Kansas Abortion Bill Poised To Become Law

TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas legislators approved restrictions on private insurance coverage for abortions and adopted a state budget stripping funds from a Planned Parenthood affiliate, capping a string of victories Friday for abortion opponents only four months after sympathetic Gov. Sam Brownback took office.

This year, five major proposals favored by abortion opponents cleared the GOP-dominated Legislature as members heeded a call from Brownback to create “a culture of life.” But Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, the target of much of lawmakers’ efforts, confirmed that it is consulting with attorneys over possible legal challenges

“Four or five anti-choice bills, as we would characterize them, is pretty significant,” said Tait Sye, a spokesman for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “It would be in the top tier of anti-choice legislatures, which is probably what Brownback wants.”

Brownback, a Republican, is expected to sign the bill sent to him by the state House a mere 15 minutes before lawmakers adjourned their annual session. The House’s early-morning vote was 86-30 in support of a larger bill that included the abortion coverage restrictions. The state Senate had approved it Thursday night, 28-10.

The measure prohibits insurance companies from offering coverage of abortions as part of their general health plans, except when a woman’s life is at risk. If the bill becomes law as expected, starting in July, individuals and employers who want abortion coverage would have to buy supplemental policies that cover only abortion.

Supporters of the bill argue that it will protect employers who oppose abortion rights from having to pay for policies that cover the procedures. The legislation also says that no state or federally administered health-insurance exchange in Kansas established under last year’s federal health care overhaul law can offer coverage for abortions, other than to save a woman’s life.

The $13.8 billion budget approved by legislators, also early Friday, includes a provision diverting about $330,000 in federal family planning funds away from Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri to public hospitals and health departments. The group’s top executive warned that it will be forced to reduce services dramatically at clinics in Hays and Wichita that don’t perform abortions without affecting one in the Kansas City suburbs that terminates pregnancies.

Brownback already has signed legislation to tighten restrictions on late-term abortions and require doctors to obtain written permission from parents before terminating minors’ pregnancies. Legislators also have sent him a bill to impose new health and safety standards specifically for abortion clinics, which the governor plans to sign Monday.

“Governor Brownback has never been shy about the fact that he’s pro-life,” spokeswoman Sherriene Jones-Sontag said.

Kathy Ostrowski, legislative director for the anti-abortion group Kansans for Life, said the state’s new laws will protect women who seek abortions from dangerous clinics and provide more accurate reporting by doctors about their activities.

“It has obviously been a good session,” Ostrowski said after lawmakers adjourned.

Democratic Govs. Kathleen Sebelius and Mark Parkinson, who held the office before Brownback, blocked most major changes in Kansas abortion laws, vetoing legislation that is becoming law this year.

“There’s clearly a message here that women are dispensable,” said state Rep. Annie Kuether, a Topeka Democrat and one of the Legislature’s shrinking number of abortion rights supporters. “I’m sick and tired of being treated like a second-class citizen.”

The measures in Kansas are part of a wave of anti-abortion legislation across the nation, as abortion opponents have been encouraged by the election of new Republican governors last year and conservative legislators.

The Guttmacher Institute, a research organization supporting abortion rights, says Kansas and Missouri are among seven states now with restrictions on private health insurance coverage of abortion. Also, a dozen states, including Kansas, restrict coverage in health exchanges.

Planned Parenthood officials say moves to strip funds from affiliates are afoot in at least five other states; one in Indiana has filed a lawsuit there.

“Why would we want to continue to give Planned Parenthood tax dollars to ostensibly prevent pregnancy, when they make even more money performing abortions when that ‘prevention’ fails?” said Mary Kay Culp, Kansans for Life’s executive director.

But Brownlie said the Planned Parenthood clinics offer a wide range of services, including thousands of breast exams and tests for sexually transmitted diseases each year. The federal dollars account for about 10 percent of the budget for its Kansas operations, he said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/13/kansas-abortion-bill-law_n_861525.html

House bans funds for teaching abortion techniques

WASHINGTON – The House voted Wednesday to ban teaching health centers from using federal money to train doctors on how to perform abortions, the latest in a series of anti-abortion measures pushed by the Republican majority.

The author of the measure, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said she wanted to make it “crystal clear that taxpayer money is not being used to train health care providers to perform abortion procedures.”

The proposal was presented as an amendment to the latest of several GOP bills to restrict funding for the health care act that was enacted last year. This bill gives Congress control over spending for a program to encourage health centers to provide training to medical residents. The amendment applies to funding in that grant program.

The Foxx amendment passed 234-182 despite the objections of some Democrats that it would prevent health centers from teaching a basic medical technique that can be critical to saving a woman’s life during emergencies.

“This amendment would jeopardize both education and women’s health care by obliterating funding for a necessary full range of medical training by health care professionals,” said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.

The Foxx amendment and the overall bill to restrict the health care act both are likely to die in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Since coming to power in January, the Republican majority in the House has acted to write permanently into law the ban on federal funds to perform abortions, to make it easier for hospitals to refuse abortion cases and to make it more expensive for small businesses to choose insurance plans under the health care act that provide abortion coverage. The House unsuccessfully tried to cut off federal money for Planned Parenthood as part of the battle over this year’s budget.

“If organizations want to provide elective abortions or train abortion doctors they need to find someone other than taxpayers to write the checks,” Foxx said.

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said Foxx’s amendment was an unprecedented restriction on medical training. “Regardless of how one feels about legal abortion, reasonable lawmakers can agree that doctors should be as well-trained as possible to deal with any medical situation that may arise,” she said.

The amendment also states that no funds available under the grant program can be used to perform abortions and that teaching health centers will not be eligible for funds if they discriminate against providers that deny abortion services.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the anti-abortion group National Right to Life, said the anti-discrimination provision was important because “the Obama administration has severely weakened enforcement of existing laws.”

He said conscience protections get a better reception in the Senate and that, even if the Senate does not act, it was important for the House to push its anti-abortion agenda. “It usually takes more than one Congress to accomplish worthwhile legislative goals,” Johnson said. “It is necessary often to build up momentum over several Congresses.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110525/ap_on_re_us/us_house_abortion_4

As Wealth and Literacy Rise in India, Report Says, So Do Sex-Selective Abortions

NEW DELHI — India’s increasing wealth and improving literacy are apparently contributing to a national crisis of “missing girls,” with the number of sex-selective abortions up sharply among more affluent, educated families during the past two decades, according to a new study.

The study found the problem of sex-selective abortions of girls has spread steadily across India after once being confined largely to a handful of conservative northern states. Researchers also found that women from higher-income, better-educated families were far more likely than poorer women to abort a girl, especially during a second pregnancy if the firstborn was a girl.

“This has deep implications,” Shailaja Chandra, one of the study’s authors and the former director of the National Population Stabilization Fund, said Tuesday during a panel discussion after the release of the findings. “The scale is very large and requires intervention beyond what has been done so far.”

The study, being published in the British medical journal The Lancet, is the latest evidence of India’s worsening imbalance in the ratio of boys to girls. The 2011 Indian census found 914 girls for every 1,000 boys among children 6 six or younger, the lowest ratio of girls since the country gained independence in 1947. The new study estimated that 4 million to 12 million selective abortions of girls have occurred in India in the past three decades.

The government has enacted legislation intended to prevent parents from using ultrasound screenings or other technologies to decide whether to abort a girl. Yet despite such laws, the situation has not improved. Few medical practitioners who violated the law have been prosecuted, while regulation of private health care providers is very limited.

India is similar to many Asian countries in that many families prefer boys. In Hindu funeral rituals, only males, preferably a son of the deceased, may perform last rites; sons also usually inherit property (while daughters are married into other families) and carry on the family name. A cultural preference for sons is also common among many Indian Muslims.

