BURKE: Are abortion mills exempt from regulation? - Washington Times

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p>America’s abortion industry and its supporters in Congress introduced federal legislation recently that would ensure that butchers like Kermit Gosnell, the notorious late-term abortionist convicted of murder in May, enjoy the prerogative to set up shop anywhere in the country and ply their grisly trade without interference or oversight from state officials and without accountability to the women they harm. The legislation prioritizes abortion-industry profits and provider convenience over women’s health and safety and allows a self-interested abortion industry to set its own “standards” of practice without regard to prevailing, medically appropriate standards of patient care.</p><br /><p>Sadly, while claiming to condemn Gosnell’s atrocities, supporters of the proposed legislation, the Women’s Health Protection Act, will actually enable future tragedies. Just as significant, this scandalous legislation would single-handedly eradicate hundreds of common-sense state regulations and restrictions on abortion, including limits on dangerous late-term abortions, informed-consent requirements, and mandated health and safety standards for abortion clinics.</p><br /><p>It would prioritize mere access to abortion above women’s health, and mean that abortion restrictions and regulations would not be enforced if they “interfere with an abortion provider’s ability to provide care and render services in accordance with his or her good-faith medical judgment.”</p><br /><p>In other words, abortionists like Gosnell and abortion-industry bureaucrats at Planned Parenthood would have unfettered control over how they run their deadly businesses. The standard of care will be based on what is in the abortion industry’s — not women’s — best interests. The victimization of women will continue, and state officials will be almost powerless to protect them.</p><br /><p>Along with fictitious and politically motivated assertions that this legislation will advance women’s health, abortion advocates conveniently ignore one of the most important lessons learned from Gosnell and his West Philadelphia abortion “house of horrors.” As the Gosnell grand jury emphasized, to prevent future abortion tragedies, we “must find the fortitude to enact and enforce the necessary regulations. Rules must be more than words on paper.”</p><br /><p>In direct contrast to ongoing congressional efforts to empower the abortion industry at the expense of American women, Americans United for Life is championing the Women’s Protection Project. Through expertly crafted model legislation, this initiative provides the legal blueprint for protecting women and their children from a largely unregulated, unrestricted and unrepentant abortion industry.</p><br /><p>For example, documenting the myriad potential complications from abortion and citing medical studies demonstrating that a woman’s risk of death increases exponentially with later-term abortions, the project includes legislation limiting abortions after five months of pregnancy.</p><br /><p>In direct response to recent evidence of abortion-industry misconduct, other featured legislation protects women from dangerously substandard conditions in abortion clinics, requires compliance with U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved protocols for abortion-inducing drugs, and ensures that clinic personnel do not facilitate the ongoing abuse of minors by failing to report suspected sexual crimes.</p><br /><p>This package provides something new — a tool for enforcing lifesaving laws, putting women’s lives and health over abortion-industry interests.</p><br /><p>This innovative component of the project contains legislative language providing meaningful criminal, civil and administrative penalties for violations of state abortion-related laws. It provides responsible state officials — and, when state officials fail to act to protect women, then individual women and their families — with the legal tools necessary to ensure that the abortion industry is held accountable for its increasingly dismal track record of safeguarding women’s health and safety. In just the past five years, dozens of abortion providers in at least 29 states have been investigated and cited for violations of state abortion laws or for otherwise compromising women’s health and safety. Importantly, given the abortion industry’s refusal to address concerns over its clinics and practices, this number likely represents only a small fraction of a large and growing problem.</p><br /><p>Regrettably, the nonsensical response of the abortion industry and its allies in Congress to these lamentable and incontrovertible facts is to introduce federal legislation designed to sweep aside the very laws that abortionists already callously and routinely ignore to the detriment of the women they claim to serve.</p><br /><p>The appropriate response to abortion industry malfeasance is not the eradication of laws designed to protect women, but the proper and consistent enforcement of these laws.</p><br /><p>During its exhaustive review of the evidence against Gosnell, the grand jury found fault with repeated failures “to enforce laws that should afford patients at abortion clinics the same safeguards and assurances of quality health care as patients of other medical-service providers,” specifically noting that even nail salons “are monitored more closely” than abortion clinics.</p><br /><p>Americans United for Life’s Women’s Protection Project, unlike the disingenuous Women’s Health Protection Act, actually seeks to remedy this glaring problem, while also protecting women from the risks inherent in both surgical and chemical abortion procedures and addressing the abortion industry’s growing problem of substandard care. American women deserve more than the abortion industry’s false promises that mere access to abortion guarantees their health and well-being.</p><br /><p>After all, Gosnell’s squalid clinic provided mere access to abortion. Women paid the price for this access with their lives, with their fertility, and with their future physical and mental health. That price — and the increased price that would be demanded if the federal Women’s Health Protection Act were enacted — is too high for American women and their families to bear.</p><br /></div>

BURKE: Are abortion mills exempt from regulation? - Washington Times

America’s abortion industry and its supporters in Congress introduced federal legislation recently that would ensure that butchers like Kerm...

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House Republicans Kick Off 2014 With Renewed Focus On Abortion, Birth Control - Huffington Post

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div class='margin_bottom_10 clearfix relative'><img alt="house republicans abortion" class="pinit" id="img_caption_4563303" src="http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1551684/thumbs/n-PAUL-RYAN-large570.jpg" width="570"/><br /><div class='absolute image-credit arial_11'>Douglas Graham via Getty Images</div><br /></div><br /><div class='entry_body_text'><br /><div class='float_left'><br /><div class='ad_share_box hidden'><br /><div class='ad_wrapper' id='ad_sharebox_260x60'> </div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><div itemprop='articleBody' class='articleBody'><br /><p>As the Senate takes up a measure to extend unemployment insurance, Republicans in the House of Representatives are looking to make 2014 another banner year for anti-abortion laws.</p><br /><p>A panel of 12 men on the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on a bill Thursday that would deny tax subsidies to women and small businesses who purchase health insurance plans that include abortion coverage. The bill only makes an exception for rape and incest victims and women who would die without abortion care, which opponents say could prompt the IRS to audit any woman who claims one of these exceptions.</p><br /><p>Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has also promised to fight for a rider in the appropriations package Congress is expected to pass next week that would allow employers to refuse to cover contraception in their health insurance plans for moral reasons. And the Republican National Committee has announced it plans to delay its annual winter meeting this year so that members can attend the annual March for Life, an anti-abortion rally in Washington, D.C.</p><br /><p>"I'm not a psychologist, but we're dealing with behavior that, to me, appears obsessive," Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, told HuffPost in an interview. "The jury is in from the rest of country as well -- they want Congress to legislate on issues that are priorities for all Americans. But Republicans don't hear it, because it's an obsessive-compulsive behavior, their focus on rolling back women's rights. They can't stop themselves."</p><br /><p>The bill the House is hearing on Thursday, called the No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act, would severely limit women's ability to buy insurance plans that cover abortion in the Obamacare exchanges, even though the law already contains a provision separating public funds from the private premiums people would pay for abortion coverage. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said when he introduced the bill last May that the legislation is intended to make it more difficult for women to access abortion care.</p><br /><p>"President Obama has said he wants abortion to be rare," Smith said. "To Mr. Obama I say, 'Here is a bill for you.'"</p><br /><p>Before Obamacare went into effect, more than 80 percent of private insurance plans in the United States covered abortion as if it were any other medical procedure. But banning the insurance coverage of abortion has recently become popular among state legislatures as a way to prevent women for being able to pay for the procedure.</p><br /><p>"Up until recently, the private insurance market has seen abortion coverage as routine and non-controversial, and now we have Congress and politicians reaching into the private sector to try and get rid of abortion using this approach," said Susan Wood, associate professor of health policy at George Washington University.</p><br /><p>Elsewhere, Ryan said in a radio interview last month that Republicans plan to push for a "conscience clause" in the upcoming omnibus spending bill, which would allow employers to opt out of covering their employees' contraception. "I’m fighting for a conscience clause rider on appropriations because I’m very worried about religious freedom," he said.</p><br /><p>Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) told Fox News this week that abortion is currently one of the key sticking points in discussions over the omnibus bill. Ryan's and Mikulski's offices did not respond to requests for further comment.</p><br /><p>Smith's bill faces slim chances in Congress, because the Democratic-controlled Senate would not likely take it up even if the House passed it. But the scheduled House hearing, along with Ryan's anti-contraception clause and the RNC's March for Life announcement, provide a sneak preview of the GOP's priorities for the coming year.</p><br /><p>The House Pro-Choice Caucus, chaired by Reps. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), is gearing up for the upcoming battles.</p><br /><p>“Here we go again," DeGette said on Wednesday. "Republicans appear intent on continuing their extreme anti-choice agenda. Instead of constantly trying to interfere with a woman’s personal medical decisions, Republicans should be focusing their efforts -– and our precious time –- on issues that will get Americans back to work and strengthen our economy.”<br/> </p><br /><div class='clear'> </div><br /><p class='video_box_title'>Also on HuffPost:</p><br /><div class='promo_holder clearfix'><br /><div style='' class='hp-slideshow-wrapper-loading' id='hp-slideshow-wrapper-272853'><br /><div class='hp-slideshow-wrapper-loading-div'><em>Loading Slideshow</em><img alt="..." src="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/images/ajax-loader.gif"/> </div><br /><ul id='hp-slideshow-272853' class='hp-slideshow'><br /><li><br /><h4>The Numbers</h4><br /><p>The House has 233 Republicans and 200 Democrats. Each party should pick up one more seat when two vacancies are filled. Going into the election, the GOP edge was 242-193. Senate Democrats will have a caucus of 55, including two independents, Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Republicans have 45. That's a pickup of two seats for Democrats. <em>(Text <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130103/us-new-congress-glance/">via the Associated Press</a>)</em></p><br /></li><br /><li><br /><h4>Women</h4><br /><p>The House will have 79 women, including 60 Democrats. At the end of the last session, there were 50 Democratic women and 24 Republican women. The new Senate will have 20 women members, an increase of three. That consists of 16 Democrats and four Republicans. The last Senate had 12 Democratic women and five Republicans. (Text <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130103/us-new-congress-glance/">via the Associated Press</a>)</p><br /></li><br /><li><br /><h4>Freshmen</h4><br /><p>With two vacancies to be filled, the House has 82 freshmen; 47 Democrats and 35 Republicans. As of the end of the last session, 87 of 103 freshmen were Republicans. The Senate will include 14 new faces, with nine Democrats and the independent King. Five are women. New senators include Brian Schatz, who was sworn in on Dec. 27 to fill the seat of the late Hawaii Democrat Daniel Inouye. (Text <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130103/us-new-congress-glance/">via the Associated Press</a>) <em>(Pictured at left: Incoming House freshmen of the 113th Congress pose for a group photo on the East steps of the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. AP Photo/Susan Walsh)</em></p><br /></li><br /><li><br /><h4>African Americans</h4><br /><p>The House will have 40 African-Americans, all Democrats. The number of Democrats is unchanged, although two Republicans will be gone: Allen West, R-Fla., lost his re-election bid, and Tim Scott, R-S.C., was appointed to fill the Senate seat of Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who is retiring. Scott will be the first black lawmaker in the Senate since Roland Burris, who retired in 2010 after filling the Illinois Senate seat of Barack Obama for almost two years. (Text <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130103/us-new-congress-glance/">via the Associated Press</a>) <em>(Pictured at left: Rep. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who was appointed by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to replace outgoing Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., walks out of the Republican policy luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012. AP Photo/Susan Walsh)</em></p><br /></li><br /><li><br /><h4>Hispanics</h4><br /><p>The new House will have 33 Hispanics, with 25 Democrats and eight Republicans. That's up slightly from last year. The Senate will have three Hispanics: Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Republican Marco Rubio of Florida and Republican freshman Ted Cruz of Texas. (Text <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130103/us-new-congress-glance/">via the Associated Press</a>) <em>(Pictured at left: Rep.-elect Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, speaks with members of the media after a news conference with newly elected Democratic House members on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012. AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)</em></p><br /></li><br /><li><br /><h4>Other Minorities</h4><br /><p>The new House will have nine Asian Americans, all Democrats. There are two American Indians: Tom Cole, R-Okla., and Ben Lujan, D-N.M. (Text <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130103/us-new-congress-glance/">via the Associated Press</a>) <em>(Pictured at left: Sen.-elect, current Rep. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and her husband, Leighton Oshima ride the Senate Subway on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012. AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)</em></p><br /></li><br /><li><br /><h4>Other Facts</h4><br /><p>According to CQ Roll Call newspaper, the average age of House members in the 113th Congress is 57; the average age of senators is 62. It estimates that the House will include some 277 Protestants and Catholics, 22 Jews, two Muslims and two Buddhists. The Senate will have 80 Protestants and Catholics and 10 Jews. The House will have its first Hindu, Rep.Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii. Senate freshman Mazie Hirono, also of Hawaii, will be the Senate's only Buddhist and its first Asian American woman. Also for the first time, white men will be a minority among House Democrats. (Text <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130103/us-new-congress-glance/">via the Associated Press</a>) <em>Pictured at left: Rep.-elect Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii is seen on stage during a news conference with newly elected Democratic House members, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012. AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)</em></p><br /></li><br /></ul><br /></div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><div class='clear'> </div><br /><div><br /><div class='clear'> </div><br /><div class='contribute-story clearfix' id='submissions_shortcuts'><br /><ul><br /><li class='title bold'>Contribute to this Story:</li><br /><li class='no_border'>Send us a tip</li><br /><li>Send us a photo or video</li><br /><li>Suggest a correction</li><br /></ul><br /></div><br /><div class='clear'> </div><br /></div><br /></div><br /></div>

