It may seem as though the anti-abortion movement is becoming more extreme in recent months.
It’s not the first time that aEUR” positions have been taken by both sides in the abortion debate. This has happened repeatedly over the 49-year period since the Supreme Court made abortion a constitutional right.
Both abortion opponents and supporters of abortion rights hope that the Supreme Court will soon reverse its 1973 Roe-v. Wade decision. Both groups have strongly reacted to this expectation. The Women’s Health Protection Act would codify abortion rights and eliminate many of the popular restrictions that the court has allowed since 1973. This bill was not passed by Congress, but it did succeed in gaining the support of abortion rights advocates.
Recent headlines have been drawn to the efforts of abortion opponents in conservative states to eliminate most exceptions aEUR for rape, incest, or to save the mother’s life aEUR”.
These efforts don’t seem to be popular. According to polls, the majority of Americans who support these exceptions is nearly equal to those who oppose abortion late during pregnancy.
However, there are many examples of such efforts aEUR”, that go beyond banning abortions after 15 week, which is the core of the Mississippi law under review by the Supreme Court. The court could use this case to repeal Roe, according to a draft opinion that was leaked. Three laws have been passed in Oklahoma restricting abortion over the last few months. The governor signed Wednesday’s latest ban on abortion starting at fertilization. This would ban in vitro fertilization as well as many hormonal birth control methods. (The Oklahoma bill’s sponsor claims that this is not the law’s intention.
The Oklahoma Senate debated the strictest ban. Republican Senator Warren Hamilton stated that he didn’t think the measure was sufficient because it permitted abortions in cases of an ectopic pregnancies, which is a life-threatening medical emergency where an embryo is developing outside of the uterus.
Some medical professionals have been horrified by this. At a May 19 news conference, Dr. Iman Alsaden, an OB/GYN and medical director at Planned Parenthood Great Plains, stated that “the fallopian tube and other places a baby can implant cannot support a child.” If you allow these pregnancies to continue, there will not be a viable baby afterward. The result is that the fallopian tube will burst, and people will die.
A growing number of state legislatures are considering banning exceptions for the pregnancies that result from rape or incest. In April, Jean Schmidt, a Republican state representative, testified that a child born to a woman who has raped her would be an opportunity for her to decide what she will do to make that life productive.
Since the 1990s, rape and incest exemptions have been accepted as part of most abortion bans. But that wasn’t always the case. They were excluded from the Hyde Amendment for a dozen years. This is a provision that prohibits the use of nearly all federal funds for abortion.
The Senate was more liberal than the Senate, at least in terms of abortion, and tried to preserve the rape (and health) exemptions back then. But the conservative House, whose antiabortion efforts were led primarily by Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., forced them to back down.
“The Supreme Court said that capital punishment cannot be imposed on a rapist. “That’s cruel punishment and unusual punishment,” Hyde stated during a 1988 debate on the subject. But you’re saying exterminate. This inconvenient remnant of rape must be exterminated.
Hyde put incest and rape exceptions back into his funding ban in 1993. They have remained there ever since. He stated that he didn’t believe the votes were available anymore to ban abortion funding funding, despite having a Democratic president Bill Clinton in his White House. The entire ban was at risk of being repealed, but Hyde’s parliamentary maneuvering saved the slightly more stringent ban.
Politically, abortion bans that have few or no exceptions to the rule are dangerous. The challenger to Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Republican former-Rep. Todd Akin was widely expected to win the race for the U.S. Senate. However, he stated in an now-infamous interview that he doesn’t support exceptions, because women are rarely able get pregnant due to rape. He said that the female body had ways to stop this whole thing. These comments were discredited by Mitt Romney, a Republican running for the presidency that year, and Paul Ryan, his running mate. Akin lost the election.
However, the Supreme Court appears to be giving anti-abortion groups free reign to ban abortion in any way they wish. Activists want comprehensive bans. Voting on whether to approve of that plan will come down to the November ballot.
KHN (Kaiser Health News), a national newsroom, produces in-depth journalism on health issues. It is an independent editorial program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation).