Dr. Prabhat Jha, a lead author of the study, noted that the use of sex-selective abortions expanded throughout the country as the use of ultrasound equipment became more widespread. Typically, women from wealthier, better-educated families are more likely to undergo an ultrasound, Mr. Jha said, and researchers found that these families are far more likely to abort a girl if the firstborn is a daughter.

“This is really a phenomenon of the educated and the wealthy that we are seeing in India,” said Mr. Jha, director of the Center for Global Health Research at the University of Toronto.

Census data has already confirmed that the problem has accelerated since 2001. The 2011 census found about 7.1 million fewer girls than boys under the age of 6, compared with a gap of roughly 6 million girls a decade earlier.

The Lancet study was conducted by researchers from several partner institutions, with the United States National Institutes of Health providing some of the financing. About 250,000 births from 1990 to 2005 were examined, using data from surveys conducted by India’s National Family Health Survey, as well as census data from 1991 to 2011.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/world/asia/25india.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper

Nearly 19,000 women aged under 25 had their second abortion last year

Nearly 19,000 women aged under 25 had their second abortion last year, new figures show.

The statistics published today by the Department of Health, also revealed almost 40,000 women aged under 20 had an abortion in 2010.

Overall there has been a slight rise in the number of abortions carried out in England and Wales.

Some 189,574 abortions were carried out in 2010, up 0.3 per cent on the 189,100 in 2009 and eight per cent more than in 2000 (175,542).

These abortions were to women living in England and Wales. Another 6,535 were to non-residents.

The last time there was a rise in the total number of abortions was between 2006 and 2007.

Dr Paula Franklin, director of clinical development at Marie Stopes International, said: ‘Although the numbers are similar to those of 2009, we are surprised not to see a further decrease in the number of abortions across England and Wales.

‘Improved access to counselling and advice, through services like Marie Stopes International’s OneCall, is allowing women to access a full range of information early.’

In total, 64,303 procedures were to women who had had at least one abortion previously.

Of these, 1,201 abortions were among girls under 18 who had undergone one previous abortion, while 79 were to girls who had had two or more.

Among those aged 18 to 24, 17,735 abortions were to girls who had one abortion previously while 3,453 were to girls who had had two previously.

Half of abortions last year were to women with partners while 26 per cent were to single women and 16 per cent of abortions occurred within marriage.

Some 3,718 were to girls under 16, which was slightly down on the previous year. Some 27,046 abortions were among women aged 35 and over.

The rate was highest in women aged between 19 and 20, but has dropped among the under-16s and under-18s.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: ‘We welcome the continued fall in teenage pregnancies. Abortions are traumatic and stressful and should never be seen as a form of contraception.’

In total, 64,303 procedures were to women who had had at least one abortion previously.

The statistics also showed that almost 300 women aged 25 to 29 had had four or more previous abortions.

Overall, 77 per cent of abortions took place before 10 weeks gestation.

Age of woman	No. of abortions 2009	No. of abortions 2010
Under 16	3,823	3,718
16-17	14,093	12,742
Under 18	17,916	16,460
18-19	22,151	21,809
20-24	54,749	55,481
25-29	40,634	40,800
30-34	26,701	27,978
35 or over	26,949	27,046
Total	189,100	189,574

Natika Halil, director of information for the Family Planning Association (FPA), said: ‘Over the last decade, we’ve seen significant achievements in abortion services. Most women are having abortions under 13 weeks and we’ve seen a substantial rise in early medical abortions.

‘Medical abortions are a much more straightforward and less invasive procedure for women.

‘The cost to the NHS is greatly reduced – especially relevant in the current economic climate. The next logical, clinically-safe step with early medical abortion is to allow women to have them at home.’

Across all ages, the abortion rate was 17.5 per 1,000 resident women aged 15-44, the same as in 2009 but more than double the 8.0 recorded in 1970.

The rate was highest in women aged between 19 and 20, but has dropped among the under-16s and under-18s.

Shadow public health minister Diane Abbott said: ‘Abortion rates were falling under the Labour government because of its investment in contraceptive services and sexual health campaigns.

‘Abortion rates have levelled off and will now undoubtedly rise further because contraceptive services are being slashed nationwide.

‘The coalition Government has not protected provision of contraceptive services despite the fact they are cost-effective as well as being a basic human right.’

Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (Bpas), said the fact that numbers had not decreased showed how difficult it was for women to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

She added: For many women abortion is a back-up to their contraception. It is a rational and ethical solution to the problem of a pregnancy that they cannot continue with.

‘We must do what we can to reduce the need for abortion while accepting that it will always be an important back-up for women whose contraception has failed, or whose circumstances have changed.’

However Michaela Aston, a spokeswoman for Life, said: ‘At Life we see every abortion as a tragedy, and we work hard to provide positive alternatives for women and their families who find themselves in what seem like impossible situations.

‘We are concerned that women are being rushed into abortion, as more and more women are having abortions earlier in pregnancy. It is vital that women are given time to think through their options.

‘We hope too that the Government will resist pressure to liberalise the law on home abortions. Such a move would further isolate women from networks of support, and risks trivialising abortion still further.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1390402/Abortion-Nearly-19-000-women-aged-25-SECOND-abortion-year-shock-figures-show.html?ITO=1490

Abortion Rate Down Overall, Up Among Poor Women

The abortion rate in the United States dropped 8 percent between 2000 and 2008, while rising nearly 18 percent among the country’s poorest women — a trend that researchers believe might reflect tough economic times. Of the more than 1.2 million legal abortions reported in 2008, women whose family income fell below the national poverty level accounted for 42 percent of them.

“In the middle of a recession, it’s possible women have reduced access to contraception and have more unintended pregnancies,” said Rachel Jones, senior research associate at New York City’s Guttmacher Institute and lead author of the report published Monday in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. “It’s also possible that women confronted with unplanned pregnancies when they are out of work decide to have abortions, even though they might have carried it to term in more stable times.”

Using information collected through patient surveys, Jones and colleagues estimated the rate of abortion among women of various ages, races, religions, income and education levels, calculating changes in the rate since 2000. The rise in abortions among poor and low-income women was the most worrying finding, Jones said.

A woman studies the results of a pregnancy test. While the U.S. abortion has declined overall, it has risen among poor women, perhaps reflecting tough economic times and limited access to contraception.

“Increasingly, we’re seeing restrictions placed on abortion services, and this shows that it’s going to have a disproportionate impact on poor women,” Jones said.

Planned Parenthood puts the the cost of an abortion during the first trimester at between $300 to $950 — a fee many women front out-of-pocket because of a lack of insurance coverage, confusion about whether the procedure is covered or a desire for privacy.

The abortion rate has been steadily declining since 1990 — a possible product of more and better contraceptive use as well as fewer teens having sex, Jones said. But the decline seems to have stabilized. If the 2008 rates persist, it’s estimated that almost one in three women in the U.S. will have had an abortion before the age of 45.

“A lot of people find this surprising,” Jones said. “But a lot of women have abortions and just don’t talk about it.”

About one-half of U.S. pregnancies each year are unintended, and about half of those end in abortion, according to a 2006 study published in Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.

“Women who are deciding to have an abortion are women who have unintended pregnancies, and limited access to contraception is one of the key drivers of unintended pregnancies,” said Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research at the Guttmacher Institute and author of the 2006 report. “Most Americans want to control how many kids they have and when they have them. We should [ease] access to contraception when possible to reduce the substantial proportion of unintended pregnancies.”

Although teens account for 24.8 percent of U.S. abortions, women over 25 represent 49 percent, according to the report. Almost 20 percent of women who have abortions have a college education, and 44 percent are married or living with their partners.