House Republicans Kick Off 2014 With Renewed Focus On Abortion, Birth Control - Huffington Post

Douglas Graham via Getty Images As the Senate takes up a measure to extend unemployment insurance, Republicans in the House of Representati...

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Israel Offers Free Abortions To Women Between 20 And 33 - Huffington Post

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div class='float_left'><br /><div class='ad_share_box hidden'><br /><div class='ad_wrapper' id='ad_sharebox_260x60'> </div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><div itemprop='articleBody' class='articleBody'><br /><p>JERUSALEM (RNS) A famously child-friendly country with a federally subsidized universal health care system that offers free fertility treatments, Israel has made it easier for economically distressed women to obtain an abortion.</p><br /><p>The 2014 “health basket” of medical services and medications approved by Israel’s cabinet Sunday (Jan. 5) includes free abortions for Israeli women aged 20 to 33, regardless of the circumstances.</p><br /><p>The $4.6 million earmarked by the Health Ministry committee will cover some 6,300 abortions for women who cannot afford the procedure.</p><br /><p>In 2013, almost 20,000 women received permission to abort from hospital termination committees, according to Efrat, an organization that encourages women considering abortion to have their babies.</p><br /><p>Until now, government-funded abortions have been reserved for women younger than 19 or older than 40, and in cases where the fetus has a severe defect, the mother’s life is endangered, or the pregnancy is a result of sexual abuse. If a woman believed the pregnancy would cause her harm, physically or emotionally, she had had to pay for the procedure herself.</p><br /><p>Ruth Tidhar, who heads Efrat’s assistance department, said that in a country like Israel, where mothers receive paid maternity leave and preschool education is heavily subsidized, “it gives a mixed message when contraceptives aren’t funded by the government while abortions are.”</p><br /><p>Judaism does not share the Roman Catholic belief that life begins at conception, but various Jewish streams have a range of opinions on the issue. The one thing most Jews agree on: That abortion is always permissible if the mother’s life is in danger.</p><br /><div class='ad_wrapper' id='ad_mid_article'> </div><br /><p>Rabbi David Stav, the head of Tzohar, a modern-Orthodox rabbinical organization, criticized the new abortion guidelines.</p><br /><p>In a TV interview on Arutz Sheva, Stav said it is “immoral” for the state to fund abortions that result from a mother’s “personal decisions” rather than serious medical problems.</p><br /><p>“The state (will be) allocating resources for personal decisions,” said Stav that are “forbidden by Jewish law.”</p><br /><p>== ==</p><br /><p>Copyright 2014 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be reproduced without written permission.</p><br /><p><em><strong>Correction: An earlier headline mistakenly stated that free abortions would be offered to women between the ages of 20 and 30.</strong> </em> </p><br /><div class='promo_holder clearfix'> </div><br /></div><br /><div class='clear'> </div><br /><div><br /><div class='clear'> </div><br /><div class='contribute-story clearfix' id='submissions_shortcuts'><br /><ul><br /><li class='title bold'>Contribute to this Story:</li><br /><li class='no_border'>Send us a tip</li><br /><li>Send us a photo or video</li><br /><li>Suggest a correction</li><br /></ul><br /></div><br /><div class='clear'> </div><br /></div><br /></div>

Israel Offers Free Abortions To Women Between 20 And 33 - Huffington Post

JERUSALEM (RNS) A famously child-friendly country with a federally subsidized universal health care system that offers free fertility treat...

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Amid Abortion Debate, the Pursuit of Science - ProPublica

