Texas' penal code explicitly exempts pregnant individuals from being punished for harming their own fetuses. But that hasn't stopped prosecutors from charging them with child endangerment for using drugs while pregnant.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett is launching an attack on his Democratic opponent, Tom Wolf, over Wolf’s position on abortion by trying to link him to Kermit Gosnell, a rogue abortion doctor sentenced to life in prison.
While witnesses on both sides of the issue claimed to be in favor of protecting women’s health, anti-choice witnesses relied heavily on debunked science and distorted interpretations of the bill to make many of their claims.
During Sen. Graham's ultimately failed attempt to force a vote on a 20-week abortion ban on Tuesday, he made comments indicating he is aware that 20-week bans are a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, and therefore a direct threat to legal abortion access in the United States.
Sen. Graham is expected to try to force a vote Tuesday on legislation that would ban abortions after 20 weeks nationwide, but Senate Democrats are unlikely to let his attempt move forward.
Reproductive rights advocates at the committee hearing told Rewire that once HB 388 opponents began to testify, most of the committee members left the room.
State lawmakers and anti-choice activists alike have been working to restrict access to abortion services in Louisiana, employing rhetoric and tactics that are seen by some community leaders as exploiting racial fears in Black communities.
Rep. Margo Davidson is campaigning for the upcoming Democratic primary on a pro-choice platform, but she has in the past voted for a bill that shut down abortion clinics in the state as well as for a law banning insurers from selling policies that cover abortion care through the state's insurance exchange.
HB 388 would require abortion providers to obtain admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic where they provide abortions, impose a 24-hour waiting period on surgical abortions, and require physicians to register with the state if they perform just five abortions within a year.
A decision from Arkansas reinforces fetal viability as a constitutional bright line for abortion restrictions, even as more early abortion bans pass in the states.
