STATES ACROSS U.S. TIGHTENING ABORTION LAWS
Legislatures ending their sessions with near-record restrictions
The Washington Post (8/30/05)

This year's state legislative season draws to a close having produced a near-record number of laws imposing new restrictions on, a woman's access to abortion or contraception.

Since January, governors have signed several dozen anti-abortion measures ranging from parental consent requirements to an outright ban looming in South Dakota. Not since 1999, when a wave of laws banning late-term abortions swept the legislatures, have states imposed so many varied a menu of regulations on reproductive health care.

Three states have passed bills requiring that a woman seeking an abortion be warned that the fetus will feel pain, despite inconclusive scientific data on the question. West Virginia and Florida approved legislation recognizing a pre-viable fetus, or embryo, as an independent victim of homicide. And in Missouri, Republican Gov. Matt Blunt has summoned lawmakers into special session Sept. 6 to consider three anti-abortion proposals.

While national leaders in the abortion debate focus on the upcoming, nomination hearings of
Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court, grass-roots activists have been changing the legal
landscape one state at a time. In most cases; the anti-abortion forces have prevailed, adding.
restrictions on when and where women can get contraceptive services and abortions and how
physicians provide them.

Anti-abortion activists say they have pursued a two-pronged approach that aimed to reduce the number of abortions immediately through new restrictions and build a foundation of lower court cases designed to get the high court to eventually reverse the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, which made the procedure legal.

On the other side, a handful of states. has approved provisions that make it easier for women to get emergency contraception, known as the "morning after" pill. However, two Republican
governors, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and George Pataki of New York, vetoed such bills.

South Dakota has been among the most active states, passing five laws, including a "trigger" law that would impose an immediate abortion ban after any Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe vs. Wade.

Last year, "there was an attempt to engage in a full-frontal assault of Roe vs.Wade" with an
outright ban said Brock Greenfield, a state senator who is director of South Dakota Right to Life. But similar bills have been found unconstitutional, and Gov. Mike Rounds, a Republican,
vetoed the bill on technical grounds.

"This year, the pro-life forces united in order to pass some legislation," Mr. Grefiedld said.

The other measures include stricter parental notification requirements and a provision adding an "unborn child" as a distinct victim to the state's criminal code for' charges of murder in the
first and second degree. In its new informed-consent law, South Dakota requires that physicians tell women seeking abortions about the "existing relationship between a pregnant woman and her unborn child," and that all abortions "terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique living human being."

For the small and dwindling number of physicians providing abortions, it has been frustrating
to encounter new regulations dictating non-medical requirements such as the width of doorways and the size of hallways, said Steven Emmert, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers in Alexandria, Virginia.

"Those opposed to abortion are finding new and different ways to increase the roadblocks and the hoops [that] providers and patients have to jump through," Mr. Emmert said.

Missouri, for example, has set aside $1 million to encourage low-income pregnant women, to
carry their pregnancies to full term and potentially give the infants up for adoption.

"A theme we're seeing this session is for legislatures to go back and put on more restrictions,"
said Katherine Grainger, legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, based in New York, "They passed all these laws; and now they're saying, "Let's see what else we can get."

Lawmakers in several states toughened existing laws affecting girls younger than 18 who seek
abortions. Today, 35 stales require parental involvement of some type, according to a tally by
Stateline.org, an online public policy journal funded by Pew Charitable Trusts.

Some anti-abortion leaders' in Texas cite shifting politics.

"Texas, having gone from Democrat to Republican control, makes it much more possible to get
into these issues," said state Rep. Will Hartnett, R-Dallas, who sponsored two successful
amendments. "Under the Democrats, these died in committee."

Mr. Hartnett, who pushed to change the law from requiring parental notification to requiring
parental consent, said the previous language simply "paid lip service" to protecting minors from an unwise decision.

But Mr. Emmert, who represents abortion providers, said that in many circumstances, the girl has been impregnated by a male relative or boyfriend other mother's, making parental consent complicated, if not impossible.

Even in some of the .12 states that have state constitutional protections for abortion rights,
legislatures have enacted new restrictions, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. (The 12 are Alaska, California, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Tennessee and West Virginia.)

Not all the restrictive measures came from Republican-controlled states. Democratic governors in Kansas and Pennsylvania signed budgets that steer millions of dollars to organizations that provide alternatives to abortion. And in 'Oklahoma, Democratic Gov. Brad. Henry signed a law in May that requires parental notification for minors, deems a fetus a "victim" under assault laws and mandates that abortion providers give specific counseling relating to the developmental stage of a fetus and a list of groups that support women who choose to carry a pregnancy to full term.

California, once deemed a liberal bastion, will consider a ballot question in November proposing to require, for the first time, that most women younger than 18 notify a parent before getting an abortion and to require physicians to report all such abortions.