Reproductive Rights Steadily Eroded in the States

The losses for women's reproductive rights detailed in the following article are resounding reasons why you should join the March for Women's Lives. Please plan to come to Washington on April 25 to make your voice heard; help organize a contingent of marchers from your community. We need to have a tremendous show of support.

More than three decades after Roe v. Wade, advocates for women's reproductive rights face a deeply threatening political environment. A majority of state legislatures, along with both houses of Congress and the White House, are allied against a woman's right to make personal and private decisions about her reproductive life. A lone appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court—one more Supreme Court justice who will not affirm Roe v. Wade—is all it would take to bring victory to those who will deny women this fundamental human right.

Activists often hear about the precarious future for Roe and about the numerous initiatives at the federal level for restrictive laws and policies—especially since George W. Bush was elected. But the level of opposition to women's reproductive rights in the states is more intense than ever. A virtual tidal wave of anti-abortion and anti-contraception legislation sweeping across the 50 states has resulted in 380 state laws since 1995 that restrict access to reproductive health services. Many more restrictive bills are being considered now that most state houses and senates are controlled by anti-reproductive rights majorities.

This movement is the result of a deliberate, well-coordinated and well-financed effort by extremist religious and political organizations. These groups are spending tens of millions of dollars to research and draft restrictive bills, pay public relations firms to influence opinion and lobby legislators, and to support candidates who oppose women's right to abortion and contraception. Distributing similar legislation to the states, training legislators and activists on the other side and plotting legislative strategies are all part of this disciplined and focused operation. Advocates for women's reproductive rights have done their best to counter this well-oiled machine, but the reality is that our opponents have more money, more political muscle and the willingness to use every means at their disposal.

Hundreds of Bad Bills Pushed in State Legislatures

Although many bills that limit women's reproductive health options move through Congress each year, much of the erosion is taking place at the state level.

In 2003 alone, 558 anti-abortion/contraception measures—a 35 percent increase from the previous year—were considered and 45 were adopted. Most dealt with restrictions on minors' access to reproductive health care, biased counseling and mandatory delays, measures granting legal personhood status to embryos and fetuses, initiatives allowing individuals and entities to refuse to provide abortion and family planning services, and law imposing targeted regulation by abortion providers.

By the same token, of the 261 bills introduced to advance women's reproductive rights, only 22 were enacted. Most regrettably, when reproductive rights advocates have to fight hundreds of pieces of hostile legislation, the resources to advance better health care for women and their families become thinner, and young women, women of color, poor women and those living in rural areas are the most disadvantaged.

Access Barriers and Clinic Violence Still with Us

Only 13 percent of all counties—and just three percent of metropolitan counties—have an identifiable abortion provider. Fewer physicians are choosing to provide abortions as the older generation of doctors sensitized to the tragic consequences of illegal abortion retire. Fewer medical schools and teaching hospitals are offering training to future ob/gyns; as recently as 1998, less than half of ob/gyn residency programs made first semester abortion techniques a routine part of training.

In addition to the lack of trained physicians and facilities, there is the continuing harassment and violence at abortion clinics which deter women from obtaining necessary reproductive health services. The level of violence has declined in some instances, largely because of the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act that prohibits anyone from using "force, threat, or physical obstruction" in preventing someone access to a clinic. But activist opponents continue to appear routinely at abortion clinics to harass and demean women seeking services: in the U.S. and Canada in 2003, there were 48 acts of vandalism and 66 acts of trespassing.

The number of violent incidents at abortion clinics in those two countries has gone from 637 in the period of 1977-1987 to an annual high of 452 in 1993, then declining to 143 in 2003. The total number of violent incidents reported from 1977 to 2003 is 4,203, with a total of 696 clinic blockades. (Bear in mind that these figures are likely understated, as not all incidents are reported.)

These statistics include the seven murders of clinic personnel and escorts, 17 attempted murders, 41 bombings, 169 cases of arson, 1,081 acts of vandalism and numerous other instances of anthrax threats, acid attacks, kidnapping and burglary. Extremists have limited their violent activities confronting the federal law's civil and criminal penalties: the number of arrests has gone from a high of 12,358 in 1989 to none in 2003. But the overall total of violent and disruptive incidents over the 1977 to 2003 period is 88,531, not including the nearly 700 blockades.

Catholic Hospital Mergers Deny Care

Less observed is the stealthy spread of the mergers of Catholic hospitals with community and private hospitals across the states. From 1990 to 1998, some 127 mergers between non-Catholic and Catholic hospitals took place. The impact on reproductive health care services in many of those hospitals has been damaging, with denial of emergency contraception to rape and incest victims, no abortion or sterilization services provided and a preference to saving the life of a fetus over that of the woman in crisis pregnancies, among others. A guide, Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care, developed by the U. S. Conference of Bishops, spells out the kind of services that can be provided or denied.

Federal legislation has been introduced to require any hospital receiving federal funds—and most hospitals do—to provide necessary medical services, but this Congress is not likely to pass it. For rural areas and small towns where the community or private hospital was the only facility where they could find reproductive health care, the Catholic hospital mergers have meant there is no facility nearby.

States Succumbing to Anti-Abortion/Contraception Rights Wave

Some states have had their worst year for anti-reproductive rights legislation. For instance, in South Dakota, legislation was proposed in an attempt to ban nearly all abortions with the assertion that life begins at conception and therefore "abortion constitutes murder of a guiltless life." A provision protecting a woman's life, but not her health, was included. State Rep. Matt McCaulley (R), a spokesman for the bill, is on record as stating that the "health of the mother is not substantial enough justification for taking life." The language could also be interpreted to prohibit contraception. In a 17-18 vote on March 15, the South Dakota Senate declined to approve these changes, which means the ban is defeated for the year.

An abortion ban may be enacted soon in Michigan, where a petition effort is attempting to defeat Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm's veto of a ban bill; reportedly, abortion rights opponents in Minnesota, Iowa and other states will attempt outright ban bills in 2004 as well.