The Growing Tide of State Anti-Abortion Legislation

So far this year, 11 states have successfully passed multiple laws that regulate or restrict abortion, while four additional states have bills that have triumphed through their state houses.  Bills range from banning public funding of abortion under health exchanges created by the federal health care overhaul (Arizona, Mississippi, Tennessee), to banning abortion coverage in the state employees’ health plan (Arizona), to requiring women considering abortion to undergo an ultrasound (Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama).

Nebraska recently passed the first law in the nation to ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy on the basis of fetal pain.  The law is expected to be challenged in court, as the medical community disputes the validity of fetal pain and the Supreme Court has long recognized a woman’s right to choose abortion in the second trimester (weeks 13-27 of pregnancy), when the fetus is still considered inviable.  “It’s a whole new standard,” says Ted Miller, spokesman for Naral Pro-Choice America.  And this new standard may intensify this tide of anti-abortion legislation if it is successful.

The main goal of anti-abortion camp is to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision which gave women the right to choose abortion before the third trimester of her pregnancy.  While there has not been full-out victory for them, they have made many gains on the state level:

“Ninety percent of pro-life legislation happens at the states,” said Daniel S. McConchie, vice president for government affairs at Americans United for Life, which opposes abortion. “While Congress is the main focus of attention for so many people in the country, state legislatures have greatest impact on daily lives, and life-related legislation is no exception.

The New York Times reports that 370 abortion regulation bills were introduced in individual states this year, “compared with about 350 in each of the previous five years, and 250 a year in the early 1990s.”  They are in response the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, which upheld a federal ban on one late-term abortion procedure and gave legislatures greater leeway to restrict abortion.  Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights research organization, predicts that the number of bills passed this year may reach 2005’s high of 34 laws.

The effects of state laws (PDF) are not limited to impacting the lives of women living in the individual states which have restrictive laws; they have the potential of impacting the nation, as they set off “court battles that challenge or limit the scope of Roe” and influence other states to pass similar or duplicate laws.  These laws are designed to limit women’s autonomy and take away their ability to make decisions about their own reproduction. In Pennsylvania, groups such as the Women’s Law Project and Pennsylvanians for Choice fight these restrictive laws; it’s important to support these groups’ efforts as much as possible to push against this tide of anti-woman legislation sweeping the nation.

Nun Excommunicated from Catholic Church for Saving Woman’s Life

Last week, Sister Margaret McBride was excommunicated from the Catholic Church after allowing doctors to perform an abortion in order to save the life of a woman. In her capacity as on-call member of the Hospital Ethics committee, Sister McBride reached a decision with input from doctors and the patient, a 27-year-old mother of four suffering from pulmonary hypertension, a condition that “limits the ability of the heart and lungs to function and is made worse, possibly even fatal, by pregnancy.”  According to a hospital document, the doctors concluded that if the patient “continued with the pregnancy, her risk of mortality was ‘close to 100 percent.’”

Sister McBride, a longtime administrator of St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, was excommunicated by Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted. Bishop Olmsted released a statement to the Arizona Republic, stating that “[t]he Catholic Church will continue to defend life and proclaim the evil of abortion without compromise, and must act to correct even her own members if they fail in this duty.”

National Public Radio interviewed canon lawyer Reverend Thomas Doyle about this case. Rev. Doyle argues that Bishop Olmsted “clearly had other alternatives than to declare her excommunicated,” citing cases of pedophile priests “who are credibly accused and known to be guilty of sexually abusing children,” yet not excommunicated – what Reverend Doyle terms a “gross inequity” in the church’s policies.

Though the church will allow Sister McBride to return after fulfilling confession and penance requirements, as well as helping to “manage the scandal,” Julianna Baggott of National Public Radio urges her not to, writing simply, “Mercy is not a sin.”

And Liliana Loofbourow wrote in an open letter to St. Joseph’s Hospital at the Ms. Blog:

Her recommendation to end the pregnancy of the patient with pulmonary hypertension whose life was at risk was sound, based not only on medical advice, but also on compassion, forgiveness and charity. That she did so at considerable risk to her own career and worse, her membership in the Church she has dedicated her life to serving, only attests to the strength of her faith and of her character. St. Joseph’s should be proud to have her as an employee.

After dedicating her life to the church and its mission, it’s hard to believe that this could happen to the “highest-ranking member of the Sisters of Mercy” at the Arizona hospital. Sister McBride showed compassion and respect for life in this decision, almost certainly saving the life of a woman who has four other children to care for. She deserves gratitude in this matter, not excommunication, and we hope that the voices of those who believe she did the right thing will rise above those who would excoriate her for saving this woman’s life.

LGBT Ballot Measures

While Election Day proved to be a happy one for advocates of reproductive justice, it also brought devastating defeats for the LGBT community and their allies. Four states, California, Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas, had measures on the ballot limiting the rights of LGBT citizens, and every single one of them passed.

California’s Proposition 8 asked voters whether they supported limiting marriage to one man and one woman, overturning a California Supreme Court ruling in May 2008 giving gay and lesbian couples the right to marry. Voters supported the measure, 52% to 48%.

In Florida, by a margin of 62% to 38%, voters approved a measure defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

Voters in Arizona elected to ban gay marriage in their state. In 2006, voters rejected a similar ballot initiative, becoming the first state in the nation to reject a ban on gay marriage. This year, however, they voted for it, 56%-44%.

Arkansas’ ballot initiative dealt with adoption. The majority of the electorate – 57% – supported prohibiting “unmarried sexual partners” from adopting children or serving as foster parents. This measure will apply to unmarried heterosexual couples as well as homosexual couples and may even affect single people wishing to adopt or foster children.

The success of these measures speaks to the work we have to do to attain full rights for LGBT citizens. The New York Times had a great editorial about the measures, which you can read here. An excerpt:

We do not view these results as reason for despair. Struggles over civil rights never follow a straight trajectory, and the ugly outcome of these ballot fights should not obscure the building momentum for full equality for gay people, including acceptance of marriage between gay men and women. But the votes remind us of how much remains to be done before this bigotry is finally erased.