2023-07-02 11:56:12
Valentina Oropeza Colmenares* – @orovalentiBBC News World
2 July 2023
photo caption,
Majority of southern US states last year imposed full or severe restrictions on termination of pregnancy after the US Supreme Court struck down constitutional protections for the right to abortion.
The map of access to abortion in the United States has changed dramatically in the last year.
Of the 50 states that make up the country, 14 completely ban abortion, according to the Abortion Finder, a directory of sexual and reproductive health services in the United States.
Another 12 impose restrictions on a range that goes from the 6th to the 26th week of pregnancy, in addition to limitations on access to abortion services.
In eight of them, the absolute or severe prohibition remains blocked by decisions of federal judges.
Five states apply light restrictions, while in 20 states, in addition to Puerto Rico and Washington DC — respectively, a US territory and the US federal capital — abortion is legal even in advanced stages of pregnancy or without limits on weeks of gestation.
Your device is unable to view this image
A half-century right
On June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court struck down the constitutional protection of the right to abortion, supported by a landmark 1973 ruling known as Roe v. Wade.
After protecting that right for nearly 50 years, the superior court issued its decision in the Dobbs case against the Jackson women’s health organization, delegating to state courts and authorities the power to restrict or protect access to termination of pregnancy, in a ruling that affects approximately 36 million women of reproductive age in the US.
The measure brought three fundamental changes: first, the south of the country became a vast field of abortion restrictions, which prevents women residing in these states from legally submitting to the procedure.
Second, it generated legal disputes between governors who passed restrictive laws and judges who blocked those decisions in state supreme courts and lifted the new bans, in some cases temporarily and in others indefinitely.
Finally, it motivated States that preserve the right to abortion to promote broader protection clauses, as a way of counteracting the restrictive trend in other locations.
Credit, EPA
photo caption,
Activists for and against abortion demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court in Washington DC
Pregnancy weeks and exceptions
From a legal point of view, restrictions on abortion are applied according to two parameters: the limit week of pregnancy in which it can be performed and the exceptions, which authorize the procedure in cases of rape, incest, risk to the mother’s life and your health, or if the fetus is unable to survive.
“No restriction based on the number of weeks meets medical criteria,” says epidemiologist Liza Fuentes, director of equity research at Boston Medical Center.
Depending on the state, current restrictions apply from weeks 6, 12, 15, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27 and 28 of pregnancy.
Abortion has become one of the most polarized debates between Democrats and Republicans, with opposing views on principles such as the right to life and women’s reproductive rights.
Because of this, a heated discussion is expected in the electoral race for the presidency of the United States in 2024.
Below, we look at the most important changes that have occurred in access to abortion in the US.
You can click on the maps to display information for each state.
the red desert
Among the states that impose the most restrictions on abortion, 14 prohibit the procedure in all cases or with few exceptions. These are: Alabama, Arkansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Most of them are in the southern United States.
Your device is unable to view this image
Wisconsin is the most extreme case. In that state, all abortion services were suspended due to an old law that absolutely prohibits the termination of pregnancy.
North Dakota, for example, allows exceptions for rape and incest, but only up to the sixth week of pregnancy.
In Idaho, a federal judge blocked part of the law that prohibits abortion, authorizing doctors to perform the procedure in emergencies to protect the patient’s life.
In addition, health care professionals sued the state attorney general in April after he wrote a legal opinion asking that Idaho doctors be prohibited from referring patients to other states that offer abortion services.
In the case of Texas, not only the medical staff who perform abortions can be prosecuted, but also family members, friends or anyone who helped the patient perform the procedure.
A Texas federal judge has gone a step further in the strategy to eliminate access to abortion, withholding Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of mifepristone, one of the most widely used abortion pills in the United States along with the misoprostol.
However, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of using the pill and lifted the restriction, at least temporarily, after the Joe Biden administration filed an emergency petition with the highest court to stop the ban.
The Texas initiative was a tentative approach to one of the goals of anti-abortion groups in the US: to get a federal law passed that would ban abortions across the country.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of America’s largest anti-abortion organization, the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said her group hopes to get the Republican presidential candidates committed to federal legislation banning abortion, at least as early as the 15th week of gestation.
Credit, Getty Images
photo caption,
Protests against Roe’s repeal against Wade spread across the country
The State of Georgia, also in the south of the country, prohibits abortion after the sixth week, while Nebraska condemns it after the 12th week and Florida, after the 15th.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a new law in April banning abortions after the sixth week, a measure that experts see as an almost absolute restriction, as many women still don’t know they are pregnant until that date.
