Abortion Wars: Taking It To The States

Elections do matter, individual votes do make a difference.  This has become more apparent regarding reproductive rights in the last year than ever before.

The nation's abortion wars, simmering but largely quiet in recent years, have begun boiling again.

Nowhere has the battle been more pitched than in Kansas, where the Legislature this session passed four anti-abortion measures and attempted to adopt strict new licensing rules that this week came within hours of closing down the state's last abortion provider.

Late Thursday, Kansas officials agreed to license Planned Parenthood's Overland Park surgical facility, which provides abortions, after the organization scrambled to comply with the week-old clinic rules by Friday's deadline. That deadline was annulled Friday when a federal judge blocked the new licensing laws.

Read more at NPR

A Hidden Minefield at Pregnancy Centers

Continuing their coverage on Crisis Pregnancy Centers, a writer for the NY Times reviews her experience at an Expectant Mother Care Center and contrasts that with her experience at a Planned Parenthood Center in New York.  Current legislation is being considered that would prevent CPCs from advertising as abortion providers and prevent deceptive practices, namely to keep counselors from posing as neutral while pursuing a political agenda.

I had barely finished signing in at the Expectant Mother Care counseling center in Downtown Brooklyn when a staff member ushered me into a darkened room for a sonogram. As we both watched the flickering image of what looked more or less like a tadpole, she called my attention to every anatomical detail, from eyes and nose to hands and toes. Staring at the little bugger wriggling around inside me, a tear slid out of my eye.

Did that tear trigger some alarm? Suddenly, two more people crowded into that tiny, darkened room. One asked if I was considering abortion.

Read more at The New York Times

Activists Gear Up for Fight

Lately, Donna Crane hasn’t been making it home early. The policy director of NARAL Pro-Choice America has been lobbying nonstop to ensure that the House does not slip anti-abortion language into its health care legislation, which the chamber is expected to vote on this weekend.

“We’re working a lot of late nights,” Crane said.

Lobbyists on both sides of the emotionally divisive issue have been feverishly rallying their grass-roots supporters this week to chime in on the debate on how restrictive the House bill should be regarding abortion.

The House bill says private health insurance plans may neither be required nor prohibited from covering abortion services. The proposed public health insurance option would be required to cover abortions that are covered by the Hyde amendment, such as in cases of rape, incest and life endangerment. The secretary of Health and Human Services would have discretion over whether elective abortions are offered under the public option. However, all plans including the government plan would have to use private money from insurance premiums to pay for the abortions.