Threats to Abortion Access

Although women’s access to abortion care has been under attack for years, the results of the 2010 midterm elections allowed new anti-choice policymakers unprecedented success in their ongoing effort to undermine a woman’s right to an abortion. In 2011, states enacted a record number of new restrictions limiting access to abortion – 92 provisions in 24 states, almost triple the previous record. These include requirements that women undergo medically unnecessary, invasive ultrasounds; bans on abortion earlier in pregnancy than current law allows; onerous mandatory delay requirements; and bans on insurance coverage of abortion. These new obstacles to abortion represent a dangerous overreach into women’s reproductive health care and personal medical decisions.