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div class='wNarrow article-deck'><br /><p>As the long, angry fight over abortion roars on, Tracy Weitz, a researcher in California, has quietly worked to gather reliable facts about the procedure and the women who choose to have it. A ProPublica Q & A.</p><br /></div><br /><div class='article'><br /><p>For the last decade or so, Tracy Weitz has been one of the most prominent abortion researchers in the United States.</p><br /><p>As director of the University of California at San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), part of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, she has co-authored seven studies in major journals in the past year alone, on topics ranging from how low-income women pay for abortions to why some women who want an abortion delay until it is too late.</p><br /><p>This summer, one of the studies she oversaw persuaded California lawmakers to allow trained non-doctors (nurse practitioners, certified midwives, physician assistants) to perform first-trimester abortions, possibly the biggest expansion of abortion access since the Food and Drug Administration approved the morning-after pill in 2000.</p><br /><p>Now, just as some of ANSIRH’s most ground-breaking work is starting to see the light of day, Weitz is leaving the world of clinical research. She has taken a job at an organization she declined to name but where she hopes her impact on women’s reproductive health issues will be broader and deeper.</p><br /><p>Weitz recently spoke with ProPublica’s Nina Martin. This conversation has been edited and amended for clarity and brevity.</p><br /><p class='c7'>* * *</p><br /><p><strong>NM: How did abortion become the main focus of your work? What is your background?</strong> </p><br /><p>TW: I’m a medical sociologist by training. I started off trying to figure out how to deliver health care services. I did that for many years as an administrator and was frustrated that we seemed to just be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I also have a real interest in policy and politics. Abortion for me has always been the natural place in which all of those things come together. It is a political issue. It is a social issue. It is a health care issue. It is a feminist issue.</p><br /><p><strong>NM: What are some of the main challenges to doing abortion research in this country?</strong> </p><br /><p>TW: The federal government has a prohibition on funding any research that involves abortion care. You cannot get funding from the National Institutes of Health to study, say, abortion techniques — how to make it safer. But this ban has been interpreted very, very broadly to preclude funding <em>anything</em> involving abortion, even a topic like women’s emotional responses. That has left the funding of research on abortion to the philanthropic community.</p><br /><p>Now, it’s very unusual for foundations to fund clinical research. It’s not historically what they do — research is the domain of government. But in the last 10 years, there’s been recognition in the philanthropic community that in order to make progress [on reproductive rights], whether culturally or politically or in the service-delivery arena, there are research questions that we need to answer.</p><br /><p>This [private funding] has opened up an enormous avenue for researchers who are interested in questions about abortion care, abortion policy, and abortion in American culture. But it comes with its own downside, which is that people are very suspect of research that is funded by organizations that have particular ideological agendas.</p><br /><p><strong>NM: As researchers, what kind of hurdles and antagonism do you face?</strong> </p><br /><p>TW: There’s definitely a difference between the social scientists who do the research and the MDs who actually do abortions. Abortion doctors have had assassinations, barricades and constant protesters. As researchers, our safety hasn’t really been in question.</p><br /><p>Most of the harassment comes at the level of trying to discount our academic reputation— suggesting that anyone who does abortion-related research who believes that abortion should be legal shouldn’t be trusted. That somehow our science is tainted, that we haven’t used good methods. That’s why we have a strong interest in being published in the peer-reviewed literature. We think that the science should be open to scrutiny. It should be put through the same kind of rigor that other clinical or social research is.</p><br /><p><strong>NM: Let’s talk about the</strong> <strong>study</strong> <strong>that has probably had the greatest impact so far: the one looking at whether trained non-doctors — nurses, midwives, physicians assistants — can safely perform vacuum-aspiration abortions in the first trimester. That study included nearly 20,000 patients throughout California — one of the largest studies on abortion ever done in the United States. The study had two key findings. First, it found almost no difference in complication rates in abortions done by doctors versus non-doctors. Second, the overall rate of complications for both groups was very low — much lower than abortion opponents claim. Has the study shed light on other abortion-related issues as well?</strong> </p><br /><p>TW: Yes. One has to do with hospital transfers [patients who require hospital care after having an abortion]. We were interested in this topic, of course, because it’s a category of complication, and you want to track it. But it wasn’t something we intended to focus on.</p><br /><p>Then states [including Texas] started passing new laws that require physicians who offer abortion care to have admitting privileges to hospitals. And we realized that, thanks to [the non-doctor] study, we had very good data showing that complications requiring transfers to hospitals are actually exceedingly rare.</p><br /><p>Of about 20,000 patients over several years, only four were directly transferred.</p><br /><p><strong>NW: There’s a second study I want to talk about, which is known as the</strong> <strong>Turnaway</strong><strong>Study</strong><strong>. It’s a long-term study looking at what happens when women who want an abortion can’t get one. They show up at a clinic too late and are turned away.</strong> </p><br /><p>TW: First some background. At the Bixby Center and ANSIRH, we are driven by three sets of issues and concerns. One is: How can care be best delivered? That’s the question underlying the non-physician study. We’re very interested in safety in general. Do you need to be in an ambulatory surgery center? Do you need to have a nurse who administers anesthesia? Which kinds of cervical preparations are safe and do the least damage to the cervix?</p><br /><p>Two, we care a lot about women’s experiences. We know that 1 in 3 women are going to have an abortion in their lifetime. And choosing to be a parent or not is a big decision. Whatever a woman decides, we want to know what can improve their outcomes. What do they need from their social networks and their friends? What are the long-term effects of silence and secrecy?</p><br /><p>The third area of interest is social inequities. Where is there uneven distribution of services, uneven distribution of economic outcomes?</p><br /><p>The Turnaway Study arose out of the second and third set of concerns. Abortion opponents have been pushing the idea that abortion hurts women, that they feel regret. With 1.3 million women having an abortion every year, it’s likely that a certain number do feel regret. That’s the natural curve of any kind of big decision. What we want to know is: Who are those women and what do they need?</p><br /><p>But another of our questions was: what happens to women who wanted an abortion but couldn’t get one? What happens to her economically, what happens to her psychologically, what happens to her other kids? That was the underlying question behind the Turnaway Study.</p><br /><p><strong>NM: Can you summarize the findings so far?</strong> </p><br /><p>TW: The take-home from that study is that most women are having an abortion because they say they can’t afford to have a child. And it turns out that they’re right: Two years later, women who had a baby they weren’t expecting to have, compared to the women who had the abortion they wanted, are three times more likely to be living in poverty. They knew they couldn’t afford a kid and it turns out they were correct.</p><br /><p><strong>NM: Can you give some specifics about how the study was designed?</strong> </p><br /><p>TW: The principal investigator is Diana Greene Foster, who was trained as a demographer. It is an eight-year study and includes about 30 abortion facilities in every region of the country. The sole criteria was that the clinic had to be isolated — it had to be the only one within 150 miles that was willing to do abortions up to whatever it set as its gestational limit [the latest point at which it will terminate a pregnancy]. So if a woman was turned away from that facility, she really had no other option. She probably was going to have that baby.</p><br /><p>We recruited about 1,000 women — that alone took us three years. About a quarter were women who had been turned away and had a baby they weren’t expecting. Approximately 500 were women who happened to be just under the gestational limit when they arrived at the clinic so were able to get the abortion they wanted. They were the comparison group.</p><br /><p>We also wanted to know if women receiving earlier abortions were somehow different. So the remaining participants — about 250 — are women who received first-trimester abortions.</p><br /><p>We followed the women every six months for five years — a phone interview with a very lengthy survey that includes every question we could think of about their mental health, their economic circumstances, using routine and standardized tools, so we have some basis for comparison. Everyone in the study has finished at least two years, and some women have completed their five years and are rolling off.</p><br /><p><strong>NM: What has been your most eye-opening finding?</strong> </p><br /><p>TW: The study has really exposed how hard it is to be a parent in this country. It is a huge economic investment. And if you don’t have the economic resources to be a parent, there’s nothing to help you.</p><br /><p>Data from the study is also helping to answer other questions for which we have no good research until now — for example, how women feel about mandatory ultrasounds before an abortion and what factors contribute to some women feeling regret afterwards.</p><br /><p><strong>NM: Finally, I want to talk about some preliminary research you presented at a conference last fall, looking at how state and federal courts view the kind of research you are working on.</strong> </p><br /><p>TW: ANSIRH was started specifically to ensure that health policy is grounded in evidence. Because many laws aimed at restricting abortion were ending up in the courts, I became interested in how judges were interpreting the science in their legal decisions. We focused on four abortion-related issues where the science is pretty clear — whether women are at risk for suicide after abortion, gestational bans based on the presumption that the fetus feels pain, ultrasound-viewing mandates, and medical abortion regimens.</p><br /><p>We looked through over a thousand documents — including lawsuits, briefs, rulings by courts at every level, the scientific studies that are referenced, the CVs of the medical experts whose work was cited. We analyzed not just the court decisions, but their language about the scientific claims, how expert knowledge is referenced, the quality of the research, whether the studies appeared in peer-reviewed journals — that kind of thing. We’ve really just scratched the surface — we had no idea how much there would be out there.</p><br /><p><strong>NM: What have you found?</strong> </p><br /><p>TW: There is no consistent standard for how science is or is not incorporated into the legal decisions. Across the decisions, the same scientific studies are adjudicated very differently. Overwhelmingly what we do see is political ideology substituted for objective standards in adjudicating scientific claims. We were very disheartened to find that many of the judicial decisions were discounting the science altogether. I think I was a little naive. I had this idea that the courts were more objective.</p><br /><p>Since I started this work, I’ve been intrigued to discover that there’s a whole body of criticism —a lot of it around climate change — over whether courts should have anything to do with science. When the D.C. federal court was set up, all the patent cases went there. There was a recognition that these issues were really complicated —more science-y — and you needed to have judges who had specific expertise to decide them. Now, whether they’re about environmental science or, in our case, health-related science, these cases are being spread out across multiple courts, and judges with absolutely no scientific training are being asked to make adjudications about science. Should we be training judges to review science? Should we be thinking about specialty courts with scientific expertise?</p><br /><p>One of the more troubling findings is the way that controversy has become a reason to discount science. There’s a great book called “Merchants of Doubt” [Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, Bloomsbury, 2011]. It’s about the production of scientific controversy as a way to discount legitimate scientific research and clear-cut consensus about tobacco or climate change, but it also applies to abortion. As the book points out, you don’t need to disprove science anymore. All you need to do is suggest that the science is actually in doubt. Courts will then look at and say, “It’s a controversy, so deference should go to the Legislature,” or “It’s a controversy, so we’ll do whatever we want.”</p><br /><p>A contributing problem is that, in the legal context, medical experts and scientists who do abortion or study abortion have been seen as suspect. Lisa Harris, at the University of Michigan, has written some great stuff on what she calls “The Legitimacy Paradox.” It goes like this: By virtue of doing an abortion, you’re not a real doctor. Therefore, real doctors don’t do abortions. Therefore, you have the right to regulate them because they’re not real doctors.</p><br /><p><strong>NM: That brings me to the last thing I want to talk about, which is the issue of stigmatization. That’s a major thread in your research and writings. Why is this issue is so important to you?</strong> </p><br /><p>TW: A stigma is a mark that makes you seen as morally suspect.It’s not just bad. It’s bigger than bad.</p><br /><p>In the abortion context, stigmatization means that your position on abortion says everything about you as a human being. To do abortion means that you are morally corrupt. The fact that you would have an abortion means you’re a different kind of person. And the consequences associated with disclosure — whether it’s “I support legal abortion,” “I do abortions,” “I’ve had an abortion” — now carry huge social weight. That leads to silence.</p><br /><p>Now, I’m a person who fundamentally believes in doing anything that I can to help women have their families when they want to have their families. If I can help her figure out how she gets the contraception she wants and she picks the partners she wants and she has the money she wants so that she never has to have an abortion, then I’ve been a success.</p><br /><p>But if she needs an abortion, she needs an abortion. And I’m there for her with that support. I’ve never met a woman who said, “It’s on my bucket list to have an abortion.”</p><br /><p>I want everyone to have every tool in their tool-box to be able to have a family, when and if they want to. Any of those strategies are legitimate strategies. That includes abortion.</p><br /><p class='follow_author_twitter c8'>Follow @byninamartin</p><br /></div><br /></div>

Amid Abortion Debate, the Pursuit of Science - ProPublica

As the long, angry fight over abortion roars on, Tracy Weitz, a researcher in California, has quietly worked to gather reliable facts about ...

