Abortion

Since 1973, women have had the legal right to decide whether or not to have an abortion  yet, even today, numerous barriers threaten women’s ability to exercise this central right.. We’re working to ensure that women have access to abortion care by protecting and advancing this fundamental right.

Highlights

Fact Sheet | Requiring Crisis Pregnancy Centers to Disclose Limits on Care Is Part of a Long Tradition of Protecting Women’s Decision-making and Access to Reproductive Health Care

April 9, 2013

Women face many obstacles to receiving comprehensive, affordable, quality health care, including when individuals and institutions refuse to provide health care services.   Some even go so far as to refuse to inform women about their health care options or even to notify women that there are certain services or information that they will not provide.  This prevents women from participating fully in their own medical decision-making.  Not only are their rights compromised, their health may be harmed.

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Fact Sheet | Roe v. Wade and the Right to Abortion

January 18, 2013

The long-standing, well-established constitutional right to privacy places limits on the government’s ability to interfere with a person’s most basic, personal decisions – including the decision whether and when to bear children.  The right to abortion was first recognized four decades ago, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed its central holding, yet this fundamental constitutional right is under ever-increasing attack.

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Fact Sheet | Even More Than Abortion: The Constitutional Importance of Roe v. Wade and the Right to Privacy

January 18, 2013

Roe did far more than establish the right to abortion; it solidified and expanded the constitutional “right to privacy,” which has also been described as the right to autonomy or to be let alone.  This right to privacy is part of the right to liberty protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which state that no person shall be deprived of “life, liberty or property, without due process of law.”

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Fact Sheet | 40 Threats to A Woman’s Right to Decide Whether to Have an Abortion

January 18, 2013

January 22, 2013, is the 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Unfortunately, this historic Supreme Court decision and the fundamental constitutional right to abortion that it confirmed have been under ever-increasing attack. The following items summarize 40 of the current threats to Roe and to a woman’s right to safe, legal abortion.

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More Resources

Fact Sheet | Gingrey H.R. 1 Amendment Will Make It Harder for Low-Income Women to Obtain Access to Contraceptives

February 16, 2011

Representative Phil Gingrey (R-GA) has filed an amendment to H.R. 1 that would prevent the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) from implementing a provision of the Affordable Care Act that made it easier for states to make more women eligible for family planning services under Medicaid and guaranteed that all new benchmark plans covered family planning services. Known as the Medicaid Family Planning State Option, this provision has already expanded access to family planning services for women in several states—and has the potential to help even more.

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Fact Sheet | Oppose the Unnecessary and Harmful “Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act”

January 26, 2011

The Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act (H.R. 217), also known as the Pence bill, imposes extreme and unnecessary restrictions on Title X funding that would threaten women’s access to essential primary health care and family planning services.

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Reports & Toolkits | Ask! Will the Moral or Religious Beliefs of Your Health Care Providers Limit Your Access to Health Care or Endanger Your Life or Health?

December 22, 2010

Are you getting the care you need? More and more often, the moral and religious beliefs of certain health care providers are limiting the public's access to health care. Many consumers are unaware that these providers refuse to perform certain services or give information that patients want, even when the law requires that they do so. Consumers do not find out about limits on services until they are denied care. By then it is often too late to do anything about it. This brochure arms consumers with the information they need before they make health care decisions.

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Webinars & Presentations | Making the Grade on Women's Health 2010 Webinar

December 09, 2010

This resource contains the slides from the Making the Grade on Women's Health 2010 webinar.

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Webinars & Presentations | If You Really Care about Educational Equity, You Should Care about Reproductive Justice

October 20, 2010

A webinar with Jill Morisson (senior counsel, NWLC) and Lara Kaufmann (senior counsel, NWLC).

Watch the full webinar.

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