Statistics often put people to sleep. But any one of the new laws should be enough to cause waking nightmares for everyone concerned about women’s lives. Here are only a few:
- At least 15 states this year have introduced laws to ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat has been detected. Fetal heartbeats generally develop about six weeks into a pregnancy – before many women even know they are pregnant. These laws, therefore, would amount to a near total abortion ban.
- Legislators in several states have passed laws banning the most common and safest method used for second-trimester abortions, the “D&E” procedure. Attorneys for the State of Alabama went so far as to suggest another method that is far more difficult for doctors and less safe for women!
- After spelling out in graphic detail new restrictions, several states also take pains in warning doctors of the criminal penalties that they could face if they violate these laws.
A report in Rewire News points out that “currently, the federal courts all agree that measures like Alabama’s are patently unconstitutional.” But that’s the point. What’s “constitutional” and what’s not can change with different rulings. Rewire continues, “Anti-abortion lawmakers around the country are hoping such laws will trigger a lawsuit that eventually ends up at the U.S. Supreme Court” And possibly result in overturning Roe.
For full reports see the following:
