Abortion

The Pennsylvania legislature has its priorities mixed up.

They could be focusing on jobs, education, or improving access to health care. Instead, yesterday, the Pennsylvania state senate passed a bill that would make it impossible for Pennsylvanian women to purchase insurance coverage for abortion in the new insurance marketplace — even women whose health may be seriously at risk because of their pregnancy. 

H.B. 818 passed the Senate with a 31-19 vote. On Tuesday, the Senate rejected the opportunity to amend the bill to mitigate the harm it poses to Pennsylvanian women, including rejecting an attempt to expand the exceptions in the bill so that women facing medical emergencies would have insurance coverage of abortion. H.B. 818 now heads to Governor Corbett's desk.

H.B. 818 allows the government to interfere in the private insurance market and prevent companies from selling plans that cover abortion. Banning abortion coverage will endanger women’s health, take away access to health benefits that women already have, and interfere with a woman’s ability to make her own health care decisions. Read more »

The Women's Health Center of West Virginia, a full service health clinic and abortion provider just got a new neighbor, the Women's Choice Pregnancy Resource Center. Women's Choice isn't a health clinic and it doesn't provide medical services. Instead, it offers counseling to try to persuade women not to have an abortion and provides free pregnancy tests, some diapers and some baby clothes. But, would you know the difference just from the names? Imagine how easy it would be for a woman looking for Women's Health Center to walk into Women's Choice instead, thinking, perhaps, that it is an affiliated clinic offering pregnancy and abortion care. It is called Women's Choice, after all, suggesting that it supports choice rather than an ideological anti-abortion agenda. In fact, it used to be called Lifeline of Charleston but changed its name in 2002. Referring to the name change, Sharon Lewis, the executive director of Women's Health Center, noted,  "[M]y only conclusion is that that's part of a deceptive practice to get women in there because they're confused, thinking that they're going to a reproductive-health center." 

These tactics — locating near an abortion provider, using a misleading name — are all common ways in which Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) try to get women into their doors. Unfortunately, deceptive practices by CPCs are fairly common and they don't stop with advertising and location. Read more »

Good news! The Ninth Circuit has struck down Arizona's law [PDF] that would ban abortions after 20 weeks gestation. The court said what we have been saying all along: this law is unconstitutional. "Because [the law] deprives the women to whom it applies of the ultimate decision to terminate their pregnancies prior to fetal viability, it is unconstitutional under a long line of invariant Supreme Court precedents." (Emphasis my own.) 

This decision overturned a lower court's decision upholding Arizona's law. In doing so, the court rejected Arizona's argument that the law did not actually prohibit abortion because it allowed abortions in cases of medical emergencies. Seeing through this argument, the Court had this pointed response: "Allowing a physician to decide if abortion is medically necessary is not the same as allowing a woman to decide whether to carry her own pregnancy to term." Enough said. 

While we take a moment to sigh relief that a court has stopped this type of unconstitutional legislation pushed by extreme politicians seeking to interfere with women's decisionmaking, the fight isn't over yet. Read more »

On Thursday, U.S. Senators Robert Menendez, Frank R. Lautenberg, Richard Blumenthal and U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney introduced a bill aimed at curbing deceptive and misleading advertising practices by Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs). The "Stop Deceptive Advertising For Women's Services Act" would require the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to issue and enforce rules prohibiting CPCs from advertising with the intent to create the impression that they provide abortion services. If passed, this bill would be a major step forward in protecting women and their health. As Representative Maloney said, "those [centers] that practice bait-and-switch should be held accountable so that pregnant women are not deceived at an extremely vulnerable time in their lives." 

CPCs often advertise under "abortion services" leading women to believe that they will be seeing an abortion provider when they visit the CPC, or, at the very least, will be seeing someone who will provide accurate information on, and referrals for, abortion care. CPCs set up shop near abortion providers and select names similar to full service clinics. CPCs frequently provide misleading information, telling women, for example, that an abortion is unlikely to be necessary because most pregnancies are not viable. The goal is to delay women until it is too late or too costly to obtain an abortion.  Read more »

Oh no he didn’t! Virginia Governor McDonnell Monday night added a ban on insurance coverage of abortion to a health care bill passed by the Virginia legislature. The underlying bill was meant to bring the state into compliance with the federal health care law – in other words, to help ensure affordable and comprehensive coverage for people, not take benefits away. But that’s exactly what Governor McDonnell’s amendment would do. And he’s not the only one.

Abortion insurance coverage bans have been introduced so far this year in at least 10 states. Some of these states are already among the 21 states that have such bans. But this year abortion opponents in those states want to prohibit even more women from obtaining abortion insurance coverage. Like Alabama, where a bill has been introduced to expand their exchange ban to all private plans and to take coverage away from survivors of rape and incest. Read more »

Traveling on subways in NY, I often saw ads asking if a woman was “alone, scared, pregnant” and suggesting she call a Crisis Pregnancy Center (CPC) hotline for help. Spread throughout the city, these seemingly-innocuous English and Spanish ads often faded into the background—designed to capture your attention only if you, a friend, or family member needed help.

