Rachel Benson Gold is the Guttmacher Institute's Director of Policy Analysis and Elizabeth Nash holds the position of Public Policy Associate. Both work in the Institute's Washington-based Public Policy Division.
Literally hundreds of bills relating to reproductive health and rights get introduced in state legislatures every year. While most of them never make it all the way through the legislative process, several dozen usually do become law—and it is crucial for SRH advocates to be aware of the trends in state legislatures, both positive and negative.
Over the course of 2006, 29 states enacted a total of 62 new laws addressing a wide range of reproductive health and rights-related concerns. Although this represents nearly 20% fewer laws than the 78 enacted in 2005, it follows a long-standing pattern of lessened activity in even-numbered years that may be largely due to circumstances unrelated to reproductive health politics: 21 states only address budget bills—the locus of much reproductive health policymaking—in odd-numbered years, and legislatures in six states convene only in odd-numbered years. This analysis addresses enacted laws related to abortion (26 new laws), contraception (11) and statutory rape reporting (3).
It has been 16 years since Utah has tried to ban abortion and challenge the United States Supreme Court. One would have hoped that we had learned our lesson the first time. In 1991, Utah's taxpayers spent $1.2 million defending an unconstitutional law that only made it to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. Today, lawmakers feel that enough has changed politically to make this challenge a winnable battle. Our lawmakers are shortsighted and wrong, and have misplaced their priorities as easily as they might misplace their car keys and cell phones.
The race for the Executive Director for the Global Fund finally ended after several months of uncertainty. The Board of the institution met Thursday in Geneva to review the second round of applications for the position at an emergency meeting that was called for last October after failing to select a candidate. Dr. Michel Kazatchkine, one of the two frontrunners from the first round, was selected.
In Iowa, Oregon and Milwaukee the sex-education tide's-a-turning. Each of these places is on the path to offering sex education in their schools that is based on truthful information about sex. Well, the statistics don't lie and it's about time that we started paying attention to the grand failure that is abstinence-only sex ed.
Well, the South Dakota legislature is at it again. Only a few short months after citizens of that state soundly rejected a law that would have made abortion illegal unless a woman's life was at stake, legislators have introduced a slightly more moderate version of the same bill. The new bill provides exceptions in cases of health-threatening as well as life-threatening pregnancies (though doctors seeking to perform abortions for health reasons must seek confirmation from a second doctor that the woman's health is indeed at risk—I wonder how that works in an emergency), as well as pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. The bill hasn't yet been approved by the legislature, but its introduction gives us an opportunity to survey the strategic landscape that currently lies before advocates for safe and legal abortion in South Dakota and nationwide.
Jennifer Pozner from WIMN's Voices discusses reproductive health in the media in her multimedia presentation called "Reproductive Wrongs: Exposing Media Misinformation About Abortion, Family Planning and Clinic Violence."
Media coverage of reproductive justice issues informs what the public believes is true about family planning, sex education, low-income women's access to health care, anti-abortion legislation, clinic violence and more. Yet all too often, our most influential media outlets play political football with these issues, reporting their impact on politicians' position in opinion polls, rather than on the women and girls whose lives they most affect.
Sounds intriguing and spot on. Unfortunately, I'm nowhere near Easton, Massachusetts -- but if you are, check it out on February 12th and let me know what you think.
On a related note, the television show Veronica Mars drew a lot of attention this week for an episode that referred to RU-486 (mifepristone) as "the morning-after pill" in the episode summary (which has since been changed) and title (which has not).
More good news from Chile, where President Michelle Bachelet has refused to bow to reactionary forces in the Church and in the State, choosing instead to stand up for the reproductive rights of young women. Last week, she signed a decree to reinstate a program that would allow adolescent girls aged 14 and over free access to the morning-after pill. Her reasoning was simple: when taken correctly, emergency contraception is highly effective at preventing pregnancy. This is a particularly important resource in Chile, since according to government statistics, adolescents in Chile have 40,000 unwanted pregnancies a year—in fact, 15 percent of all births in Chile are to mothers 18 or younger, most without the means to afford quality care. Even though abortion is illegal under any circumstances—including life-threatening pregnancies, health-threatening pregnancies, and pregnancies resulting from rape or incest—over 100,000 Chilean women seek unsafe, illegal abortions every year, and over 30,000 of them wind up in the hospital with complications.
Didn't we just finish an election cycle where voters made it clear they were tired of the Bush White House catering to the far right at every turn? I know that. You know that. Anti-choice lawmakers who lost their jobs to pro-choice newcomers on November 7 know that. But judging by President Bush's budget proposal, released yesterday, apparently he missed the memo from the American public.
For the sixth year in a row, President Bush chose to use his federal budget proposal as yet another opportunity to satisfy his own right-wing base rather than—oh, I don't know—tackle real problems in America like unintended pregnancy.
Lest there be any confusion, the Bush Administration has little values for and no understanding of the need for sexual and reproductive health services. The only question is whether that's due to a complete lack of understanding of human health needs or because undermining sexual health appeases his far-right political base. Need evidence? Check out Bush's budget request.
It has been 16 years since Utah has tried to ban abortion and challenge the United States Supreme Court. One would have hoped that we had learned our lesson the first time. In 1991, Utah's taxpayers spent $1.2 million defending an unconstitutional law that only made it to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. Today, lawmakers feel that enough has changed politically to make this challenge a winnable battle. Our lawmakers are shortsighted and wrong, and have misplaced their priorities as easily as they might misplace their car keys and cell phones.