“All types of women have abortions. People don’t realize that their friends, their family members have had this experience,” Jones said. “If people realize that a substantial minority of women will have one, maybe they will have a less harsh evaluation of abortion and the circumstances surrounding it.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WomensHealth/abortion-rate-poor-women/story?id=13665925

New Texas law mandates sonograms before abortion

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – Texas Governor Rick Perry on Thursday signed into law a measure requiring women seeking an abortion in the state to first get a sonogram.

Texas is one of several U.S. states with strong Republican legislative majorities proposing new restrictions on abortion this year. The Republican governor had designated the bill as an emergency legislative priority, putting it on a fast track.

Under the law, women will have to wait 24 hours after the sonogram before having an abortion, though the waiting time is two hours for those who live more than 100 miles from an abortion provider.

“Governor Perry was pleased to sign this important legislation, which bolsters our efforts to protect life by ensuring Texans are fully informed when considering such an important decision,” said Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for the governor.

A sonogram is an imaging technique using high-frequency sound waves to produce images of a developing baby in a woman’s uterus.

Under the measure, women will be offered the option of hearing the heartbeat and seeing the sonogram image, which they may decline. But the woman’s doctor must describe the image, explaining the size of the embryo or fetus and the presence of organs and limbs.

In certain cases, including those involving rape and incest victims or serious fetal abnormalities, the woman could decline to hear the description of the sonogram.

Opponents of the legislation said the law interferes in the doctor-patient relationship by adding a government requirement for a procedure that could be traumatizing to women going through an already difficult situation.

During debate on the House floor in March, Democratic state Representative Carol Alvarado wielded a trans-vaginal probe used for sonograms early in pregnancy.

“This is government intrusion at its best,” she said during that debate.

http://dailynews.muzi.com/news/ll/english/10109243.shtml

Texas Legislation Adds Conditions on Abortion

DALLAS—Texas Gov. Rick Perry is expected to sign a law soon requiring a woman seeking an abortion to have a sonogram and hear a description of the fetus, including whether it has developed fingers, toes or internal organs.

The goal, supporters say, is to improve medical care for women and encourage them to reconsider having abortions.

“We believe that when they see the miracle of life some will change their minds,” said Dan Patrick, a Republican state senator who represents part of Houston and who sponsored the legislation, which passed both houses of the state legislature last week.

Abortion-rights supporters say there is no evidence that sonograms, also known as ultrasounds, affect a woman’s decision on abortion, and say laws requiring doctors to perform the procedures and describe the results violate patients’ rights.

“It discounts women’s ability to make health decisions and interferes with the doctor-patient relationship,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York non-profit that opposes restrictions on legal abortion.

The group filed a suit challenging a similar law adopted last year in Oklahoma, contending that it violates state constitutional guarantees of privacy for patients and free speech for doctors. A state judge blocked enforcement of the law until the suit is resolved. The group plans to mount a legal challenge to the Texas legislation, if Gov. Perry signs it.

The Texas bill also calls for a 24-hour waiting period between the sonogram and the abortion, except for women who live more than 100 miles from a clinic. Opponents say that waiting period places more burdens on women.

Associated PressGovernor Rick Perry is expected to sign the measure soon.

Big Decision

Among provisions in Texas’s proposed measure on abortion:

Any woman seeking an abortion is required to have a sonogram and to hear a developmental description of the fetus.

Rape victims, minors or women carrying fetuses with abnormalities are exempt from hearing the description.

Women may sign waivers opting not to see the sonogram image or hear the heartbeat.

Required 24-hour waiting period between sonogram and abortion, except for patients more than 100 miles from clinic.

In the past decade, more than 20 states have passed laws involving sonograms for women seeking abortions. Most simply require that ultrasounds be performed. But the Texas and Oklahoma laws, as well as legislation under consideration in Alabama, go further by requiring a woman who wants an abortion to be told in detail about her fetus’s development.

Under the Texas law, all women seeking an abortion must have a sonogram but those who have been raped, are minors or who are carrying a fetus with abnormalities are exempt from hearing the description of the image. All women seeking abortions can sign a waiver and choose not to view the image or hear the fetus’s heartbeat.

Groups that oppose abortion say ultrasound can be a powerful tool in persuading a woman considering an abortion to continue her pregnancy.

“Ultrasound is literally a window into the womb,” said Kelly Rosati, vice-president of Focus on the Family, a Colorado Springs, Co., ministry. “She actually connects with that child inside of her.”

Focus on the Family has supplied grants to install 520 sonogram machines in pregnancy centers run by abortion opponents around the country. Ms. Rosati calculates that the ultrasound images have prevented 90,000 abortions since 2004. The figure is based on patients’ stated plans after their sonograms; the centers have no way of determining whether the patients gave birth or had abortions, she added.

Many abortion clinics already routinely perform sonograms to determine a pregnancy’s length, said Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute, a New York group that researches reproductive health and favors abortion rights.

At Whole Woman’s Health, a network of clinics in Texas, women seeking abortions can see their sonograms and discuss them with doctors, said Terry Sallas Merritt, a clinic executive. Some women ask for a printout of the image to take home.

“The difference is that it’s up to her,” said Ms. Sallas Merritt. “It’s not the legislators telling her what she must hear before she’s allowed to exercise her right to have an abortion or have a child.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704681904576315350526209130.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Conservatives target program serving 120,000 women monthly

AUSTIN — A state health program that helps low-income women get birth control, Pap smears and cancer screenings could cease to exist as some lawmakers try to shore up their anti-abortion credentials.

About 120,000 women are covered monthly by the Women’s Medicaid Health Program, which must be renewed this year to continue. The state provides about $3 million annually to keep the program afloat and gets about $28 million in matching money from the federal government.

The Health and Human Services Commission estimates that, if renewed, the program would save the state about $84 million over the next two years by reducing unwanted pregnancies through contraceptives.

But conservative Republican state lawmakers, who have launched an

effort to cripple funding for abortion providers and “affiliate” organizations that work with them, are pushing a bill that could eliminate the program altogether.

A measure by state Sen. Bob Deuell, R-Greenville, would continue the health program but includes a provision that stipulates that it would cease to exist if organizations such as Planned Parenthood challenge the state in court and win access to funding.

“I think the election shows that a great majority of voters put people in office that do not want money to go to abortion providers or their affiliates,” Deuell said.

Deuell’s bill passed out of the Health and Human Services committee on a 5-1 vote and is headed to the full Senate.

State Sen. José Rodríguez, D-El Paso, cast the only vote against the bill.

Rodríguez said he opposes the bill because it cuts money for Planned Parenthood, which “has a track record and a history of providing services without complaints under the Women’s Health Program.”

By law, state and federal money for the program cannot be used for abortions.

Planned Parenthood provides abortions but has clinics that do not. Those clinics get funding through the program to offer women’s health services such as birth control and cancer screenings.

Rodríguez said his biggest concern with the bill is that if the state loses a lawsuit, the program could be eliminated entirely.

“We should have some kind of fallback position in the event that there is a successful challenge so that this program continues,” he said.

In 2005 the Legislature passed a bill establishing the Women’s Medicaid Health Program with an amendment that barred abortion providers or their affiliates from receiving funding.

Through the program, low-income women can visit a variety of health-care providers and get free health screenings, birth control and gynecological exams.

When the program was being implemented in 2007, lawyers from the Health and Human Services Commission said the exclusion of clinics that are connected in some way to abortion providers would not withstand a legal challenge. They advised the commission’s director to allow organizations such as Planned Parenthood to participate.

Since then, the attorney general has issued an opinion allowing the state to enforce the amendment. The state’s Health and Human Services Commission is now implementing measures that would bar organizations such as Planned Parenthood from receiving the money, officials said.

Planned Parenthood officials said that each year through the program their agency provides birth control and services such as cancer screenings to more than 40,000 women.

