the new abortion battleground

7/28/2019 The New Abortion Battleground

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The New Abortion Battleground

by Amanda Marcotte

The Houses abortion bill is incendiarybut the GOP is really winning the war against womens rights at the state level, says Amanda Marcotte

Rep. Trent Franks doomed attempt to ban abortions after 20 weeks nationwide has understandably received a lot of attention, and not just because its a continuation of the war on women Republicans claim they arent waging. Republicans who have anational platform to wax poetic about why women dont deserve reproductive rightsinvariably generate jaw-dropping quotes, and this bout was no exception, from Franks minimizing the experience of rape victims who get pregnant to Rep. Mike Burgess holding forth on the supposed masturbation habits of fetuses. But while this bill is important symbolically and politicallyeven though it wont get past theSenateits important not to let it distract from where the real action is on the war on women, at the state level.

After all, just because Republicans took a beating in the media and at the pollsin 2012 for their attacks on womens rights doesnt mean theyve given up. On the contrary, state-level moves to restrict abortion access have intensified to the point where its arguable that ending safe abortion accessin as many places as possiblehas become the main priority of the GOP.

Showy legislation like the ban on abortions after six weeks in North Dakota maybe the most shocking, but stuff like that tends to get shot down in the courts as an obvious violation of Roe v. Wade. As always, the real threat comes from themultidecade strategy of chipping away at abortion access with a thousand pointless regulations, a strategy that anti-choicers adapted from the Jim Crow laws ofold, and one that runs a real danger of making access to legal abortion nearlyimpossible for wide swaths of American women.

Despite things getting testy during the vote, Wisconsin Republicans managed to push through a bill that not only requires women to sit through a mandatory ultrasound on top of the scripted lecture they already have to endure, but also requires abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital to operat

e. This admitting-privileges regulation is trendy right now in anti-choice legislation, mainly because the right can often then rely on anti-choice protesters to threaten and bully local hospitals until theyre too afraid to offer abortions.(The willingness of politicians to lean on anti-choice thugs using threatening tactics is just one of the many deeply unpleasant developments of the anti-choicemovement.) Hospital-admitting privileges are distinctly unnecessary for doctorswho provide ordinary outpatient abortions, on the level of requiring dentists to have them in case they want to prescribe an overnight stay for cavity drilling. As usual, its just another burden designed to reduce access while pretending tobe about upholding standards of carestandards of care, mind you, for women thatanti-choicers otherwise accuse of murder for getting abortions.

This supposed concern for womens standard of care, by the way, doesnt apply whatso

ever to anyone providing the mandatory ultrasound. The law doesnt require any kind of certification, and was clearly written with the hope that desperate, poor women will turn to anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers that offer a side dish of bullying and shaming with that free ultrasound. Since these volunteer-run centersrarely have real medical staff, that loophole will help keep them in business.These expense-escalating laws will put even more of a strain on Planned Parenthood, which has already had to close four clinics in Wisconsin. Most of the womenwho go to these clinics are there for check-ups and contraception. Not that Wisconsin Republicans care about those services, which reduce the abortion rate. After all, they are also trying to pass a law that would let employers block their


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n of the war on women Republicans claim they arent waging. Republicans who have anational platform to wax poetic about why women dont deserve reproductive rightsinvariably generate jaw-dropping quotes, and this bout was no exception, from Franks minimizing the experience of rape victims who get pregnant to Rep. Mike Burgess holding forth on the supposed masturbation habits of fetuses. But while this bill is important symbolically and politicallyeven though it wont get past theSenateits important not to let it distract from where the real action is on the war on women, at the state level.

After all, just because Republicans took a beating in the media and at the pollsin 2012 for their attacks on womens rights doesnt mean theyve given up. On the contrary, state-level moves to restrict abortion access have intensified to the point where its arguable that ending safe abortion accessin as many places as possiblehas become the main priority of the GOP.

Showy legislation like the ban on abortions after six weeks in North Dakota maybe the most shocking, but stuff like that tends to get shot down in the courts as an obvious violation of Roe v. Wade. As always, the real threat comes from themultidecade strategy of chipping away at abortion access with a thousand pointless regulations, a strategy that anti-choicers adapted from the Jim Crow laws ofold, and one that runs a real danger of making access to legal abortion nearlyimpossible for wide swaths of American women.