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Abortion puts women at risk, and it's the government's job to protect them - Daily Caller

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p dir='ltr'>Imagine a product that has resulted in serious injury, infection, depression and even death. Imagine that millions of American women bought that product. Now imagine that the product is marketed by people who are unregulated, unmonitored and secretive.</p><br /><p dir='ltr'>One might expect public hearings, warning labels, and government inspectors to protect the women in harm’s way. But not if the product is abortion. Despite the scientific data and peer-reviewed medical evidence showing that abortion harms women, the abortion industry in the United States remains largely unregulated, unaccountable and exempt from the same government oversight given to comparable mainstream healthcare procedures.</p><br /><p dir='ltr'>Whether they find themselves in a Planned Parenthood clinic or in an independent abortion clinic, women face serious risks behind an abortionist’s closed doors, including:</p><br /><ul readability='7.65417690418'><br /><li readability='1.7880794702' dir='ltr'><br /><p dir='ltr'>Short-term risks such as blood loss, blood clots, infections such as pelvic inflammatory disease and cervical lacerations and other injuries to organs.</p><br /></li><br /><li readability='-1' dir='ltr'><br /><p dir='ltr'>Premature births in subsequent pregnancies.</p><br /></li><br /><li readability='-0.840425531915' dir='ltr'><br /><p dir='ltr'>Placenta previa which significantly increases in subsequent pregnancies from 30 to 50 percent.</p><br /></li><br /><li readability='6.3525' dir='ltr'><br /><p dir='ltr'>Mental health risks, such as those documented in a 2011 study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry which revealed that women face an 81 percent increased risk of mental health problems after abortion, such as increased risks of 34 percent for anxiety, 37 percent for depression, 110 percent for alcohol abuse, and 155 percent for suicide; increased risks associated with Late-term abortion.</p><br /></li><br /><li readability='0.893442622951' dir='ltr'><br /><p dir='ltr'>Breast cancer, where aborting a first pregnancy before 32 weeks eliminates the protective effect of a full-term pregnancy.</p><br /></li><br /></ul><br /><p dir='ltr'>Yet despite abortion’s risks, in 2013 only five states – Alabama, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia – regulated abortion clinics like they do mainstream ambulatory surgical centers. Veterinary clinics, tattoo parlors, tanning booths and beauty salons are regulated more heavily than abortion clinics.</p><br /><p dir='ltr'>Why then do abortion providers insist on operating their risky business in the shadows of mainstream healthcare, fighting commonsense regulations? The simple answer is economics. Abortion providers generate profits when they lower their costs by subjecting women to substandard care.</p><br /><p dir='ltr'>Philadelphia late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell, for example, made millions in his legal, unregulated clinic, yet he refused to spend money to sterilize his equipment or meet basic health and safety codes.</p><br /><p dir='ltr'>Kermit Gosnell is no aberration when it comes to abortion providers. Gosnell’s clinic represents what pro-abortion advocates have successfully hidden from the American people – substandard care for women who seek abortion.</p><br /><p dir='ltr'>Since 2009 alone, over 80 abortion providers in more than 25 states have faced investigations, criminal charges, civil lawsuits, administrative complaints, or been cited for violating abortion laws.</p><br /><p dir='ltr'>The fact is every year abortion harms women physically and emotionally, with some even dying inside America’s abortion clinics. Women like Karnamaya Mongar, a refugee camp survivor, and Tonya Reaves, a 24-year-old mother of a one-year old son, have died from abortions. Karnamaya Mongar bled to death in Kermit Gosnell’s unregulated clinic in part because the emergency entrance was chained shut and the hallways were too narrow to fit a stretcher. Tragically, it took emergency personnel over 20 minutes simply to transport Karnamaya out of the building. Tonya Reaves died following a visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic due to excessive bleeding from an incomplete abortion.</p><br /></div>

Abortion puts women at risk, and it's the government's job to protect them - Daily Caller

Imagine a product that has resulted in serious injury, infection, depression and even death. Imagine that millions of American women bought ...

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Shifting strategies for state abortion battles in 2014 - Politico

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p>Conservative states that ran into legal trouble passing some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation last year have shifted their approach for 2014: smaller instead of sweeping.</p><br /><p>Rather than bans that directly challenge <em>Roe v. Wade</em>, many states are again going for more incremental measures that address the physical space requirements of clinics, physicians’ qualifications and the use of certain procedures. The move is hardly a retreat, abortion opponents say, but rather a strategic decision that they expect could be nearly as effective in less time. Compared to broader moves, restrictions that are more narrowly drawn often pass judicial muster.</p><br /><p id='continue'>“I think the public understands the abortion bans,” said Gretchen Borchelt, director of state reproductive health policy at the National Women’s Law Center. “But they don’t understand how harmful things like regulation of clinics and restriction on medication abortion are to provider practice and to women’s access to abortion.”</p><br /><p>Efforts to limit abortion in various ways or at various stages have only accelerated in recent years. Clinics in numerous states have been forced to close, leaving women with few options and energizing abortion opponents.</p><br /><p>In 2013, the Arkansas Legislature made abortion illegal after 12 weeks, while North Dakota lawmakers prohibited it after six weeks — a point at which many women don’t even know they’re pregnant. Three states passed 20-week bans, also known as fetal pain laws, bringing to nine the number of states outlawing abortion midpregnancy.</p><br /><p>Yet courts subsequently blocked the first-trimester bans of North Dakota and Arkansas, legal fights continue over the bans in other states, and the movement to restrict abortions at 20 weeks — on the grounds that a fetus at that stage of development feels pain — remains highly controversial. Because of those crosscurrents, strategies are evolving. Both sides expect their upcoming encounters to be fought as much over step-by-step actions as big, dramatic approaches.</p><br /><p>Developments are certain in state legislatures, the courts and even at the ballot box, a triple front that has many abortion-rights advocates braced. The issue could also factor again into local and congressional political campaigns.</p><br /><p>Some approaches will push into different territory, including a Colorado proposal that asks voters to consider an embryo or fetus a separate legal “person” under the state’s constitution in acts of violence against women. This differs from other “personhood” initiatives, which thus far have failed to pass in at least 10 states; its intent is to protect a woman and her unborn fetus by recognizing the fetus as a second victim should she miscarry because of a criminal act. But abortion-rights advocates say the language, backed by a national “personhood movement,” does nothing to discourage violence against women and only complicates such cases.</p><br /><p>And a North Dakota measure appearing on the ballot in November takes the concept a major step further, giving an embryo legal rights under any circumstance from the moment of conception. It would outlaw almost all abortions and some forms of birth control. Critics say it would also restrict fertility treatment and stem cell research.</p><br /><p>More commonly, however, upcoming efforts will focus on regulations. Their underlying intent, abortion-rights advocates charge, is to systematically end abortions. Abortion opponents counter that the procedure and the places that perform it warrant greater scrutiny to ensure women’s safety.</p><br /><p>“This past year was a real watershed moment,” said Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life. The public became increasingly concerned about abortion providers being “out of control” and in need of greater regulation, Yoest said, particularly after the trial and conviction of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell.</p><br /><p>A report just released by the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks reproductive health issues, reflects how that concern was manifested. Nearly two dozen states enacted 70 abortion restrictions during 2013, the second-highest annual total ever, according to the report.</p><br /><div class='story-wrapper story-text p-content resize'><br /><p>Texas may continue to be a key test case in 2014. About a dozen clinics have shut since a law took effect there in October requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. The law also says doctors must be physically present when administering a medication abortion and must follow the FDA-approved protocol for the procedure, which entails a two-day administration with follow-up visit, rather than use a different protocol based on more recent medical evidence that many physicians favor. Medication abortions use drugs, not surgery, to terminate a pregnancy.</p><br /><p>After a district court judge blocked the admitting privileges requirement and limited the other conditions, the state successfully appealed. In an unusual move, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed both provisions to stand while the case is argued further. The U.S. Supreme Court denied an emergency request by abortion rights advocates to stop enforcement in the interim.</p><br /><p id='continue'>Those judicial decisions have affected women throughout Texas, particularly in rural areas, according to Terri Burke, the American Civil Liberties Union’s state director. Some 9 million women are now hundreds of miles from a facility that performs an abortion, she said, and medication abortions have almost been eliminated statewide.</p><br /><p>The 5th Circuit heard the case Monday, and it’s likely to uphold the statute, said law professor Caitlin Borgmann of City University of New York. Borgmann, who has worked extensively on reproductive rights, expects the case ultimately to go before the Supreme Court.</p><br /><p>At each level, the outcome would have repercussions well beyond Texas. Admitting privileges were also tightened last year in Alabama, Mississippi, North Dakota and Wisconsin, although the restrictions were subsequently blocked in all four states. And tougher clinic regulations were passed in Alabama, Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia.</p><br /><p>Other states seem poised to follow suit in 2014, and advocates say that several have expressed interest in legislation restricting medication abortions.</p><br /><p>West Virginia’s attorney general has launched an investigation into the state’s abortion regulations, which suggests that regulation is on the horizon, Borchelt said. Florida’s Legislature has repeatedly considered measures to limit who can own an abortion clinic, among other regulations, and Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager for the Guttmacher Institute, anticipates that pent-up support may push one of those bills forward this year. Across the border in Georgia, the Right to Life affiliate there has published a several-hundred-page document on abortion regulations — a likely harbinger of forthcoming legislative proposals.</p><br /><p>Some of the impetus for increased regulation comes from the case involving Gosnell, who in May was found guilty of first-degree murder for the deaths of three infants delivered during late-term abortions and then killed. Atrocious conditions were uncovered at his clinic, including bloody floors and nonsterile equipment.</p><br /><p>In the case’s aftermath, Americans United for Life added a new enforcement module to its annual package of model legislation<em>.</em> It’s “a way to empower communities to take action if the political environment has allowed a house of horrors to go unregulated” or existing regulations have been inadequately enforced, Yoest said.</p><br /><p>Abortion bans may continue to advance in 2014, but most will aim for a 20-week cutoff rather than any earlier point in a pregnancy, both sides predict. A dozen states have passed such laws, although those in Arizona and Georgia have been blocked and Idaho’s was ruled unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court is to decide in January whether to review Arizona’s law. The unsettled legal situation doesn’t seem to be discouraging the handful of states already known to be considering 20-week bans.</p><br /><p>“For us, that’s the focus and the goal. It’s keeping the eye on the prize,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a national organization that opposes abortion. Dannenfelser points to Florida, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as primed for successful action.</p><br /><p>Yet anti-abortion groups aren’t the only ones trying to turn their ideas into policy. Organizations that support abortion rights say the energy and outrage that emerged after Texas Sen. Wendy Davis filibustered to stop that state’s recent law is fueling proactive efforts elsewhere.</p><br /><p>California subsequently passed two laws expanding access to abortion this fall, including a bill that permits nonphysician health care providers to administer first-trimester aspiration abortions, which involve the use of a tube and suction.</p><br /><p>And Pennsylvania lawmakers have introduced a package of legislation promoting women’s health and well-being. One bill would create a 15-foot buffer zone around facilities where abortions are performed.</p><br /><p>“People are tired of the news constantly being about the restrictions that are moving forward,” said Kelly Baden, policy and advocacy adviser for the Center for Reproductive Rights. “People are really reaching their tipping point and are ready to change the conversation.”</p><br /></div><br /></div>

Shifting strategies for state abortion battles in 2014 - Politico

Conservative states that ran into legal trouble passing some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation last year have shifted thei...