Peter Durkin, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, said the organization is “prepared to move forward with a lawsuit if that’s what it takes to continue to provide cervical cancer screenings and other health care to the women who depend on our health centers.”

The bill will have to get 21 votes to be heard on the Senate floor. That would require that at least two Democrats support the measure.

Republican lawmakers, as part of their anti-abortion platform, removed funding for women’s health and family planning services in the Texas House budget and have sought to advance similar measures in the Senate.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_17986546?source=rss

Women demonstrate over falling sex ratio in Raj

Jaipur, Apr 27 (PTI) Women activists today took to the streets of Jaipur to highlight concerns over a falling child sex ratio in Rajasthan and demand for a concrete policy to check the alarming situation.

The figures from the 2011 Census have thrown up rattling statistics of child sex ratio in Rajasthan, with 883 girls born per 1000 boys as against 909 in 2001, indicating sex selection was on the rise.

Scores of women activists from different cities of the state and from different organisations held a joint rally here today, and presented a memorandum to the Chief Minister raising certain key issues.

The activists have demanded the drafting of a state policy 2021 to lay out a plan to check the worrying trend with participation from all sections of the administration — from the Chief Minister to district and panchayat level officials.

They also demanded that officials be given the responsibility to check pre natal sex detection and properly implement the PNDT Act.

The activists highlighted that the child sex ratio in the state had fallen by a worrying 71 points over the last 30 years, and the situation was particularly bad in certain districts like Jhunjhunu where it stood at 831 and in Sikar where it was 841.

They also suggested that the Chief Minister call a meeting of all district collectors to discuss the implementation of the PCPNDT Act, and complaints against doctors found guilty of violation be registered at the Rajasthan Medical Council and be sorted out in given time frame.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/women-activists-demonstrate-over-falling-sex-ratio-raj-141900363.html

Gender-selection abortions spreading in India

Published On Fri Apr 22 2011

Muskan Goel, a 5-year-old girl in Jhajjar, India, a district where there are only 774 young girls for every 1,000 boys, the worst ratio in the country. Local business leaders, politicians and police officials say Jhajjar is a hotbed for female feticide.

Rick Westhead/TORONTO STAR

By Rick Westhead South Asia Bureau

JHAJJAR, INDIA—Muskan Goel is a beautiful 5-year-old girl with an expressive face and saucer eyes who would stand out in any crowd.

But in the north Indian farming service centre Jhajjar, Muskan commands attention simply because she’s a young girl.

She’s one of 16 girls who’ve been admitted to the school over the past year, compared to 43 boys, a symptom of this nation’s failing struggle against gender-selection.

India is a fast-changing country where luxury companies, car makers and cell-phone manufacturers all covet a piece of the growing market. But it’s also a nation with deep-rooted, centuries-old cultural traditions.

Families here have typically pined for a son, to carry on a father’s lineage, contribute to his household’s income and care for his parents as they age. Parents also want a boy because someone with their own last name is required to light their funeral pyre when they are cremated.

For the past four decades, since ultrasound machines were introduced in India, parents desperate for a son to carry on their lineage have had technology on their side, turning a cultural preference into a ruthlessly efficient girl-killing system. If their fetus is female, some mothers opt for an abortion rather than carry to full term.

That’s because even though it’s been illegal for 50 years, many families still pay costly dowries to have their daughters marry. When they do get married, those women leave their home to join their new husband and contribute to his family.

There are estimates that over the past decade alone, more than 10 million unborn females have been aborted across India.

The results of India’s latest once-a-decade census suggest that the gender-selection abortions are spreading beyond the traditional areas of devout Hindus in northern India. It shows there are 914 girls for every 1,000 boys under age 6, a steady decline from 927 girls in 2001 and 962 girls in 1981.

(Boys outnumber girls by a ratio of about 106 to 100 at birth in Canada, according to Statistics Canada).

Nowhere is the disparity greater than in Jhajjar, a district of wheat, mustard and grape seed fields in India’s Haryana state where there are only 774 girls for every 1,000 boys. The district is a centre of female feticide, local business leaders, politicians and police officials say.

But in Jhajjar township, a community of 50,000 that shares the same name as its larger district, opinion remains sharply divided over whether the trend is a cause for concern.

While some local leaders say more education and better policing is needed to stop the practice, others contend there’s nothing to worry about. Abortions, they say, help limit the size of families, which is a positive step towards improving maternal health, while women from other parts of India offset the shortage of marriage-eligible women.

On a recent weekday, Usha Gehlot ushered several visitors through Kidz Shaishav, a school she founded four years ago in Jhajjar for children aged two to seven.

Gehlot said she sees firsthand the effect of selective abortions in her classes. Of the 59 students she has admitted since January 2010, 43, or 75 per cent, are boys. While some families may simply choose not to send their daughters to school, Gehlot suspects something more sinister is responsible for the skewed figure — female feticide.

“It is a big problem,” Gehlot said. “When you have so many more boys, they get more aggressive, and we see that in our class. I think you’ll see more problems in the future with violence and rapes because of frustrated men.”

In Haryana and other states, educators have struggled for years to coax women to stop going to “kudi-maar,” or “daughter-killers.” Some officials have pushed state governments to pay families a bonus for having a daughter, while others pressed for changes to Indian law.

In 1994, India’s parliament passed a law calling for a prison term of up to three years and a fine of $320 for anyone who administers or takes a prenatal sex-determination test.

Not everyone in Jhajjar is worried about the widening gender ratio.

Sitting in a crowded chai shop, amid a row of two-storey grey concrete buildings, city councillor Kishor Saini gestured to a nearby open sewer.

“That is our biggest problem,” he said. “Sewers and drinking water. Many parts of our city don’t have water supplies and the government pipes are leaking.”

Saini says he doesn’t consider feticide a crime, or even a pressing social problem.

“The first thing that comes into peoples’ mind is to have a boy,” he shrugged. “It used to be that parents had three or four or five kids and they didn’t give a damn if they had a girl. But now they want smaller families and they do care.”

While several bachelors complain that already there aren’t enough eligible brides in Jhajjar, Saini says that’s not a worry. Haryana is a wealthy state that attracts migrant workers, and their daughters, from poor states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

“There are women to be married,” Saini said.

After spending less than an hour in town, several visitors this week were told about two health clinics in Jhajjar that purportedly provide ultrasounds and abortions.

A female journalist working with the Star entered the first clinic on Wednesday afternoon and told a doctor in charge that she was pregnant and wanted to find out if she was carrying a girl. The doctor nodded and provided the name and address of Hemlata, a doctor at another clinic.

A few minutes later, the reporter introduced herself to Hemlata. Operating out of an office barely bigger than an office cubicle, Hemlata spent 15 minutes grilling the journalist, at one point demanding her cell phone to see if their conversation was being recorded.

“This is so dangerous,” Hemlata said. “Can I trust you?”

Ultimately, Hemlata said she wouldn’t help and ended their conversation.

Later, Hemlata said in an interview that she doesn’t offer the illegal ultrasounds or abortions to anyone.

“I don’t allow anyone an ultrasound before they are six months pregnant unless they are bleeding,” she said, sitting next to her examination room, which consisted of little more than a bench, a flashlight and a box of disposable plastic gloves.

Hemlata was asked how the gender ratio has become so lopsided in Jhajjar if no one is performing illegal ultrasounds and abortions.

“Maybe it’s because of miscarriages and bad pregnancies,” she said.

Police inspector Ajmer Singh says that while he considers the illegal abortions tantamount to murder, he’s helpless without a complainant.

“Who’s going to complain?” asked Puchalapalli Sandhya, a social activist in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh who has worked on women’s rights issues for decades.

“The mother of the unborn won’t, and neither will the ultrasound operator.”

Sandhya said the only solution to India’s female feticide debacle is improved education, which will give a woman the chance to generate a monthly income when she gets married, a development that should bolster her leverage in family decisions.