Despite things getting testy during the vote, Wisconsin Republicans managed to p

ush through a bill that not only requires women to sit through a mandatory ultrasound on top of the scripted lecture they already have to endure, but also requires abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital to operate. This admitting-privileges regulation is trendy right now in anti-choice legislation, mainly because the right can often then rely on anti-choice protesters to threaten and bully local hospitals until theyre too afraid to offer abortions.(The willingness of politicians to lean on anti-choice thugs using threatening tactics is just one of the many deeply unpleasant developments of the anti-choicemovement.) Hospital-admitting privileges are distinctly unnecessary for doctorswho provide ordinary outpatient abortions, on the level of requiring dentists to have them in case they want to prescribe an overnight stay for cavity drilling. As usual, its just another burden designed to reduce access while pretending tobe about upholding standards of carestandards of care, mind you, for women that

anti-choicers otherwise accuse of murder for getting abortions.

This supposed concern for womens standard of care, by the way, doesnt apply whatsoever to anyone providing the mandatory ultrasound. The law doesnt require any kind of certification, and was clearly written with the hope that desperate, poor women will turn to anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers that offer a side dish of bullying and shaming with that free ultrasound. Since these volunteer-run centersrarely have real medical staff, that loophole will help keep them in business.These expense-escalating laws will put even more of a strain on Planned Parenthood, which has already had to close four clinics in Wisconsin. Most of the womenwho go to these clinics are there for check-ups and contraception. Not that Wisconsin Republicans care about those services, which reduce the abortion rate. After all, they are also trying to pass a law that would let employers block their

employees from using contraception benefits they already earned. The war is notjust on abortion, but all attempts by women to control their own fertility.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry knows a little something about trying to separate women from their contraception, as hes been waging a war for months now trying to end funding that helps meet womens contraception needs in his state. He takes his assault on womens rights so seriously, in fact, that he called a special session of thelegislature for the dual purpose of trying to disenfranchise minority voters and beat up on womens rights some more. During this session, Republicans are offering up a massive omnibus bill that bans abortions after 20 weeks, forces women to


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be in the presence of their doctors to swallow an abortion pill, and of course,requires doctors to have hospital-admitting privileges.

The bill also requires that abortion clinics meet state standards for ambulatorysurgical centers, even though abortion remains the same simple five-minute procedure in an office, or pill swallowing at home, that it always was. Andrea Grimes of RH Reality Check estimates that this utterly unnecessary regulation will reduce the number of legal abortion clinics in the entire state of Texas to five.

In Virginia, the strategy of using medically unnecessary regulations to bully clinics out of existence is in full swing, after state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli threatened the state board of health to approve his favored anti-abortion regulations or he would refuse to let his office support them legally as hes supposed to do. The new regulations retroactively defined abortion clinics as hospitals, a move which is expected to close most or perhaps all of them. At least oneclinic folded, and another, Falls Church Healthcare Center, is suing and accusedCuccinelli of, among other things, playing dirty with the state health board.

Ohio is following in Texass footsteps, trying to shove through a massive omnibusbill that increases the misery for women seeking abortions and the hassle for doctors trying to help them in various ways. The bill would increase the waiting period to 48 hours, which means more travel and hotel expenses for women who haveto travel for abortions. It also has a mandatory ultrasound bill, because anti-choicers literally love nothing more than laws forcing women to strip and be pro

bed more than medically necessary. Naturally, theres the mandatory shaming doctors are supposed to give out, mainly by being forced to describe in detail any features the embryo might have.

Most bizarrely, the bill requires doctors to tell patients how much money theirclinic makes off abortion. This part of the bill is the result of an ongoing effort by anti-choicers to pretend that abortion rights are just about money, a myth that assumes patients dont really want abortions and are probably being lured by greedy doctors. Of course, part of the problem with this myth is the countrys biggest abortion provider is a nonprofit, Planned Parenthood, and they provide those abortion-preventing contraception services that Republicans are so desperateto attack. If doctors really were just in the abortion business for the money,they would be the first in line to vote Republican, hoping that the attacks on c

ontraception meant more money for them. In reality, most abortion providers do the opposite and try to counsel women seeking abortion on better contraception usage.

For whatever reason, stomping out the ability to get a safe, legal abortion forhuge numbers of American women has become a priority, possibly the priority, ofthe Republican Party in recent years, and the efforts to achieve that goal are only intensifying. National efforts may take up a lions share of media attention,but unfortunately, at the state level is where Republicans are truly finding success.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/06/21/the-gop-s-most-dangerous-w

ar-on-women-is-happening-at-the-state-level.html

the new abortion battleground

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