Women’s Access to Constitutionally Protected Health Care Still Under Siege in 2014

(PRESS RELEASE) Politicians in nearly forty states have attempted to restrict women’s access to their constitutionally protected right to abortion since the start of 2014—introducing more than 250 pieces of anti-choice legislation, according to a mid-year briefing out today by the Center for Reproductive Rights.

The States of the States: 2014 Mid-Year Review features an interactive map which highlights the continuing trend of attacks on reproductive rights and access across the country. The review also draws attention to the strong and growing movement of women and men in this country who seek to protect and promote reproductive health and rights, highlighted in the introduction of over 100 proactive, pro-women’s health measures in over 35 states since the start of 2014.

Said Nancy Northup, President and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights:

“As another legislative cycle reaches its midpoint, a new barrage of politically motivated assaults continues to make women’s rights and access to critical health care increasingly dependent on where they happen to live.

“There are rays of hope in the efforts of growing numbers of women and men nationwide who are standing up, speaking out, and doing everything they can to draw the line against these attacks and the politicians and anti-abortion activist groups behind them.

“The urgency of decisive action at the federal level to truly defend the health, safety, and constitutional rights of all women across the U.S. has never been clearer.

“As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares for its first public hearing on the historic Women’s Health Protection Act, we offer this mid-year review as yet more evidence that the time for Congressional action is now.”

The State of the States: 2014 Mid-Year Review spans the United States and calls attention to ten states where politicians are inserting themselves into women’s personal health care decisions in the first six months of 2014 to draw a picture of the ongoing state legislative trends in the country. The Review then highlights those states that made moves to buck the trend and actually advance reproductive rights and health. Examples from the report include politicians using underhanded legislative maneuvers as a way to covertly restrict abortion access in Georgia and Louisiana and outlandish statements by politicians in Missouri and South Dakota.

The briefing also features stories of women and men standing up for their constitutional rights in the face of relentless attacks. For example, in Louisiana, advocates continued to fight back against the litany of extreme anti-abortion bills considered in 2014, including a measure forcing any doctor who provides abortion care to obtain admitting privileges at a local hospital. Designed not by doctors, but by politicians and anti-abortion activist organizations, Louisiana’s law was similar to those passed in previous years in Mississippi, Texas, and other states to shutter abortion clinics, leaving many thousands of women without access to safe, legal, and high quality abortion care. Louisiana advocates gathered in Baton Rouge to protest the admitting privileges requirement and other harmful measures multiple times throughout the session, testifying, and delivering petitions. Though Governor Bobby Jindal eventually signed the measure into law, it remains clear that women’s health advocates in the state are not backing down.

Harmful and unconstitutional restrictions like those highlighted in the review further underscore the need for the federal Women’s Health Protection Act (S. 1696/H.R. 3471)—a bill that would prohibit states from imposing unconstitutional restrictions on reproductive health care providers that apply to no similar medical care, interfere with women’s personal decision making, and block access to safe and legal abortion services. The Women’s Health Protection Act will have its first hearing next Tuesday, July 15, 2014 in the Senate Judiciary Committee.