“We have to keep pushing to ensure that young girls become better educated,” Sandhya said.

“Right now, too many women just feel guilty for being women,” she said. “Having a girl baby is a burden. It’s in the blood here and it’s something that has to change.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/979111–gender-selection-abortions-spreading-in-india

Oklahoma: Religious assault on women, abortion rights, continue

In Oklahoma the religious rights’s assault on women’s reproductive freedom continues. Wednesday Governor Mary Fallin signed two new lawsinto existence that further restrict a woman’s right to an abortion. The new laws make Oklahoma one of the most restrictive states in the nation.

House Bill 1888, “The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” will force a woman to carry to term any pregnancy after 20 weeks, regardless of defects. Hence government will force women to carry to term a fetus that has no chance of life outside of the womb. For many such a measure is cruel and inhumane, an unnecessary and unwarranted barbarism inflicted on a woman already in pain.

The law also makes it a felony for doctors to perform abortions after 20 weeks and presumes a fetus can feel pain after 20 weeks, a presumption that has no basis in science. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has stated it knows of “no legitimate scientific information that supports the statement that a fetus experiences pain.”

In addition, the law makes no exception for cases of rape or incest.

The second law constitutes an economic assault on women’s reproductive freedom. The law prohibits standard insurance policies in the state from covering abortions. For many, such a measure is nothing but a means to punish and penalize women who dare exercise their constitutional rights.

http://www.examiner.com/humanist-in-national/oklahoma-religious-assault-on-women-abortion-rights-continue

Haryana doctor held for sex determination test

Chandigarh, April 20 (IANS) A doctor and his assistant in Haryana’s Karnal town were caught red-handed Wednesday while they were conducting a test on a pregnant woman to determine the foetus’ gender.

A team of district authorities and health officials, led by Karnal Civil Surgeon Vandana Bhatia, caught Brij Bhushan, who runs the Karnal Ultrasound Centre, and his compounder Amit while conductingthen sex dtermionation test, whih is banned under law. Karnal town is some 120 km from here.

The team was accompanied by police officers.

The officials seized a China-made portable ultrasound machine and other equipments.

‘The woman, who had come there for the test, tried to run away by jumping over a wall. However, the members of the team caught her. The woman has been identified as Neelam, resident of Sampla Kheri in district Kaithal,’ a state government spokesman said here.

The woman has a one-and-a-half year old girl and was three months pregnant.

Earlier in February this year, the doctor’s clinic in another part of Karnal was sealed for carrying out sex determination tests.

Bhushan had then hired the new place in a residential area to carry out his illegal activities.

Haryana has the worst sex ratio among all states in India – 877 females per 1,000 males. The national sex ratio, as per Census 2011, is 940.

‘Action would be taken against the doctor and his compounder under the provisions of PNDT (Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques) Act,’ the spokesman added.

Sex determination tests are banned under the PNDT Act to check the practice of aborting female foetuses.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/haryana-doctor-held-sex-determination-test-123053316.html

Tennessee Senate moves constitutional measure on abortion closer to public vote

Abortion foes moved toward putting the issue up for a public referendum in Tennessee as the state Senate approved a constitutional amendment that would allow more restrictions on the practice.

Senators voted 24-8 Monday night to place an amendment on the ballot that would state explicitly that abortion is not protected by the Tennessee constitution, overturning a 2000 ruling that abortion opponents say has kept the state from placing more regulations on abortion.

If the legislation, SJR127, is approved by the House, it would go before voters in the 2014 elections.

All 20 Republicans in the Senate voted for the amendment. Four Democrats also voted for the amendment, including state Sen. Douglas Henry.

“This resolution is only about letting the people decide whether they want their elected representatives to make the laws on abortion,” said state Sen. Mae Beavers, R-Juliet, the amendment’s sponsor.

The Senate spent about half an hour debating the amendment, which has come up repeatedly since the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the state constitution offers greater protections for abortion than the U.S. constitution.

Much of that time was spent discussing a pair of changes suggested by Sen. Roy Herron, D-Dresden, that would have explicitly protected access to abortion for women whose lives are at risk or victims of rape or incest. In such cases, the decision whether to have an abortion ought to be left to the pregnant woman and her family, he said.

“We ought not let some future legislature prohibit that family from protecting those victims,” he said.

But Beavers said the changes were unnecessary because her amendment would not in itself ban abortion. She also said the changes would delay the amendment’s final passage, because state law says any change in the wording of the amendment would start the process of altering the constitution all over again.

The vote sends the amendment to the state House of Representatives, which will also have to approve the measure by a two-thirds majority for the issue to appear on 2014 ballot. If a majority of voters who cast ballots in that year’s race for governor approve the amendment, it would then be added to the state’s constitution.

Already, supporters and opponents are gearing up for a battle at the polls.

“Decisions regarding pregnancy are perhaps the most personal decisions a woman can make,” said Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Tennessee chapter. “We are building a broad-based coalition … so that when voters go to the polls in 2014 they will vote for access to health care and privacy, and against SJR127.”

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110419/NEWS/304190030/Tennessee-moves-closer-abortion-vote-

Senate rejects attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, health reform

The Senate has rejected a bill that would have blocked funding for implementation of President Obama’s new healthcare law.

The 47-53 vote, which broke along party lines, was an expected result in the chamber, which is run by Democrats. The bill fell short of the 60 votes needed to move forward.

The Senate agreed to hold the vote as part of the compromise spending deal negotiated last week. The deal

Although it had little chance of passing, Republicans insisted on the vote in order to put Democrats on record as defending the law – which has limited public support. The vote will likely be used as a political weapon in the 2012 campaigns.

No Democrats voted for the measure.

Also as part of the budget agreement the Senate took up a bill blocking federal money from flowing to Planned Parenthood. That measure also failed, though this time five Republicans also voted with Democrats in opposition: Sens. Olympia Snowe, (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine), Scott Brown (Mass.) and Mark Kirk (Ill.).

Kansas enacts new abortion restrictions

TOPEKA, Kan., April 13 (UPI) — Women in Kansas face new restrictions on their right to have an abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy as of July 1, pro-choice proponents say.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed two measures into law Tuesday effectively ending late-term abortions in the state unless they are necessary to save the life of the mother, The Topeka (Kan.) Capital Journal reported.

Brownback said challenges to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling establishing a national right to abortion are popping up all over the country.

“You’re seeing pro-life legislation pass in many jurisdictions across the nation,” he said. “To sign major pro-life legislation in a first term, I think is important and significant.”

Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri and Trust Women of St. Louis said the legislation would have a negative impact on the health of women.

“These bills will not reduce the rate of abortion,’ said Julie Burkhart, executive director of Trust Women, “They will force women to seek other means.”

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/04/13/Kansas-enacts-new-abortion-restrictions/UPI-23451302700320/#ixzz1JQONdWEz

Idaho Rejects Rape Exception In Abortion Bill

Marching in step with the GOP’s nationwide war on a woman’s right to choose, the Idaho legislature gave final approval to a bill that would outlaw abortions after 20 weeks. Modeled after Nebraska’s first-in-the-nation measure, the bill — like the one passed in Kansas last week — is based on highly disputed medical research alleging that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks. Idaho’s bill, however, also fails to include exceptions for rape, incest, severe fetal abnormality or the mental or psychological health of the mother. “Only when the pregnancy threatens the mother’s life or physical health could a post-20-week abortion be performed.”

In 1990, Idaho’s anti-abortion Gov. Cecil Andrus (D) vetoed a similar bill expressly because it failed to provide a rape or incest exception. “The bill is drawn so narrowly that it would punitively and without compassion further harm an Idaho woman who may find herself in the horrible, unthinkable position of confronting a pregnancy that resulted from rape or incest,” he said.

But this year during Sexual Assault Awareness Month, state Republican lawmakers found plenty of reasons to advocate for it. State Rep. Shannon McMillan (R) argued that women who were impregnated under “violent circumstances” should have no choice because it’s not the fetus’s fault. State Rep. Brent Crane, the bill’s sponsor, took it a step further. Believing that “tragic, horrific” acts of rape or incest are the “hand of the Almighty,” Crane said women should trust God to turn the consequences of their sexual assault into “wonderful examples”:

“Is not the child of that rape or incest also a victim?” asked Rep. Shannon McMillan, R-Silverton. “It didn’t ask to be here. It was here under violent circumstances perhaps, but that was through no fault of its own.”[...]

The Idaho bill’s House sponsor, state Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, told legislators that the “hand of the Almighty” was at work. “His ways are higher than our ways,” Crane said. “He has the ability to take difficult, tragic, horrific circumstances and then turn them into wonderful examples.”

Crane’s belief that good can come from such horrific circumstances may be one shared or embraced by a sexual assault victim. However, that interpretation, that belief, that choice should be made by the woman — not forced upon her by law. The right to choose is not about the “innocence” or “guilt” of the fetus – or of the woman for that matter. It is about a woman being able to decide whether she is willing and able to carry a pregnancy to term.

The bill does more than compel sexual assault victims to carry pregnancies to term, it makes it a felony to perform such an abortion and allows spouses and relatives to file legal injunctions against physicians who break the ban. The bill also sets up a fund that can accept donations to defend the bill — a needed provision since the Idaho attorney general has issued two legal opinions declaring the bill unconstitutional for violating the Roe v. Wade decision’s viability standard.

Despite the lack of constitutionality or compassion, the bill passed 54 to 14 with only one Republican joining all 13 Democrats in opposition. The bill now heads to Gov. Butch Otter (R) “who is expected to sign it.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/07/idaho-almighty-abortion/

China’s workforce ‘dries up’

The seemingly endless flow of young Chinese workers that helped to create the country’s economic miracle has now finally “dried up”, according to a leading economist.

Workshop of the world: young workers in decline due to strict Chinese policies on the size of the family Photo: AFP

For decades, China has been able to rely on its vast workforce to manufacture a host of goods more cheaply and efficiently than anywhere else in the world.

But now China’s leaders are worrying that the country’s one-child policy has begun to stem the tide of young workers ready to step forward into the country’s factories.

“Each year, the number of new workers joining factories is smaller than the number of old workers who are retiring,” said Zhang Zheng, an economist at the elite Guanghua School of Management at Peking University. “The supply has dried up,” he added.

Last year, according to his calculations, only 154 million people under 30 were part of China’s enormous 550 million-strong industrial workforce.

Mr Zhang added that it was not just demographics that was sapping the workforce of younger staff, but also the growing ambition of young Chinese to pursue further education and then white-collar jobs.

The shortage of young workers is a headache for Chinese factory bosses, who need workers that can put up with long hours and work that demands physical strength, precision and good eyesight.

As a result, wages have shot up by anything from 15 per cent to 40 per cent in some areas, making China a more expensive location for foreign companies to manufacture their goods.

“Chinese companies have to accept the fact they have to raise wages,” said Mr Zhang. “And foreign clients will have to accept that China is not just a place to manufacture cheap goods. Without rising prices, fewer Chinese companies will be willing to take orders,” he added.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8409513/Chinas-workforce-dries-up.html

Woman charged in suicide attempt after fetus died

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana’s prosecution of a pregnant woman accused of killing her fetus by swallowing rat poison during a suicide attempt could discourage women from seeking prenatal care, medical groups have argued in a court brief.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Medical Women’s Association, the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum and other groups filed the brief in a Marion County court Friday on behalf of 34-year-old Bei Bei Shuai, who was charged with murder and feticide last month.

Police say friends took Shuai to a hospital in Anderson after she told them she swallowed rat poison Dec. 23. She was transferred to a hospital in Indianapolis, where she gave birth Dec. 31. The baby named Angel Shuai died three days later.

Shuai spent more than four weeks in inpatient psychiatric care, according to The Indianapolis Star. She was recovering from depression when the prosecutor filed charges three weeks ago, said her attorney, Linda Pence. Shuai has been in jail since then. A hearing is set for Tuesday to determine whether she should be released on bail.

The medical groups argue in a brief co-written by two professors at the Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis that the charges against her should be dismissed.

“The goal of these prosecutions is to promote fetal welfare, but in fact it’s more likely that they will endanger fetal welfare, because now pregnant women may have to be worried because a trip to the doctor’s office may end up as a trip to jail,” said professor David Orentlicher, who helped write the brief. Orentlicher is a doctor as well as a lawyer, while his co-author, professor Jennifer Girod, is a nurse and an attorney.

Orentlicher said the case could keep pregnant women from seeking prenatal care if they feel they could be accused of mistreating their fetus.

“Prosecuting pregnant women who are trying to harm themselves is very bad public policy,” Pence said. “This is the most expansive interpretation that a prosecutor could give.”

The American Civil Liberties Union has also submitted a brief to the court, arguing that charging Shuai with a crime for attempting suicide is unconstitutional because a man or woman who wasn’t pregnant would not have been charged for the same act.

A spokesman for the Marion County prosecutor’s office said the agency is reviewing the documents filed on Shuai’s behalf and has no comment.

http://newsandtribune.com/local/x930488827/Woman-charged-in-suicide-attempt-after-fetus-died

Third abortion bill passes Kansas House

TOPEKA — The House passed a third anti-abortion bill on Wednesday calling for strict regulations of clinics and doctors’ offices where abortions are provided.

House Substitute for Senate Bill 36 would require abortion clinics to be licensed and comply with a long list of medical standards and practices. Abortions after the 21st week of pregnancy would have to be done at a hospital or surgical center.

The bill passed on an overwhelming voice vote and, assuming approval on the formal roll call, it will go to the Senate for consideration.

A similar bill passed the Legislature before, but was vetoed by former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. Gov. Sam Brownback has indicated he will sign into law any anti-abortion bill that comes to his desk.

Rep. Steve Huebert, R-Valley Center, carried the bill on the floor.

“Some people might want to consider this a pro-life bill,” he said. “I’m pro-life and I support it, but I consider it a women’s health bill.”

Rep. Judith Loganbill, D-Wichita, scoffed at the idea that the bill was directed at anything but making it harder for women to get abortions.

And she questioned why, if the standards are appropriate for abortion clinics, they wouldn’t be for other outpatient facilities that do surgery.

“Apparently, we need to protect those little women because they just aren’t capable of taking care of their own health,” she said sarcastically.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/31/2143527/third-abortion-bill-passes-kansas.html#ixzz1IUGhlfSI

Past and Present Collide as the Black Anti-Abortion Movement Grows

Anti-Abortion Movement Grows

Anti-abortion billboard in the West Adams district in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jorge Rivas/Colorlines.com)

Just over a year ago, in February 2010, Ryan Bomberger’s impassioned campaign to convince black people that abortion is genocide burst into mainstream view. Bomberger’s Radiance Foundation, a Georgia-based anti-abortion group, placed dozens of billboards around Atlanta in coordination with black history month, touching off a media firestorm. “Black children are an endangered species,” said the billboards, of which there are now at least 170 in at least five cities and states.

“I’m an adoptee and adoptive father who has worked in the urban community most of my adult life,” says Bomberger, who is black. “I mourn the loss of beautiful possibility, not only in the unborn children who are unjustly killed, but the would-be mothers and fathers who are propagandized to believe that abortion solves any of the issues we face as a society.”

In the year since the Radiance Foundation campaign began, the abortion-as-black-genocide meme has spread widely. As the House voted to defund Planned Parenthood last month, Georgia Republican Paul Broun lectured on the floor about eugenics. Last week, the group Life Always sparked outrage with a billboard in lower Manhattan that declared, “The most dangerous place for an African-American is the womb.” FOX News shows have been abuzz with talk about high abortion rates in urban centers and among black women. Suddenly, the right is terribly concerned with the well-being of black babies.

The black-focused billboards direct viewers to websites—Bomberger’s toomanyaborted.com and Life Always’ thatsabortion.com. The two sites have a similar message: abortion is tantamount to genocide in the black community. Both campaigns identify Planned Parenthood as the villain at the center of this genocide—they claim the organization targets African Americans through outreach and strategic clinic locations, and point to founder Margaret Sanger’s early 20th century involvement in eugenics.

All of these campaigns also take as their staring point a fact that everybody agrees upon: black women have the highest rates of abortion in the United States. According to Melissa Gilliam, University of Chicago researcher and Guttmacher Institute board member, an African-American woman is four times more likely than a white woman to have an abortion in her lifetime. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 37 percent of all abortions in 2004 were obtained by black women, 34 percent by white women and 22 percent by hispanic women.

So why are African-American women having so many more abortions than other groups? Most reproductive rights and health advocates say it’s because of a much higher rate of unintended pregnancy among black women, a fact that is supported by data: black women have an unintended pregnancy rate three times that of white women, according to Guttmacher. This imbalance derives from larger health disparities: lack of access to health care, lower rates of contraceptive use, and higher rates of untreated STDs and of preventive disease overall.

Groups like the Radiance Foundation, in their language about abortion as “genocide” and “holocaust,” imply instead a larger conspiracy, perhaps promoted by government, to threaten the black community. And like other public health conspiracy theories that have circulated in black neighborhoods over the years, the assertion is rooted in a very real and troubling history.

An Ugly Past Remains Present

Women’s reproduction has long been at the mercy of state control, particularly for women of color. For black women, this history dates back to slavery. As Dorothy Roberts outlined in her seminal 1998 book, “Killing the Black Body,” women held in bondage had no control over their fertility whatsoever, and they were relied upon and manipulated in order to produce the next generation of labor. Even after emancipation, eugenics and paternalistic ideas about who was fit to reproduce influenced government policy in the U.S. These policies overwhelmingly impacted the lives and health of women of color, as well as low-income women, women with disabilities and others deemed “unfit.” There is a deep history of forced sterilization across communities of color—some of which actually did result in the near elimination of certain Native American tribes.

These practices are not ancient history, and many incarnations still exist today: primarily through economic and social welfare programs that limit women’s access to certain forms of contraception or place caps on how many children they can have when receiving welfare. For example, undocumented women I worked with in Pennsylvania were able to get coverage for sterilization as part of their emergency medical coverage during pregnancy, but could not receive coverage for other forms of birth control since their Medicaid ran out shortly after giving birth. Women’s reproduction—but more specifically, the reproduction of women of color and low-income women—remains a practice in which the government is invested and deeply entwined.

Roberts outlines in her book how this reasoning was used within the black community to decry birth control and family planning, including abortion, from the early 20tht century through the civil rights era. Critics claimed that for the black community to succeed, black women needed to produce children, and that any attempt to limit fertility represented an effort to eliminate or weaken the race. In 1934, Marcus Garvey’s nationalist organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, came out against birth control. Garvey’s group and others called it “race suicide” and argued that controlling reproduction through birth control was harmful to the black community overall, and likely being promoted by whites in service of racism. This rhetoric popped up again and again in black nationalist movements, most often coming from the male leaders and figureheads. Bomberger echoes it today.

“After years of extensive research into the immense disparity of abortion’s impact on the black community, it was readily apparent that the history of the birth control movement (and America’s racist and eugenics-driven history of dehumanizing efforts to control black populations) provided much of the explanation,” Bomberger told me in a recent interview.

He is a compelling leader for the black anti-abortion movement. A young African-American man, Bomberger leads with his own personal story about abortion—a common thread among movement spokespeople. A video on the Radiance Foundation website tells his story. Bomberger was adopted as an infant by a white Christian family. His biological mother, Bomberger claims, conceived him during a rape. In his own words, he “was once considered ‘black and unwanted’ but instead was adopted and loved.”

His group is behind the largest billboard campaign we’ve seen to date: 172 so far in Atlanta, Arkansas, Milwaukee, Texas and most recently Los Angeles, with plans for expansion. But the Radiance Foundation and Bomberger are no means alone in the black anti-abortion movement. At least four other groups—Life Always, National Black Pro-life Coalition, National Black Pro-life Union and Issues4Life—also work specifically on abortion in the black community. The leadership behind these groups is primarily African-American, male and religious. Of the nine speakers advertised on the National Black Pro-Life Coalition’s website, three are women and six are religious—ministers, pastors or other Christian religious figures. While Bomberger partners with Issues4Life, a California-based anti-abortion group, he says he has no relationship to Life Always, the group behind the NYC billboard that was taken down last week.

New Voices, Same Messages

If these groups are not working in concert, they nonetheless share common messaging, particularly Christian-based rhetoric about sexual purity, abstinence and heterosexual marriage. Most of their websites also provide the typical anti-choice information about abortion, but with a racialized spin.

A 170-billboard campaign cannot be a cheap endeavor—Bomberger’s campaign site invites corporate sponsorships of “between $5,000 and $10,000” to cover new billboards—but it’s not clear how these campaigns are being financed thus far. Bomberger responded to my inquiry by stating that “there is no conspiratorial right-wing anything funding us. It’s individuals, mostly, who are simply passionate about defending life, in all of its stages.” Others, however, allege that there are connections between this work and the Republican Party.

In fact, the black anti-abortion movement doesn’t look all that different from the mainstream, and mostly white, version—similar language about abortion, morality and reproduction; similar strong Christian influence. But the specifically racialized take, which often borrows from the language of civil rights and genocide, has a unique weight coming from within the black community. One of the often mentioned spokespeople of this movement is the is Alveda King, the neice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She’s affiliated with the NBPC as well as the National Black Pro-life Union.

Of course, they overlook another part of black America’s history with reproductive rights. According to Roberts, black women were actually overwhelmingly in support of birth control and fought to gain access to it throughout the 20th century. In 1941, the National Council of Negro Women became the first national women’s group to endorse birth control. Prominent female political figures in the black community came out against the rhetoric of their male counterparts when it came to reproduction. “Black women have the right and the responsibility to determine when it is in the interest of the struggle to have children or not to have them and this right must not be relinquished,” declared Frances Beal, head of the Black Women’s Liberation Committee of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the civil right movement.

Roberts explains that these women had good reason to be in support of birth control: They were already using rudimentary methods of family planning, and suffered greatly from illegal and unsafe abortions. Prominent male leaders also stood beside them in support of family planning, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesse Jackson and the Black Panther Party, among others.

“They have discovered a very volatile and provocative way of getting their anti-abortion message across,” Roberts argues. “They are misusing and distorting history in order to support their view on abortion.”

They are also misusing the much-cited data on black abortions. Abortion rates alone may appear to support the black anti-choice movement’s genocide claims. But those numbers can’t be taken in isolation. The fertility rate, for instance, directly counters the provocative genocide language. According to Gilliam, the fertility rate (meaning the average number of children a women will have in her lifetime) is the same for white and black women: 2.0. The black community in the U.S. is not in a state of population decline due to abortion, and continues to reproduce at rates equivalent to whites.

