Changes in Abortion Legislation are Sweeping the Country. Here’s What You Need to Know

Conservatives and pro-lifers
should feel encouraged after 2017 saw more wins for pro-life legislation than pro-abortion legislation.

By Grace Carr Published on February 12, 2018
https://stream.org/changes-abortion-...res-need-know/

Abortion legislation
has historically been a hot-button topic among liberals and conservatives alike, and 2017 was no exception, with a remarkable number of abortion restriction increases and changes in legislation across the United States.

Conservatives and pro-lifers should feel encouraged after 2017 saw more wins for pro-life legislation than pro-abortion legislation. Including those adopted in 2017, states have enacted 401 abortion restrictions since January 2011, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Legislators in 30 states have introduced abortion bans, with six states enacting new laws in 2017.....





....Abortion advocates, however, have seen wins in other legislative areas. The U.S. Senate failed to pass legislation in January that would prevent doctors from performing abortions on women who are 20 weeks pregnant or more. Fifty-one lawmakers voted for the measure and 46 voted against it, but the bill failed to pass the Senate requirement of 60 votes necessary for a debate on the bill.

Other states are also pushing for increased abortion access, even on college campuses. The California Senate approved a bill in January requiring the state’s public universities and colleges to offer abortion drugs at their health centers. Senate Bill 320, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Connie Leyva, requires the state’s community colleges and public universities to provide women with abortion pills for up to 10 weeks of pregnancy so that they don’t have to travel to get the pills. San Francisco’s Tara Foundation and an anonymous donor have agreed to cover implementation costs estimated between $14 million and $20 million, ABC reported.

In sum, 2017 saw a large number of legislative successes for pro-lifers. Nineteen states adopted 63 new restrictions on abortion access in 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute’s Jan 2, 2018 report. That total is the largest number of abortion restrictions enacted in a year since 2013. Twenty-one states, however, adopted proactive measures to expand access to or protect abortion in 2017.

Guttmacher senior manager, Elizabeth Nash, notes that 2017 saw a “dramatic upsurge in proactive efforts to expand access to abortion, contraception, [and] other reproductive health services,” but that many of those efforts have been unsuccessful. Those efforts have largely been a “reaction to all of the abortion restrictions that have been moving,” Nash added, according to The Hill.

Twenty-nine states were “hostile or extremely hostile” to abortion in 2017, according to Guttmacher.