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Shifting strategies for state abortion battles in 2014 - Politico

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p>Conservative states that ran into legal trouble passing some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation last year have shifted their approach for 2014: smaller instead of sweeping.</p><br /><p>Rather than bans that directly challenge <em>Roe v. Wade</em>, many states are again going for more incremental measures that address the physical space requirements of clinics, physicians’ qualifications and the use of certain procedures. The move is hardly a retreat, abortion opponents say, but rather a strategic decision that they expect could be nearly as effective in less time. Compared to broader moves, restrictions that are more narrowly drawn often pass judicial muster.</p><br /><p id='continue'>“I think the public understands the abortion bans,” said Gretchen Borchelt, director of state reproductive health policy at the National Women’s Law Center. “But they don’t understand how harmful things like regulation of clinics and restriction on medication abortion are to provider practice and to women’s access to abortion.”</p><br /><p>Efforts to limit abortion in various ways or at various stages have only accelerated in recent years. Clinics in numerous states have been forced to close, leaving women with few options and energizing abortion opponents.</p><br /><p>In 2013, the Arkansas Legislature made abortion illegal after 12 weeks, while North Dakota lawmakers prohibited it after six weeks — a point at which many women don’t even know they’re pregnant. Three states passed 20-week bans, also known as fetal pain laws, bringing to nine the number of states outlawing abortion midpregnancy.</p><br /><p>Yet courts subsequently blocked the first-trimester bans of North Dakota and Arkansas, legal fights continue over the bans in other states, and the movement to restrict abortions at 20 weeks — on the grounds that a fetus at that stage of development feels pain — remains highly controversial. Because of those crosscurrents, strategies are evolving. Both sides expect their upcoming encounters to be fought as much over step-by-step actions as big, dramatic approaches.</p><br /><p>Developments are certain in state legislatures, the courts and even at the ballot box, a triple front that has many abortion-rights advocates braced. The issue could also factor again into local and congressional political campaigns.</p><br /><p>Some approaches will push into different territory, including a Colorado proposal that asks voters to consider an embryo or fetus a separate legal “person” under the state’s constitution in acts of violence against women. This differs from other “personhood” initiatives, which thus far have failed to pass in at least 10 states; its intent is to protect a woman and her unborn fetus by recognizing the fetus as a second victim should she miscarry because of a criminal act. But abortion-rights advocates say the language, backed by a national “personhood movement,” does nothing to discourage violence against women and only complicates such cases.</p><br /><p>And a North Dakota measure appearing on the ballot in November takes the concept a major step further, giving an embryo legal rights under any circumstance from the moment of conception. It would outlaw almost all abortions and some forms of birth control. Critics say it would also restrict fertility treatment and stem cell research.</p><br /><p>More commonly, however, upcoming efforts will focus on regulations. Their underlying intent, abortion-rights advocates charge, is to systematically end abortions. Abortion opponents counter that the procedure and the places that perform it warrant greater scrutiny to ensure women’s safety.</p><br /><p>“This past year was a real watershed moment,” said Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life. The public became increasingly concerned about abortion providers being “out of control” and in need of greater regulation, Yoest said, particularly after the trial and conviction of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell.</p><br /><p>A report just released by the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks reproductive health issues, reflects how that concern was manifested. Nearly two dozen states enacted 70 abortion restrictions during 2013, the second-highest annual total ever, according to the report.</p><br /><div class='story-wrapper story-text p-content resize'><br /><p>Texas may continue to be a key test case in 2014. About a dozen clinics have shut since a law took effect there in October requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. The law also says doctors must be physically present when administering a medication abortion and must follow the FDA-approved protocol for the procedure, which entails a two-day administration with follow-up visit, rather than use a different protocol based on more recent medical evidence that many physicians favor. Medication abortions use drugs, not surgery, to terminate a pregnancy.</p><br /><p>After a district court judge blocked the admitting privileges requirement and limited the other conditions, the state successfully appealed. In an unusual move, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed both provisions to stand while the case is argued further. The U.S. Supreme Court denied an emergency request by abortion rights advocates to stop enforcement in the interim.</p><br /><p id='continue'>Those judicial decisions have affected women throughout Texas, particularly in rural areas, according to Terri Burke, the American Civil Liberties Union’s state director. Some 9 million women are now hundreds of miles from a facility that performs an abortion, she said, and medication abortions have almost been eliminated statewide.</p><br /><p>The 5th Circuit heard the case Monday, and it’s likely to uphold the statute, said law professor Caitlin Borgmann of City University of New York. Borgmann, who has worked extensively on reproductive rights, expects the case ultimately to go before the Supreme Court.</p><br /><p>At each level, the outcome would have repercussions well beyond Texas. Admitting privileges were also tightened last year in Alabama, Mississippi, North Dakota and Wisconsin, although the restrictions were subsequently blocked in all four states. And tougher clinic regulations were passed in Alabama, Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia.</p><br /><p>Other states seem poised to follow suit in 2014, and advocates say that several have expressed interest in legislation restricting medication abortions.</p><br /><p>West Virginia’s attorney general has launched an investigation into the state’s abortion regulations, which suggests that regulation is on the horizon, Borchelt said. Florida’s Legislature has repeatedly considered measures to limit who can own an abortion clinic, among other regulations, and Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager for the Guttmacher Institute, anticipates that pent-up support may push one of those bills forward this year. Across the border in Georgia, the Right to Life affiliate there has published a several-hundred-page document on abortion regulations — a likely harbinger of forthcoming legislative proposals.</p><br /><p>Some of the impetus for increased regulation comes from the case involving Gosnell, who in May was found guilty of first-degree murder for the deaths of three infants delivered during late-term abortions and then killed. Atrocious conditions were uncovered at his clinic, including bloody floors and nonsterile equipment.</p><br /><p>In the case’s aftermath, Americans United for Life added a new enforcement module to its annual package of model legislation<em>.</em> It’s “a way to empower communities to take action if the political environment has allowed a house of horrors to go unregulated” or existing regulations have been inadequately enforced, Yoest said.</p><br /><p>Abortion bans may continue to advance in 2014, but most will aim for a 20-week cutoff rather than any earlier point in a pregnancy, both sides predict. A dozen states have passed such laws, although those in Arizona and Georgia have been blocked and Idaho’s was ruled unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court is to decide in January whether to review Arizona’s law. The unsettled legal situation doesn’t seem to be discouraging the handful of states already known to be considering 20-week bans.</p><br /><p>“For us, that’s the focus and the goal. It’s keeping the eye on the prize,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a national organization that opposes abortion. Dannenfelser points to Florida, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as primed for successful action.</p><br /><p>Yet anti-abortion groups aren’t the only ones trying to turn their ideas into policy. Organizations that support abortion rights say the energy and outrage that emerged after Texas Sen. Wendy Davis filibustered to stop that state’s recent law is fueling proactive efforts elsewhere.</p><br /><p>California subsequently passed two laws expanding access to abortion this fall, including a bill that permits nonphysician health care providers to administer first-trimester aspiration abortions, which involve the use of a tube and suction.</p><br /><p>And Pennsylvania lawmakers have introduced a package of legislation promoting women’s health and well-being. One bill would create a 15-foot buffer zone around facilities where abortions are performed.</p><br /><p>“People are tired of the news constantly being about the restrictions that are moving forward,” said Kelly Baden, policy and advocacy adviser for the Center for Reproductive Rights. “People are really reaching their tipping point and are ready to change the conversation.”</p><br /></div><br /></div>

Shifting strategies for state abortion battles in 2014 - Politico

Conservative states that ran into legal trouble passing some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation last year have shifted thei...

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Federal appeals court to review Texas abortion law - USA TODAY

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'/>

Federal appeals court to review Texas abortion law - USA TODAY

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CROUSE: A growing tilt against abortion - Washington Times

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p>In a just-released report from the Guttmacher Institute, more pro-life laws have passed in various states over the past three years than during the entire previous decade. State legislatures enacted 205 abortion restrictions from 2011 to 2013, contrasted with the 189 provisions enacted during the entire previous decade.</p><br /><p>Guttmacher laments, “This legislative onslaught has dramatically changed the landscape for women needing abortion.” Indeed, abortions are at historic lows. Further, public opinion has changed dramatically. According to Gallup, in 1996 more than half of Americans self-identified as pro-choice, compared to 33 percent who claimed to be pro-life. By 2013, pro-lifers exceeded the number of pro-choicers, 48 percent to 45 percent.</p><br /><p>Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life, the legal arm of the pro-life movement, explained, “There is a movement afoot in our country today to hold the abortion industry accountable for their abuses.” Ms. Yoest cited pro-life accomplishments: “This past year, we saw a notorious abortionist convicted of infanticide and manslaughter. We saw an unprecedented number of abortion clinics closed. We saw Texas pass an omnibus pro-life bill against virulent opposition and a high-profile filibuster. We saw the first-in-the-nation ban on abortions for genetic abnormalities and sex of the unborn baby.”</p><br /><p>Clearly, the relatively small pro-life organizations are winning the hearts of the American public — and its legislators — over the giant abortion industry and its powerful allies in the government and the media, and among the elites.</p><br /><p>Penny Young Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, calls abortion “the seminal human rights issue of our time” and notes that since 1973, “the deaths of more than 54 million unborn children have been reported in the United States alone. Every year, approximately 1.21 million more unborn children will be aborted. And nearly 4,000 abortions are performed daily, as reported by National Right to Life. This is an injustice which must end.”</p><br /><p>Americans agree and worked at the national and state level to see changes in legislation across the nation. During 2013, 70 abortion restrictions were enacted in 22 states. They also pushed forward on the political front. Guttmacher lamented, “In addition, the 2012 elections brought changes to the legislature in Arkansas and the governor’s mansion in North Carolina that created environments more hostile to abortion; after adopting no abortion restrictions in 2012, these two states together enacted 13 new restrictions in 2013.”</p><br /><p>The legislative strategies of the pro-life movement — focusing on restricting access to the procedure — are effective. Guttmacher identified four specific restrictions that “dominated the legislative scene during 2013: abortion bans, restrictions on abortion providers, limitations on the provision of medication abortion and restrictions on coverage of abortion in private health plans.” The institute further noted, “Together, legislation in these four categories accounted for 56 percent of all restrictions enacted over the year. States also adopted a wide range of other major abortion restrictions in 2013, including those on parental involvement, public funding for abortion, waiting periods and counseling, and ultrasound.”</p><br /><p>While the abortion restrictions are reasonable, desirable and reflect common sense and due caution in regard to girls’ and women’s health and well-being, Guttmacher is troubled that “more states are hostile to abortion.” In 2000, they report, only 13 states had abortion restrictions that they considered “hostile to abortion rights,” but by 2013, that number had increased to 27 states. Equally troubling to Guttmacher is the fact that the number of “middle-ground states was cut in half, from 20 to 10.” The most troubling factor to the pro-abortion forces, though, is the fact that the proportion of women living where abortion is readily available is dropping. Guttmacher reported, “The proportion of women living in restrictive states went from 31 percent to 56 percent, while the proportion living in supportive states fell from 40 percent to 31 percent over the same period.”</p><br /><p>Appallingly, the supposedly pro-woman Guttmacher Institute praised California — the only state in more than seven years to pass a new state law to expand access to abortion — for “expanding the types of providers permitted to perform either medication or surgical abortions.” California now allows physician assistants, certified nurse midwives and nurse practitioners to provide abortions during the first trimester — a move that will certainly put California girls and women at risk.</p><br /><p>Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, who is not pro-life, talked about the changing attitudes toward abortion on the Fox News Channel as the “story of the year, culturally.” He explained why the nation has become more pro-life. “The fact that people are becoming aware of how late-term abortions are so near to infanticide. And also how the new technology and the ultrasounds are giving people awareness of how much an infant has developed in the womb. So the movement has stopped, and I think reversed, especially among young people.”</p><br /><p>Guttmacher is right: The abortion landscape has dramatically changed. Mr. Krauthammer is also right: It was the story of the year for 2013.</p><br /><p><em>Janice Shaw Crouse, is executive director and senior fellow, Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute.</em> </p><br /></div>

CROUSE: A growing tilt against abortion - Washington Times

In a just-released report from the Guttmacher Institute, more pro-life laws have passed in various states over the past three years than dur...

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Glenn Grothman rips Democrats, questions GOP on abortion bills - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p><strong>Madison</strong> — Heating up his rhetoric on a frigid Monday, a Republican backer of two abortion bills tried to thaw out the frozen legislation by attacking Democrats and insisting he could still win over own party on the measures.</p><br /><p>But though Sen. Glenn Grothman of West Bend traded sharp words Monday with Democratic opponents of the bills, his efforts produced no immediate movement on the proposals. The bills have passed the state Assembly but, with only three months remaining in the legislative session, they remain stuck in the state Senate controlled by Grothman's fellow Republicans.</p><br /><p>An aide to Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) made clear Monday that the bills were not being taken up quickly and may not pass at all this session.</p><br /><p>Dan Romportl, Fitzgerald's chief of staff, pointed to another proposal requiring abortion doctors to have hospital admitting privileges that passed the Legislature last summer and became law, only to be blocked by a federal judge in an ongoing lawsuit.</p><br /><p>"I don't know that the support is necessarily there. Some GOP senators have expressed reservations about doing additional pro-life bills while the (admitting privileges) bill is tied up in court," Romportl said in an email Monday.</p><br /><p>The first of the two bills would ban abortions that are chosen based on the sex of the fetus. The other would ban public workers' health plans from covering abortions and would exempt religious organizations from having to cover contraception in their employees' insurance plans.</p><br /><p>A third proposal with a lower profile would create anti-abortion license plates. All three pieces of legislation have passed the Assembly, where Republicans have a commanding 60-39 majority, and are awaiting action in the Senate, where Democrats oppose the bills and Republicans have an 18-15 majority that gives them only one GOP vote to spare.</p><br /><p>Senate Republicans had planned to take up the first two bills in November but backed off after Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) said bringing the bills to the floor would result in "all-out hell."</p><br /><p>In a pair of interviews Monday, Grothman said the bills could pass but clarified that he wasn't disagreeing with Fitzgerald over whether the bills had Republican support. He said GOP senators are worried that the news media would make it seem that Republicans were fixated on social issues.</p><br /><p>"We're both right," Grothman said of himself and Fitzgerald. "There are people (among the Senate Republicans) who don't want to vote on that issue...But if that bill comes to floor they'll all vote for it."</p><br /><p>Grothman directed his anger Monday at outspoken Democratic opponents of the bills such as Erpenbach and Senate Minority Leader Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee), charging them with condoning sex-selective abortions as practiced in some Asian countries.</p><br /><p>"If one would have told me, even 15 years ago, that it would become mainstream Democrat thinking to bring China's sex-selective abortion policies to our shores, I would have never believed them," he said.</p><br /><p>Larson dismissed Grothman's criticisms as baseless.</p><br /><p>"They're focusing on make-believe problems when we have plenty of real problems that aren't being addressed," Larson said of Republicans.</p><br /><p>In a statement, Erpenbach declined to comment on most of Grothman's assertions, calling them "ridiculous."</p><br /><p>"As for the process, he should direct his frustration to those that actually schedule bills for floor: Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Senate President Mike Ellis," Erpenbach said.</p><br /><p>Julaine Appling, head of Wisconsin Family Action, said she believed the bills had enough GOP votes to pass but didn't provide a vote count.</p><br /><p>"We're hopeful that the Senate leadership will get them through the legislative process and get them to the governor in a timely fashion," Appling said.</p><br /><p>Appling said she believes Walker would sign the bills but had no comment on how hard the GOP governor is pushing for the legislation.</p><br /><p>Walker has said repeatedly that the abortion bills are not his priority, and spokesman Tom Evenson repeated that Monday.</p><br /><p>"Governor Walker's focus will continue to be on job creation, worker training and economic development." Evenson said.</p><br /><p>For her part, √Jenni Dye, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin, made clear her group would continue to make stopping the bills a priority.</p><br /><p>"If Senator Grothman is sincerely interested in addressing discrimination, he should be supporting policies that unify — not divide — our state, without taking away any woman's right to make her own personal, private medical decisions," she said Monday</p><br /></div>

Glenn Grothman rips Democrats, questions GOP on abortion bills - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Madison — Heating up his rhetoric on a frigid Monday, a Republican backer of two abortion bills tried to thaw out the frozen legislation by...

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Federal Appeals Court Reviews Texas Abortion Law - ABC News

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div class='media_empty'> </div><br /><div class='partnerlogo' id='wirelogo'><img alt="Associated Press" border="0" src="http://a.abcnews.com/assets/images/logo/AP_logo_update_20130709.gif"/> </div><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'> </p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>A federal appeals court heard arguments Monday on whether the state of Texas can enforce a law that led to the closing of several abortion clinics, a case that ultimately appears bound for the U.S. Supreme Court.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans didn't indicate how soon it would rule on whether a district judge erred in declaring parts of the 2013 law unconstitutional.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights sued to block two of the law's provisions. One requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges within 30 miles of where the abortion is performed. The other restricts how doctors administer abortion-inducing drugs.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>The groups say U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel correctly ruled in October that the provisions place an unconstitutional burden on women's access to abortion. But the state argues that the new requirements promote the health and safety of abortion patients and advance the state's "interest in protecting fetal life."</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>An Oct. 31 ruling by the 5th Circuit allowed Texas to enforce the law while it appealed the decision. Judges Jennifer Walker Elrod and Catharina Haynes, two of the three judges on the panel that stayed Yeakel's ruling, also heard Monday's arguments.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>More than a dozen Texas abortion clinics closed after the law took effect, but some have since reopened, according to the groups opposed to the law.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>Janet Crepps, a New York-based lawyer for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the Rio Grande Valley had two abortion providers before the law took effect and currently has none.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>"Women are now forced to travel 150 (miles) or a 300-mile-round trip," she said.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>5th Circuit Judge Edith Jones, however, questioned whether a drive of that length truly places an undue burden on women seeking an abortion.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell said the groups had no way of knowing how clinics would be affected by the law before it took effect. Jones and Haynes also cast doubt on the groups' forecast that the privileges requirement would force at least one-third of the state's abortion clinics to close, denying more than 20,000 women access to an abortion annually.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>"Predicting the future is hard," Haynes said. "Addressing the past is far more straightforward."</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>The law's supporters also accuse its opponents of overstating how many abortion providers are affected by the admitting-privileges provision.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>"The Supreme Court allows states to regulate abortion to ensure women have all the information they need to make an informed decision and to make sure it's done in a safe manner," said Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, said outside the courtroom after the hearing. "That's all this law does."</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>Haynes pressed Mitchell to explain why lawmakers settled on 30 miles as the "magic" distance in the admitting-privileges provision.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>"In a state the size of Texas, 30 miles seems a little bit short," she said.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>"Their burden is to show that the 30-mile radius is unconstitutionally burdensome anywhere in the state," Mitchell said of the law's opponents. "And they have not met that burden here."</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>Haynes also questioned whether a lack of abortion providers in Texas is tied to the 2013 law or results from unrelated factors.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>Crepps said many doctors who have hospital admitting privileges choose not to provide abortions because they are "rightfully afraid of the violence and harassment" that other providers have faced.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>In November, the groups challenging the new provisions asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the 5th Circuit's stay of Yeakel's ruling. The high court rejected the request in a 5-4 opinion. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the minority opinion that he believes at least four justices will vote to hear the case no matter how the 5th Circuit ultimate rules.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>The 2013 law also requires abortion providers to follow a U.S. Food and Drug Administration protocol in administering abortion-inducing drugs. The FDA protocol limits the use of the drugs to the first 49 days after a woman's last menstrual period, but many doctors have developed an "off-label" protocol that permits a drug-induced abortion up to 63 days after the last menstrual period.</p><br /><p itemprop='articleBody'>"Abortion doctors do not have a constitutional right to second-guess the FDA's judgment," Mitchell argued.</p><br /><div class='clearboth'> </div><br /></div>

Federal Appeals Court Reviews Texas Abortion Law - ABC News

A federal appeals court heard arguments Monday on whether the state of Texas can enforce a law that led to the closing of several abortio...

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Texas Anti-Abortion Law Forces Women To Make Tough Choices - Huffington Post

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><div class='margin_bottom_10 clearfix relative'><img alt="texas anti abortion law" class="pinit" id="img_caption_4546753" src="http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1545155/thumbs/n-TEXAS-CAPITOL-BUILDING-large570.jpg" width="570"/><br /><div class='absolute image-credit arial_11'>David H. Lewis via Getty Images</div><br /></div><br /><div class='entry_body_text'><br /><div class='float_left'><br /><div class='ad_share_box hidden'><br /><div class='ad_wrapper' id='ad_sharebox_260x60'> </div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><p><big><strong><i>Al Jazeera</i>:</strong> </big> </p><br /><div itemprop='articleBody' class='articleBody'><br /><p>When Hannah Roe Beck, a 21-year-old student at the University of Texas at San Antonio, volunteers for the Lilith Fund hotline, she has $1,080 per shift to allocate as she sees fit. A nonprofit organization that provides cash assistance for women seeking abortions in South Texas, the Lilith Fund is typically able to fund only about a third of the women who call for help. So every shift involves difficult choices. Beck usually allocates about $75 to each caller she can help; she could give up to $200, but that's very rare. She gets roughly 25 calls per six-hour shift, and she has to turn down some women.</p><br /><p><strong>Read the whole story at <i>Al Jazeera</i> </strong> </p><br /><div class='promo_holder clearfix'> </div><br /></div><br /><div class='clear'> </div><br /><div><br /><div class='clear'> </div><br /><div class='contribute-story clearfix' id='submissions_shortcuts'><br /><ul><br /><li class='title bold'>Contribute to this Story:</li><br /><li class='no_border'>Send us a tip</li><br /><li>Send us a photo or video</li><br /><li>Suggest a correction</li><br /></ul><br /></div><br /><div class='clear'> </div><br /></div><br /></div><br /></div>

Texas Anti-Abortion Law Forces Women To Make Tough Choices - Huffington Post

David H. Lewis via Getty Images Al Jazeera : When Hannah Roe Beck, a 21-year-old student at the University of Texas at San Antonio, volun...

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Texas Seeks to Revive Abortion Law as Clinics Cut Service - Bloomberg

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Texas Seeks to Revive Abortion Law as Clinics Cut Service - Bloomberg

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With pro-life rally plans, RNC delivers big statement on abortion - Washington Times

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p><strong>EXCLUSIVE:</strong> </p><br /><p>In an unprecedented show of opposition to abortion, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is delaying the start of the party’s annual winter meeting so he and other committee members can join the March for Life on the Mall, The Washington Times has learned.</p><br /><p>Mr. Priebus, a plain-spoken Greek Orthodox lawyer from Wisconsin, will join members of his party’s national committee and thousands of other abortion opponents in the annual right-to-life march scheduled for Jan. 22, the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that declared abortion a constitutional right.</p><br /><p>“I saw that there was a real interest among a significant portion of our members to attend and support the Rally for Life,” Mr. Priebus said in an email to The Times. “This is a core principle of our party. It was natural for me to support our members and our principles.”</p><br /><p>Mr. Priebus, in his second term as elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, chose to delay the start of the four-day winter meeting of the GOP governing body, also scheduled in Washington, to allow himself and RNC members to attend the march. The delay is unprecedented for a major U.S. political party, several state Republican Party chairmen and other RNC members said in telephone interviews.</p><br /><p>Mr. Priebus also decided that the RNC will charter a bus to and from the march for those among the RNC’s 168 members who wish to attend, he said.</p><br /><p>“I will attend the March for Life and am making a few simple modifications of the schedule and ensuring that the members have safe and adequate transportation to and from the rally,” he said in his email.</p><br /><p>In an email circulated among other members, Alaska RNC member Debbie Joslin said, “I have served under a number of chairmen and not one of them ever made any opportunity for us to attend the March for Life, and they always scheduled critical meetings for the same time as the March for Life. Big thanks to Reince for standing up for the unborn!”</p><br /><p>The chairman’s action is an example of the increasingly bottom-up instead of top-down way the RNC functions.</p><br /><p>On paper, the RNC is quite democratic in structure — it is made up of an elected state party chairman and an elected committee man and a committee woman from each of the 50 states and five U.S. territories. But for almost its entire history, the national chairman, in an informal alliance with the GOP congressional leadership and top fundraisers, has called the shots.</p><br /><p>But this act was different.</p><br /><p>“When Reince got wind of what members were planning on their own, he emailed that he would shift our RNC schedule so we could attend, and he offered that the RNC would get transportation for us,” Missouri GOP Chairman Ed Martin said.</p><br /><p>Oklahoma RNC member Carolyn McLarty, an evangelical Protestant, said the schedule change had its origins in an email reminder about the march from Virginia RNC member Kathy Hayden “about a week ago and that we could probably attend at least part of it prior to the start of the RNC meetings. … Things have snowballed from there.”</p><br /><p>She said West Virginia RNC member Melody Potter had “contacted the bus company and the emails started flying with members wanting to attend.”</p><br /><p>“I am pumped at the opportunity that we have as a party,” Mrs. Potter said. “There is nothing that we cannot accomplish together. We are Republican for a reason.”</p><br /></div>

With pro-life rally plans, RNC delivers big statement on abortion - Washington Times

EXCLUSIVE: In an unprecedented show of opposition to abortion, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is delaying the start ...

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GOP to make big statement on abortion - Washington Times

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p>In an unprecedented show of opposition to abortion, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is delaying the start of the party’s annual winter meeting so he and other committee members can join the March for Life on the Mall, The Washington Times has learned.</p><br /><p>Mr. Priebus, a plain-spoken Greek Orthodox lawyer from Wisconsin, will join members of his party’s national committee and thousands of other abortion opponents in the annual right-to-life march scheduled for Jan. 22, the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that declared abortion a constitutional right.</p><br /><p>“I saw that there was a real interest among a significant portion of our members to attend and support the Rally for Life,” Mr. Priebus said in an email to The Times. “This is a core principle of our party. It was natural for me to support our members and our principles.”</p><br /><p>Mr. Priebus, in his second term as elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, chose to delay the start of the four-day winter meeting of the GOP governing body, also scheduled in Washington, to allow himself and RNC members to attend the march. The delay is unprecedented for a major U.S. political party, several state Republican Party chairmen and other RNC members said in telephone interviews.</p><br /><p>Mr. Priebus also decided that the RNC will charter a bus to and from the march for those among the RNC’s 168 members who wish to attend, he said.</p><br /><p>“I will attend the March for Life and am making a few simple modifications of the schedule and ensuring that the members have safe and adequate transportation to and from the rally,” he said in his email.</p><br /><p>In an email circulated among other members, Alaska RNC member Debbie Joslin said, “I have served under a number of chairmen and not one of them ever made any opportunity for us to attend the March for Life, and they always scheduled critical meetings for the same time as the March for Life. Big thanks to Reince for standing up for the unborn!”</p><br /><p>The chairman’s action is an example of the increasingly bottom-up instead of top-down way the RNC functions.</p><br /><p>On paper, the RNC is quite democratic in structure — it is made up of an elected state party chairman and an elected committee man and a committee woman from each of the 50 states and five U.S. territories. But for almost its entire history, the national chairman, in an informal alliance with the GOP congressional leadership and top fundraisers, has called the shots.</p><br /><p>But this act was different.</p><br /><p>“When Reince got wind of what members were planning on their own, he emailed that he would shift our RNC schedule so we could attend, and he offered that the RNC would get transportation for us,” Missouri GOP Chairman Ed Martin said.</p><br /><p>Oklahoma RNC member Carolyn McLarty, an evangelical Protestant, said the schedule change had its origins in an email reminder about the march from Virginia RNC member Kathy Hayden “about a week ago and that we could probably attend at least part of it prior to the start of the RNC meetings. … Things have snowballed from there.”</p><br /><p>She said West Virginia RNC member Melody Potter had “contacted the bus company and the emails started flying with members wanting to attend.”</p><br /><p>“I am pumped at the opportunity that we have as a party,” Mrs. Potter said. “There is nothing that we cannot accomplish together. We are Republican for a reason.”</p><br /><p>The March for Life is one of the biggest events of the year for social conservatives. Although neither the National Park Service nor any other government agency publicly releases estimates of such demonstrations and rallies, organizers said about 650,000 people marched last year.</p><br /><p>As testimony to the steady increase since the 1980s of social and religious conservatives — especially evangelical Protestants — in the Republican Party electoral coalition, House Speaker John A. Boehner, an Ohio Republican and a Catholic, addressed the rally last year.</p><br /><p>“It wasn’t easy for my mother to have 12 children, but I’m sure glad she did,” Mr. Boehner said. “So I’ve never considered ‘pro-life’ to be a label or a position. It’s who I am, and it’s who we are as a people.”</p><br /><p>The pro-life rally and march will run from noon to 1 p.m. with a warm-up event and concert in the hour before the rally begins its route up Constitution Avenue to the Supreme Court Building on Capitol Hill.</p><br /><p>Mr. Priebus made his decision after learning that about 20 members were planning to hire and share the cost of a bus to take them from the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Washington to the rally and back.</p><br /><p>Responses to the march from Mr. Priebus‘ predecessors have ranged from quiet opposition to pro-life language in the party’s platform to a public and determined effort by Haley Barbour to quash attempts to deny RNC financing to pro-choice GOP candidates.</p><br /><p>The Democratic National Committee platform has long featured a pro-choice plank supporting the 1973 Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion in all states and territories.</p><br /><p>“The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay,” its plank says.</p><br /><p>In vivid contrast, the Republican platform reads in part: “Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.”</p><br /><p>Some political observers see the American public in recent years moving in the pro-life direction.</p><br /><p>A Gallup poll in May of 1,535 adults found 48 percent saying they consider themselves pro-life and 45 percent pro-choice, with 5 percent saying they are unsure or don’t know what the terms mean. An April NBC/Wall Street Journal poll of 1,000 adults found 52 percent thinking abortion should be illegal under all or almost all circumstances.</p><br /><p>In a reflection of leanings on abortion by the press and the entertainment industry, 51 percent said they think most Americans are pro-choice.</p><br /><p>Not so in reality, according the conservative American Enterprise Institute’s resident scholar Karlyn Bowman. Over four decades, she writes, a variety of polls show “opinion about abortion is stable, it is also deeply ambivalent. Americans are at once pro-life and pro-choice.</p><br /><p>“On the one hand, substantial numbers tell the pollsters that abortion is an act of murder. On the other, they say that the decision to have an abortion should be a personal choice. … They believe in the sanctity of life and in the importance of individual choice.”</p><br /><p>Many major donors — considered vital to the party’s competitiveness in elections — historically have opposed the Republican Party’s embrace of an abortion ban because it would, they feared, alienate female voters, particularly the unmarried and young.</p><br /><p>Oregon RNC member Solomon Yue, a Methodist, doubts a backlash from wealthy contributors as a result of Mr. Priebus‘ actions.</p><br /><p>“Major donors might feel the RNC should not use party money to pay for buses,” Mr. Yue said. “But during the conservative steering committee conference call, members were talking about booking a bus and sharing the cost. If major donors complain about the bus cost, they will be viewed as petty.”</p><br /><p>The conservative movement — whose members usually vote Republican — generally retains its long-held view that someone can be a true conservative regardless of which side of the abortion issue is favored.</p><br /><p>Pro-life Republicans in general, however, often are less tolerant of their opposites on the issue, which is the mirror image of the pro-choice Democratic Party, whose pro-life members say they, too, often find themselves muzzled.</p><br /><p class='small'>© Copyright 2014 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.</p><br /></div>

GOP to make big statement on abortion - Washington Times

In an unprecedented show of opposition to abortion, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is delaying the start of the party...

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GOP to make big statement on abortion - Washington Times

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p>In an unprecedented show of opposition to abortion, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is delaying the start of the party’s annual winter meeting so he and other committee members can join the March for Life on the National Mall, The Washington Times has learned.</p><br /><p>Mr. Preibus, a plain-spoken Greek Orthodox attorney from Wisconsin, will join members of his party’s national committee and thousands of other abortion opponents in the annual right-to-life march scheduled for Jan. 22.</p><br /><p>“I saw that there was a real interest among a significant portion of our members to attend and support the Rally for Life,” Mr. Priebus said in an email to The Times. “This is a core principle of our party. It was natural for me to support our members and our principles.”</p><br /><p>Mr. Preibus, in his second term as the elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, chose to delay the start of the four-day annual winter meeting of the GOP’s governing body in order to allow himself and RNC members to attend the march. The delay is unprecedented for a major U.S. political party, several state GOP chairmen and other RNC members said in telephone interviews.</p><br /><p>Mr. Priebus also decided the RNC will charter a bus to and from the march for those among the RNC’s 168 members who wish to attend, he said.</p><br /><p>“I will attend the March for Life and am making a few simple modifications of the schedule and ensuring that the members have safe and adequate transportation to and from the rally,” he explained in his email.</p><br /><p>In an email circulated among other members, Alaska RNC member Debbie Joslin said, “I have served under a number of chairmen and not one of them ever made any opportunity for us to attend the March for Life, and they always scheduled critical meetings for the same time as the March for Life. Big thanks to Reince for standing up for the unborn!”</p><br /><p>The chairman’s action is an example of the increasingly bottom-up instead of top-down way the RNC functions.</p><br /><p>“When Reince got wind of what members were planning on their own, he e-mailed that he would shift our RNC schedule so we could attend, and he offered that the RNC would get transportation for us,” Missouri GOP Chairman Ed Martin said.</p><br /><p>Oklahoma RNC member Carolyn McLarty, an evangelical Protestant, said the schedule change had its origins in an email reminder about the march from Virginia RNC member Kathy Hayden “about a week ago and that we could probably attend at least part of it prior to the start of the RNC meetings. …. Things have snowballed from there.”</p><br /><p>She said West Virginia RNC member Melody Potter had “contacted the bus company and the emails started flying with members wanting to attend.”</p><br /><p>“I am pumped at the opportunity that we have as a party,” Mrs. Potter said. “There is nothing that we cannot accomplish together. We are Republican for a reason.”</p><br /><p>The RNC is, on paper, more democratic than hierarchal because it is made up of an elected state-party chairman and an elected committeeman and a committeewoman from each of the 50 states and five U.S. territories. All are elected in turn by the elected members of their state party’s central committees.</p><br /><p>For almost all its entire history, however, the national chairman, in informal alliance with the GOP congressional leadership and top fundraisers, has called the shots</p><br /><p>Although neither the National Parks Service nor any other government agency publicly releases estimates of such demonstrations and rallies, organizers estimated 650,000 persons marched last year. Much of the press pays little heed to the event, with The New York Times and The Washington Post not reporting it at all in their print editions last Jan. 22.</p><br /></div>

GOP to make big statement on abortion - Washington Times

In an unprecedented show of opposition to abortion, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is delaying the start of the party...

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Texas anti-abortion law forces women to make tough choices - Al Jazeera America

<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p>Whole Women's Health of McAllen, Texas, had to stop providing abortions because its doctors lacked admitting privileges at local hospitals <small class='image-credit'>Lindsay Beyerstein</small> </p><br /><div readability='116.309338857'><br /><p>The Lower Rio Grande Valley is a fertile floodplain nearly the size of Connecticut on the southernmost tip of Texas and home to a Latino-majority population of 1.3 million. Dubbed the Texas tropics by guidebooks, the Valley is a paradise for bird-watchers and citrus growers — and one of the poorest regions in the country. Its four counties are among the 100 poorest in the United States. Starr County is the third-poorest in the nation, with an annual per capita income of just $7,609; per capita incomes in the other three Valley counties hover around $10,000. An estimated 350,000 Valley residents live in "colonias," rural slums along the U.S.-Mexico border that often lack basic amenities such as paved roads, running water and streetlights. Nearly 40 percent of Hidalgo County residents rely on food stamps.</p><br /><p>There were 2,634 abortions, the vast majority performed at clinics, in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in 2011, the last year for which data are available. Demographers estimate that the new law will cause more than 22,000 Texas women to forgo abortions in 2014.</p><br /><p>The region is a microcosm of the abortion-rights battles playing out around the nation. Since 2010, anti-abortion activists have stepped up their efforts to restrict abortion access by imposing medically unnecessary regulations on abortion providers. Bills requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at local hospitals were introduced in nine states this year and were enacted in four: Alabama, Wisconsin and North Dakota, in addition to Texas. So far, courts in Alabama, Wisconsin and North Dakota have blocked their laws from going into effect, pending court challenges, but the 5th Circuit ruled that Texas' law could go into effect while Planned Parenthood challenges it in court.</p><br /><p>According to Roe v. Wade, states may not pass laws preventing women from terminating a pregnancy in the first trimester, and states may pass laws restricting abortion in the second trimester only for the sake of the mother's health.</p><br /><p>But the Supreme Court's 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey set new standards. While states could not impose an "undue burden" on a woman seeking to end any pregnancy before the fetus is viable, a 24-hour waiting period, parental consent for minors and "informed consent" were not considered undue burdens. "Informed consent" laws may require abortion seekers to view color photographs of aborted fetuses or to listen to a prepared script linking abortion to breast cancer and suicide — which is not supported by medical literature.</p><br /><p>Consequently, over the years, anti-abortion activists have fought to restrict the procedure piecemeal through state-level legislation that makes it more difficult to get an abortion without technically making it illegal.</p><br /><p>The anti-abortion legal group Americans United for Life says that several years of "aggressive legislative action" have transformed Texas into one of the most abortion-unfriendly states in the country. In 2000, Texas imposed a parental-notification requirement for minors. Since 2004, Texas has required that abortions after 16 weeks be performed in ambulatory surgical centers, which offer hospital-grade operating rooms suitable for gastric-bypass surgery or back surgery outside a hospital. (Abortion has complication rates comparable to wisdom tooth extraction and other procedures that are routinely performed in medical offices and clinics. Fewer than 0.05 percent result in complications serious enough to require hospitalization.)</p><br /><p>Two years later, the state tightened the maternal-health exemption for third-trimester abortions and switched from parental notification for minors to parental consent. In 2011 the state imposed mandatory ultrasounds and a 24-hour waiting period between the scan and the procedure. This July, Gov. Rick Perry signed into law the sweeping House Bill 2, which requires that all abortion providers have admitting privileges at a local hospital, mandates an outdated protocol for medication abortions and bans all abortions after 20 weeks. The law also requires that all abortions be performed in outpatient surgery clinics, but that requirement doesn’t take effect until October 2014.</p><br /><p>The legal challenge brought by Planned Parenthood and a coalition of Texas abortion providers focuses on two requirements that came into effect first: local admitting privileges and medication abortions. U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel ruled that the admitting-privileges requirement lacked any medical justification and granted an injunction to hold that requirement in abeyance until Planned Parenthood's lawsuit could be decided. However, on Oct. 31, a three-judge panel from the 5th Circuit overruled Yeakel and brought H.B. 2's admitting privileges provision into effect immediately. Planned Parenthood asked the Supreme Court to block the law until the 5th Circuit could hear the case this month, but on Nov. 19 the Supreme Court refused to put H.B. 2 on hold while the conservative 5th Circuit makes up its mind.</p><br /><p>The Valley used to have two abortion providers — Whole Woman's Health McAllen (WWHM) and Reproductive Services of Harlingen — but now it has none that currently offer abortions, because their doctors lack admitting privileges. (Emergency rooms are required to provide the same care to all patients, regardless of whether their doctors have admitting privileges there. While the doctors at WWHM are applying for privileges at local hospitals, Reproductive Services of Harlingen's physician has already been turned down by all the hospitals in his area.) Even if Planned Parenthood wins its lawsuit, abortions will still have to be performed in ambulatory surgical centers by this time next year, which means that neither clinic can continue to operate in its current facility.</p><br /></div><br /></div>

Texas anti-abortion law forces women to make tough choices - Al Jazeera America

Whole Women's Health of McAllen, Texas, had to stop providing abortions because its doctors lacked admitting privileges at local hospita...

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