Anti-abortion activists are nothing if not inventive. State legislatures sympathetic to the cause are constantly finding new ways to restrict the legality or availability of the procedure, passing bans on so-called “partial-birth” abortion, parental consent requirements, and, more recently, “fetal heartbeat” laws. Choking off money is also wildly popular. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 32 states and the District of Columbia prohibit the use of state funds except in cases where the woman’s life is at risk or the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. Another eight states limit coverage in private insurance plans.
The pro-choice side, perhaps necessarily, is usually on the defensive. But active attempts to affirm reproductive rights are not unheard of.
The Times reported on Monday that Washington State is debating a law that would require insurers to pay for elective abortions—basically the opposite policy from the eight states mentioned above. Supporters of the bill argue that since the federal health care overhaul allows “insurance carriers to opt out of covering abortion, many might well do so … unless the state steps in now with new rules.”
Washington is actually one of seven states that explicitly protect women’s access to abortion prior to viability or when necessary to protect health or life. The others are: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland and Nevada.
There’s also potential for more pro- choice legislation at the state level.
Ten of the 15 states currently under Democratic control do not have protection laws in place, but Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute told me that “almost all of them have a good chance at making progress.” One of them, New York, is already moving in that direction. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced his intention to rewrite the state’s abortion statutes to guarantee women the right to late-term abortions if their health is in danger or the fetus is not viable.
The “momentum,” to borrow a term from campaign writing, isn’t entirely with the anti-abortion-rights camp.
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