the News

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


As state legislatures start closing up for the year, there are a number of abortion-related bills that didn’t make big headlines. In the first six months of 2011 alone, there were 162 abortion or reproductive-related bills enacted by state legislatures, so it was inevitable some wouldn’t make it past the local paper. Here are a few I thought were noteworthy.

Arizona: HB 2384 revoked public funding to any organization that “pays for, promotes, provides coverage of or provides referrals for abortions.” This would stop the use of student fees and tuition to train OB/GYN students to perform abortions. In addition, it would revoke a tax credit for donations to organizations that provide abortions, like Planned Parenthood, as well as to any institutions that might refer clients to Planned Parenthood, like domestic violence shelters.

Nebraska: LB 22 dictates that private insurance plans in Nebraska not cover abortion except for in cases where the woman’s life is in danger. Any woman with private insurance desiring an abortion coverage must buy a separate “rider” for it out of her own funds, assuming her carrier has one. The bill carried no exceptions for rape or incest. This is especially burdensome for young women, as the state also passed a bill changing its parental notice law into a parental consent law.

Oklahoma: The state passed a bill that banned abortions after 20 weeks on the belief that fetuses can feel pain at that age. But the state also passed smaller, less flashy bills. HB 1970 added the phrase “or any abortion-inducing drug” to a bill that already required doctors use RU-486 only for FDA-approved (not off-label) purposes. This was to ensure doctors and clinics like Planned Parenthood were not able to prescribe Cytotec (misoprostol) for first-trimester medical abortions, even in conjunction with RU-486, and even though doctors often prescribe medications for off-label use when proven safe by scientific trials. The bill would effectively end most medical abortions, leaving clients to pursue riskier surgical abortions instead.

North CarolinaHB 854 was vetoed by the governor, but the veto was overridden. As a result this bill required women to wait 24 hours for an abortion, and required doctors to perform an ultrasound before the procedure. If the women refused to view the ultrasound, her refusal was kept on file for 7 years. But here’s the under-covered part of the bill: it would also allow the father of the fetus and the spouse, parent, sibling, current health care provider, or former health care provider of the woman getting the abortion to sue the doctor if they believe any part of the bill has been violated. A woman’s ex-boyfriend or childhood pediatrician, for example, could sue a clinic if they believed the performing physician had not done an ultrasound as required.

Tennessee: This bill wasn’t specifically about abortion, but expanded fetal personhood, which can be a slippery slope. SB 633 expanded the definition of “fetal homicide” to include the fetus at any stage of development, not just when the fetus is viable as previously. Fetuses are now considered victims of assault whenever the mother is assaulted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate