Background on Abortion for Trust Women Week

There will always be women who need access to abortions.
Abortion is basic health care for women.

• 1 in 3 American women will have had an abortion by age 45.
• About 50% of pregnancies in theU.S. are unintended.
• 4 in 10 unintended pregnancies are terminated by abortion.^[1]
• In 2008, 1.21 million abortions were performed in US.

 

• Teen pregnancy accounts for only 2 in 10 of all abortions
  performed in theUS.
• Women in their twenties account for more than half of all
  abortions performed in the US.^[2]
• 88% of abortions occur in the 1^st 12 weeks. Only
  1.5% occur later in the term.
• 6 in 10 women having abortions already have one or more
  children.
  • These women often cite
    the need to care for their children as a primary reason for choosing to
    have   an abortion.
  • 66%
    of women having abortions intend to have children in the future.

 

• 3 in 4 women who have abortions describe themselves as
  religiously affiliated.
• Catholic women have an abortion rate 29% higher
  than Protestant women.
• One in five women having an abortion is a
  born-again or Evangelical Christian.[3]

 

• In 2008, more than 4 in 10 abortion patients had incomes
  below the federal poverty line.^[4]
  • Women of color have much higher rates of unintended
    pregnancies and are disproportionately more likely to have an abortion, which
    points to widespread inequities in access to contraception and adequate health
    care.

 

• 54% of women who have abortions used a contraceptive method
  (usually the condom or the pill) during the month they became pregnant. Among
  those women, 76% of pill users and 49% of condom users report having used their
  method inconsistently, while 13% of pill users and 14% of condom users report
  correct use.^[5]

 

Abortion and Providers

 

• In 2008, 87% of U.S. counties had no abortion provider.^[6]
  • 1/3 of American women live in a county with no abortion
    provider, which meant they would have to travel outside their county to obtain
    an abortion. Of women obtaining abortions in 2006, nonhospital providers
    estimate that 27% traveled at least 50 miles.

 

Abortion is Safe

• The risk of abortion complications is minimal: Fewer than
  0.3% of abortion patients experience a complication that requires
  hospitalization.^[7]
• Abortion is safer when and where it is legal.
  • Opponents have attempted to claim that abortion causes a
    number of complications.  There is no
    evidence for these claims, and research has systematically discredited each of
    them:
  • In repeated studies since the early 1980s, leading experts
    have concluded that abortion does not pose a hazard to women’s mental health.^[8]
  • Abortion does not increase one’s risk of breast cancer as
    shown by several peer-reviewed and respected scientific studies.
  • Abortions performed in the first trimester pose virtually no
    long-term risk of such problems as infertility, ectopic pregnancy, spontaneous
    abortion (miscarriage) or birth defect, and little or no risk of preterm or low-birth-weight
    deliveries.^[9]

 

Current
Threats to Abortion Access

Threats to legal abortion

• In 1992, the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey
  significantly weakened the legal protections previously afforded women and
  physicians by giving states the right to enact restrictions that do not create
  an “undue burden” for women seeking abortion^[10].
• Since
  1976 via the Hyde Amendment (which has been renewed every year), Congress has
  barred the use of federal Medicaid funds to pay for abortions, except when the
  woman’s life would be endangered by a full-term pregnancy or in cases of rape
  or incest. http://youtu.be/zCmCcACrm6M
• On May 4, 2011, HR3 passed in the U.S. House of Representatives by a
  vote of 251 to 175 . (No action in  the
  Senate.)
  • Expands and makes permanent (as opposed to
    annual opportunity to strike it) that no federal funds can be spent on abortion
  • Uses personal and business tax policy to bar
    any insurance policy (including those paid with personal funds) from covering
    abortion, even to protect a woman’s health when threatened by complication with
    later term wanted pregnancies which could result in all private insurance
    dropping coverage of abortion. Currently 85% of private insurance plans cover
    abortion.
  • Redefines rape as only “forcible rape,”
    meaning those that are inebriated or drugged do not count as rapes. Women would
    have to prove that the rape was forced.

 

• 36 state
  governments enacted 92 anti-choice regulations related to abortions in 2011, a
  new record.  The previous record was in
  2005, when about 34 regulations were enacted.

These measures:

Discourage and delay pregnant women from acting on decisions to obtain
an abortion.

Interfere with clinician practices in the name of safety.

Restrict the gestational period for when a fetus can be aborted.

Limit government funds to for abortion care and thus limits the choices
of poor women.

Criminalize
women’s decisions. 

 

Restrictive
proposals

• Eliminating
  insurance coverage of abortion. Currently 85% of private insurance covers
  abortion. Laws passed by the House of Representatives and state governments are
  in effect banning private coverage of abortion
• “Consicence
  Clauses” that allow women to die. 10/2011 the House of Representatives passed
  the “Protect
  Life Act”, known by women’s health advocates as the “Let
  Women Die” bill. It allows hospitals that receive federal funds to reject
  any woman in need of an abortion procedure, even if it is necessary to save
  her life.
• Requiring Ultrasounds before abortion. Some states require
  that women receive information about how to access an ultrasound while others
  require that a woman undergo an ultrasound prior to obtaining an abortion. An
  ultrasound is not medically necessary for first-trimester abortion and
  these types of laws appear to be attempts to personify the fetus and dissuade
  the woman from choosing an abortion, as well as significantly add to the cost
  of the procedure^[11].
• “Informed consent” a.k.a. misinformation/scare tactic
  requirements are often used to interfere with a woman’s easy access to a safe
  abortion. Many states require mandatory biased counseling and often at least a
  24-hour “waiting period” between counseling and an abortion procedure. Many
  states require certain information to be given during counseling such as
  information about fetal development, how to obtain an ultrasound, along with
  misleading or inaccurate information about the risks associated with abortion.
  This requirement, designed to deter women from seeking an abortion, causes an
  undue emotional and financial burden. In states that require a waiting period,
  women must make two trips to a health care provider in order to obtain an
  abortion, increasing the difficulty of accessing an abortion for low-income or
  working women^[12] who have to find child
  care, transportation and coverage at their jobs to travel large distances to a
  provider twice.
• Many clinics and health care facilities are targets of
  serious antiabortion violence including bombings, arson, and vandalism.
  Additionally, these facilities are often subject to violent protests and
  blockades. The federal government in 1994 enacted the Freedom of Access to
  Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act which prohibits intentional property damage, or the
  use of force or threat of force to injure, intimidate, or interfere with
  someone entering a health care facility^[13].
• Crisis pregnancy centers present themselves as “pregnancy
  clinics” or “medical clinicis” to persuade women to not have an abortion.
  Rather than present all the options (continue, continue and put up for
  adoption, or terminate) they present biased facts. Many receive taxpayers
  funds.

• State initiatives to make the embryo a person. Colorado started this trend. Mississippi followed suit this year, in an
  initiative that was defeated by voters.

Some good
references:

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011/12/27/395239/the-gops-10-most-extreme-attacks-on-a-womans-right-to-choose-an-abortion/

http://jezebel.com/5871360/the-year-in-your-uterus#

 

California Specific

• In California, 897,700 of the 7,680,396 women of
  reproductive age became pregnant in 2008. 61% of these pregnancies resulted in
  live births and 24% in induced abortions.
• In 2008, 214,190 women obtained abortions in California, producing a rate of 27.6 abortions
  per 1,000 women of reproductive age. Some of these women were from other states,
  and some California residents had abortions in other states, so this rate may
  not reflect the abortion rate of state residents. The rate increased 2% since
  2005, when it was 27.1 abortions per 1,000 women 15-44. Abortions in California represent 17.7% of all abortions in
  theUnited States.
• In 2008, 22% of California counties had no abortion provider.^[14] 

Catholics support birth control and have abortions. 

• “ Sensus fidelium —the graced and experience-fed wisdom of the faithful that has always been one of the sources of truth in the Catholic tradition.”
• 98% of sexually active Catholic women have used a form of contraception banned by the Catholic Church.
• As recently as 1968, a majority of the Pope’s advisors agreed that there was no pastroal reaso to ban Catholics from using contraception.

   

  http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/news/op-eds/2011/OnfamilyplanningdoestheCatholicChurchrepresentCatholics.asp.asp