Since one in two pregnancies across the U.S. is unintended, women daily face a need for reproductive healthcare that might prompt them to call one of the 2,500 to 4000 CPCs located across the country. Unfortunately, instead of offering transparent, unbiased, comprehensive information that allows a woman to make her own informed choices, CPCs adamantly advocate against abortion regardless of the woman’s life and health circumstances, and needs.

If you’ve been reading our blog, you know we just launched a toolkit that helps women who have been deceived by CPCs’ harmful tactics to file complaints and seek justice. What you may not know, is that CPCs have been deliberately targeting women of color in urban communities. Read more »

They're Wrong

When you try to ban abortion in one state — you are hurting women in every state: join our Twitter campaign and stand with the women in North Dakota.

Last Friday, North Dakota's legislature passed a bill that bans almost all abortions in the state. This outrage comes on the heels of Arkansas politicians passing an extreme abortion ban in their state. These politicians don't think that people across the country will notice or care if they eliminate the rights of women in their state.

They're wrong. When you try to ban abortion in one state — you are hurting women in every state.

The abortion ban isn't the only harmful piece of legislation aimed at North Dakota women and families. In the next week, North Dakota politicians will work to push through a sweeping package of bills that also aim to close down women's health centers and could prevent couples from using in-vitro fertilization to build a family. In the face of such an assault, organizations across the country are joining together to remind North Dakota's women (and the politicians that are supposed to represent them) that we are watching.

Will you take two minutes to join our Twitter campaign and show your support for the women of North Dakota? It's simple:

• First, make sure you're signed in to your Twitter account(s)
• Visit our Thunderclap page at https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/1622-stop-the-bans and click "Support with Twitter"
• A pop-up will appear — click on the orange "Add my Support" button
• Another new pop-up will appear. Click the blue "Sign In" button on the left side of the pop-up
• Once you click the blue button the pop-up will close and you'll be set

On Tuesday, March 19 at 2:00 p.m. ET, everyone who joins the campaign will send the same tweet at the same time to send one loud and resounding message to the state's politicians: RT 2stand w/ #NorthDakota women. Tell Gov Dalrymple 2veto and shut down abortion bans. #NDleg #stopthebans http://thndr.it/WlP5kA Read more »

I love anniversaries, and not just because there’s usually some sort of cake involved, but because they mark significant and positive milestones in our lives and allow us to reflect proudly on overcoming setbacks and making progress throughout time. Last week marked the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that recognized the right to safe and legal abortion nationwide. Excitingly enough, one of the few things that I like more than anniversaries and cake is being able to exercise my own reproductive freedom. So wouldn’t it have been great to have a big “Happy Birthday, Roe v. Wade!” party with balloons and ice cream and stories happily recounting the wonders and advancements that the last 40 years have brought us? Yeah, not so fast. While women across the country should have spent January 22nd celebrating the 40th anniversary of this landmark decision, our would-be celebration was being rained on by the lingering reminders of hundreds of restrictive laws and stringent policies that have impeded a woman’s ability to access safe and legal abortions since Supreme Court decision was handed down in 1973.

Last Wednesday I had the privilege of attending a panel discussion at Georgetown Law School, entitled “Reproductive Rights 40 Years after Roe”. The discussion featured four panelists who each represented a different facet of the reproductive rights movement: Jessica González-Rojas from the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, Helene Krasnoff of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Walter Dellinger, partner with O’Melveny & Myers LLP and former acting U.S. Solicitor General, and Marcia Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center. Read more »

As I venture my way through my early twenties, I’ve come to realize that my generation has become a fish tank for our younger and older counterparts. We are viewed as entitled (You expect me to pay my cell phone bills?! Do you think groceries grow on trees?) yet we desperately yearn for what we imagined our independent twenties would be like (walking briskly with a cup of Starbucks, probably on our way from one world-changing meeting to the next) and to be taken seriously and trusted. There are countless articles, books, movies, TV shows written about our generation – but you really don’t know what it’s like to be in our shoes. (Shameless plug: Check out This is Personal’s Not in Her Shoes blog!)

We are truly in a state of transition, but that doesn’t make us any less of an adult, and that doesn’t make us any less capable of making our own decisions. We’re all learning and we need the freedom to be trusted to make decisions for our own private lives.

As a twenty something, on top of worrying about my career path, or grad school, or whether the fact that I texted somebody I’m dating means the downfall of courtship as we know it, I also have become increasingly worried about the growing threats to my right to make decisions about my future – issues that many think were settled ages ago. Read more »

Happy birthday Roe! If you’re turning 40 this year, it means that I am too. Given that we share this significant milestone, let’s take a look back at how we’ve fared over the last 40 years. Both of us are a little worse for wear. The Supreme Court weakened you in subsequent decisions. Your opponents have repeatedly chipped away at you – passing new restrictions on abortion and thinking up creative new ways to attack you.

As for me, well, let’s just say that I think I’ve held up pretty well for someone who grew up in the pre-sunscreen era and has two kids under the age of 4. Still, there’s no doubt I have more wrinkles, more aches and pains, and less flexibility than I used to. Read more »