May 16, 2019

America, Sort It Out! Abortion Rates Go Down When Countries Make It Legal

Wow, things have really taken a turn for the worse. You blink, and states in the US suddenly go nuts. Here is what happens when you concentrate with a one track mind on President Trump and forgets to keep an eye on everything else. Before I get into what has been happening, let me alert you to this recent piece of research: "Abortion rates go down when countries make it legal: report":

Abortion rates have fallen over the past 25 years, even as more countries have made the procedure legal and easier to get, according to a new report released Tuesday.

Countries with the most restrictive abortion laws also have the highest rates of abortion, the study by the Guttmacher Institute found. Easier access to birth control drives down abortion rates, the report also finds.

The report finds about 56 million abortions occur every year — nearly 50 million of them in developing countries. About a quarter of all pregnancies end in abortion....

"Abortions take place around the world, no matter the legal setting," the report reads. But, it adds, “Provision of abortion is safest where it has long been legal."...

And the Trump Health and Human Services Department has reversed Obama era policies that made contraception more freely available and that used evidence-based approaches to fight teen pregnancy — over the objections of career health officials.

A 2012 study of more than 9,000 women found that when women got no-cost birth control, the number of unplanned pregnancies and abortions fell by between 62 and 78 percent. But political appointees at HHS advocate for abstinence-only approaches, which have been shown not to affect unplanned pregnancy rates....

The highest abortion rates are now found in Latin America and the Caribbean, where abortion is strongly restricted legally.

“Highly restrictive laws do not eliminate the practice of abortion, but make those that do occur more likely to be unsafe,” the report reads.

The report’s findings echo those from the National Academy of Medicine last week. It found that, despite claims from some anti-abortion-rights officials, abortion care is overwhelmingly safe in the U.S. It found that abortions can be safely provided in clinics and doctor’s offices.

“In many states, regulations have created barriers to safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable abortion services,” the report reads.

“Abortion is among the most regulated medical procedures in the nation,” it adds.

Which should really be read by the people supporting and enacting these laws across the States. Here is a little summary by links:

Alabama passes nation’s strictest abortion ban
Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, signed legislation earlier this month to ban abortion once cardiac activity can be detected in an embryo – which can be as early as six weeks, before many women even realize they are pregnant.
Georgia ‘heartbeat’ bill will force a lot of men to pay, literally.
Ohio's 'heartbeat' abortion ban challenged in court
This Ohio anti-abortion bill says that ectopic pregnancies can be moved to the uterus — but that isn't scientifically possible.
Project Blitz: the legislative assault by Christian nationalists to reshape America
Revealed: nine more US states considering hardline anti-abortion bills
Bills have so far passed one chamber in Louisiana, Missouri, South Carolina and Tennessee. Others have been introduced to statehouses in Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Texas and West Virginia without yet facing votes. At least 61 bills like this have been introduced across the country.
The (Alabama) laws will disproportionately affect black and poor women.
These 25 Republicans – all white men – just voted to ban abortion in Alabama.
Only 3 women had a voice in the Alabama Senate.
All these laws and bills are patterned on “model legislation” promoted by the hardline anti-abortion group Faith2Action led by the high-profile conservative campaigner Janet Porter, the leader of one anti-abortion and anti-gay hate group who has pressed for a ban on abortions for nearly a decade. She only succeeded this year, after the Trump administration pushed the supreme court and lower courts to the right.
The Center for Reproductive Rights calls them “bafflingly” unconstitutional.

World of crazy.

With Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, this certainly looks like a really viable challenge to Roe v Wade (where the supreme court ruled that women have a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy before a fetus can survive outside the womb, generally understood to be about 24 weeks gestation. A full term is 40 weeks).

The goal for proponents of the new law is to keep the ban “perfectly clean” in order to challenge the existing supreme court ruling, said Representative Rich Wingo, one of the architects of the proposed ban. Anti-abortion activists hope that a more conservative high court may be willing to reconsider the landmark decision, which would pave the way for other states to outlaw the procedure.

“It goes after Roe directly,” Wingo said. “We’re going in the front door and we’re saying to the supreme court, please explain to us how this isn’t a person. With modern technology, with everything that we know, this child needs to be protected under the US constitution.” [Source]

I love Bert's analogous piece on abortion that he wrote the other day. Read it! And this:

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