The measure has not yet taken effect and is being considered by the Florida Supreme Court.
In addition, DeSantis signed the controversial Heartbeat Protection Act, which prohibits abortions if a heartbeat can be detected in the fetus.
“The map that we currently see in the United States means that many people do not have the power to decide about pregnancy. There are people forced to continue even if they do not want to or cannot face it”, says epidemiologist Liza Fuentes.
She warns that statistics indicate that a third of women in the United States will have an abortion before age 45. Therefore, in her opinion, access to termination of pregnancy constitutes a basic health service.
Credit, Personal file
photo caption,
Liza Fuentes researches inequalities in healthcare access in the US at Boston Medical Center
Based on her research, Fuentes claims that the lack of access to doctors and clinics that offer abortion in the southern United States deepens inequality and penalizes mainly black, Latino and undocumented women (immigrants without proper documents to live in the country), for being more vulnerable and having less economic resources and social support to face the search for a procedure in another State.
“The cost of abortion is one of the biggest barriers to access. This situation forces the person to ask for leave to be absent from work and travel to other states, pay for hotels and nannies who stay with the older children”, he explains. “It’s a logistics that many cannot assume.”
The Guttmacher Institute, which researches sexual and reproductive health and rights policies around the world, points out that an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy costs an average of US$550 in the US (just over R$2,600), about half the monthly income of a person living below the country’s federal poverty line.
legal battles
Judicial decisions block the ban on abortion in eight states: Arizona, South Carolina, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Ohio, Utah and Wyoming, according to monitoring by the US newspaper The New York Times.
Your device is unable to view this image
In Arizona, for example, state law allows the procedure up to the 15th week of pregnancy.
However, an appeals court blocked an attempt to enforce a law written in 1864, which prohibits abortion in all cases and establishes sentences of two to five years in prison for the doctor who performs the procedure without the woman’s life being in danger. risk.
In the case of South Carolina, state legislators approved the ban from the sixth week of pregnancy, which was temporarily blocked by a judge. Currently, abortion is allowed in the state until the 22nd week of pregnancy.
One of the restrictions that apply in South Carolina is that abortion pills cannot be delivered by mail or prescribed by telemedicine, as is the case in states that protect abortion rights. The only possibility is to administer the medication personally.
Credit, Reuters
photo caption,
Access to abortion pills has also been restricted in some states.
“When the doctor is not sure if the procedure is legal or not, he prefers not to do it because nobody wants to lose his medical license”, warns Fuentes.
In these contexts, “physicians fear that emergencies during pregnancy are not enough to justify an abortion provided by law. It is more difficult to define when the patient’s life is at risk and when it is not.”
According to Fuentes, legal ambiguity or confusion can also lead state prosecutors to open investigations against doctors.
Abortion right protections
Of the 25 states where abortion is legal after the 22nd week or without limits depending on the stage of pregnancy, Oregon, in the northwest of the country, is the place with the greatest protection for the right to abortion.
Your device is unable to view this image
In Oregon, the procedure can be performed regardless of the week of pregnancy, state Medicaid funds (the US social health program for low-income families and individuals) cover the surgery, qualified health professionals, not just doctors, are allowed to perform abortions and anyone is protected from harassment to enter an abortion clinic, indicates monitoring by the Guttmacher Institute.
In other states, abortion is allowed until the fetus is viable, usually between 24 and 26 weeks of gestation.
In New York, abortion was legalized in 1970, three years before Roe v. Wade. After the revocation of the sentence last year, the interruption of pregnancy in the State continues to be considered a basic right to health and guarantees are offered to avoid discrimination against patients who need medical care.
In response to the Dobbs decision, late last year, the California Supreme Court added new protections for reproductive freedom, including abortion, to the state constitution.
In the territory of Puerto Rico, the right of access to abortion is guaranteed during the first and second trimesters of pregnancy.
Liza Fuentes explains that a positive effect of the restrictions is that they have led to improvements in States committed to the right to abortion, by approving new guarantees that include the legal protection of doctors.
An emblematic case is that of Minnesota, on the border with Canada, where all restrictions were revoked as they were considered unconstitutional.
For its part, the Biden administration has promoted measures to eliminate the Hyde Amendment, a federal regulation that prohibits the use of public money to finance abortions, except in the case of incest or rape.
* With the collaboration of Camilla Costa and the Visual Journalism team at the BBC.
#Abortion #Interactive #maps #show #restrictions #increasing #country