More broadly, there is the crucial point that criminalizing abortion actually poses a greater threat to the African-American lives. Before the procedure was legalized, “Illegal abortion was the cause of 25 percent of the white women’s deaths due to pregnancy, 49 percent of the black women’s, and 65 percent of the Puerto Ricans’,” as Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman in Congress and a strong supporter of reproductive rights, wrote in her memoir. In addition, the legalization of abortion resulted in significant improvements in maternal and fetal mortality rates. “Maternal mortality in New York City dropped by more than half during the first year [abortion was legal], to an all-time recorded low. Infant mortality also dropped to a new low,” reports New York Times columnist Linda Greenhouse. Bomberger responded to Greenhouse’s column that shared this data, refuting it with his own version of these numbers.

Reproductive rights advocates, including women of color, have come out strong against the billboard campaigns led by Bomberger and his movement cohorts. Sistersong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective has been organizing against the billboards since their launch in Atlanta last year. They’ve formed a group, called the Trust Black Women Coalition, that responds specifically to the racialized messaging. These advocates say that the campaigns unfairly target African-American women themselves.

“Black women’s wombs are not the main enemy of black children,” says Roberts, who says they promote “toxic stereotypes” about black mothers’ irresponsibility. “Racism and sexism and poverty are the main enemy of black children. [The billboard] doesn’t highlight the issues behind why women are having so many abortions, it just blames them for doing it.”

Indeed, it all leaves out the state policies that have had significant impacts on black women’s reproductive choices—welfare family caps, for example, that limit the number of children a for which a mother can receive support.

Planned Parenthood, instead, has been at the center of this movement’s attacks. They have come under fire for the government funding they receive under Title X—money specifically earmarked for family planning services like contraception as well as cancer screenings and overall reproductive health. Planned Parenthood has become a central health care provider nationwide, known for the affordability of their services and being a resource for low-income women and women of color. The abortion care they provide (which is not funded by federal money and, in fact, is legally mandated to remain separate from their other operations) has placed them at the center of this debate.

As Loretta Ross and the Trust Black Women Coalition have pointed out, it was African American women who asked Margaret Sanger to bring family planning clinics to black neighborhoods, and it’s African American women now who seek out and support Planned Parenthood for the wide range of health services they provide, only a portion of which is abortion.

“They are essentially blaming black women for their reproductive decisions and then the solution is to restrict and regulate black women’s decisions about their bodies,” Roberts says of the burgeoning black anti-abortion movement. “Ironically, they have that in common with eugenicists.”

http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/03/past_and_present_collide_as_the_black_anti-abortion_movement_grows.html

Lawmakers: Women violated by church

A PRINCIPAL author of the pending reproductive health (RH) measure in Congress said the Catholic church is committing serious cases of violence against women.

“Unremitting and yearly pregnancies are serious cases of violence against women who are denied access to family planning, including legal, medically-safe and effective contraception,” Minority Leader Edcel Lagman said in a press statement.

Last week, around 40,000 people attended a Church-led rally in Quirino
Grandstand against the passage of the RH bill.

Lagman called the Catholic Church and the government as the principal culprits in the violation of women’s rights as it continues to oppose the long-delayed measure.

“The principal culprits are: the Catholic Church hierarchy which continues to oppose the enactment of the reproductive health bill and propagates misinformation on modern family planning methods; the government for procrastinating on the passage of the long-delayed RH measure; and husbands and men who impose themselves on their wives and partners in the absence of any viable family planning method,” added the House leader.

Lagman also said that such form of violence against women constitutes physical, psychological, and financial violence which are punishable under Republic Act No. 9262 or the “Anti Violence Against Women and Their Children Act.”

The RH author noted that the failure to pass the RH bill is a form of physical violence because unremitting pregnancies pose high risks to women and constitute a major cause of maternal death and illness.

“It is psychological violence because women who are driven to abortion because they cannot afford another child suffer grave psychological trauma,” Lagman added.

According to the University of the Philippines Population Institute, an average of 500,000 abortions is performed annually in the country.

Lagman said it can also be considered as financial violence because unremitting pregnancies prevent women from finishing their education and securing remunerative work.

Proponents of the RH bill had scrapped several provisions in the controversial measure including its two-child policy. They also agreed to make sex education for age-appropriate students optional. 

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/manila/local-news/2011/03/29/lawmakers-women-violated-church-147392

Philippine Catholics protest family planning bill

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine Catholic church on Friday led tens of thousands of Filipinos in one of the biggest rallies against a proposed family planning law, saying it will promote artificial contraception and lead to more abortions.

Police said about 40,000 people gathered at Manila’s Rizal Park for the prayer rally led by Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales.

The proposed law would require the government to provide information on family planning methods, make contraceptives available, and hold reproductive health and sexuality classes from grade 5 through high school. It would also raise AIDS awareness and help couples determine the right number of children and birth spacing.

Church officials have blocked passage of family planning laws in the past, saying they would erode moral values and encourage promiscuity and early pregnancies.

“Being married is holy, and intimacy is holy because this will create new life that is a gift from God,” Rosales said. “Sex is not a game that should be taught to children along with the use of condoms supposedly to avoid disease.”

He said Filipinos should strengthen the values of sacrifice and discipline.

“If a person is disciplined, he will have discipline in bed and if he has discipline in bed, he will have discipline in the streets, and if he has discipline in the streets, he will have discipline with his wallet,” he said.

The bill for “responsible parenthood, reproductive health and population and development” is in the final stages before a vote in the House of Representatives. A separate version is being debated in the Senate.

One of its opponents is Philippine boxing star and congressman Manny Pacquiao, who says he never would have been born and become an international champion if his parents practiced birth control.

Rep. Edcel Lagman, one of the bill’s main proponents, says the opposition mainly comes from the church hierarchy, not from ordinary citizens of the predominantly Roman Catholic nation.

Supporters say the country’s rapid population growth — about 2.04 percent, the highest in Southeast Asia, according to the Population Commission — must be slowed to reduce poverty.

The women’s party Gabriela says the bill would limit unsafe abortions by reducing unwanted pregnancies caused by a lack of knowledge of family planning methods.

An estimated 560,000 women in the Philippines sought abortions in 2008 involving crude and painful methods, according to a report last August by the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights.

About 90,000 women suffer from abortion complications and an estimated 1,000 die each year, it said, adding that complications are among the top 10 reasons women seek hospital care.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110325/ap_on_re_as/as_philippines_family_planning_2

 

Wave of anti-abortion bills advance in the states

NEW YORK – Dozens of bills are advancing through statehouses nationwide that would put an array of new obstacles — legal, financial and psychological — in the paths of women seeking abortions.

The tactics vary: mandatory sonograms and anti-abortion counseling, sweeping limits on insurance coverage, bans on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. To abortion-rights activists, they add up to the biggest political threat since the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 that legalized abortion nationwide.

“It’s just this total onslaught,” said Elizabeth Nash, who tracks state legislation for the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-health research organization that supports abortion rights.

What’s different this year is not the raw number of anti-abortion bills, but the fact that many of the toughest, most substantive measures have a good chance of passage due to gains by conservative Republicans in last year’s legislative and gubernatorial elections. On Tuesday, South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard signed into law a bill that would impose a longest-in-the-nation waiting period of three days before women could have an abortion — and also require them to undergo counseling at pregnancy help centers that discourage abortions.

“We’re seeing an unprecedented level of bills that would have a serious impact on women’s access to abortion services that very possibly could become law,” said Rachel Sussman, senior policy analyst for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

On the other side, anti-abortion strategists such as Mary Spaulding Balch of the National Right to Life Committee have been scrambling to keep up with legislative developments: “Until the bills get on the governors’ desks, it’s premature to claim victory. But it’s moving faster than it has in previous years. … We’re very pleased with the progress thus far.”

In a number of states, lawmakers are considering bills that would ban elective abortions after 20 or 21 weeks of pregnancy. These measures are modeled after a law approved last year in Nebraska that was based on the disputed premise that a fetus can feel pain after 20 weeks.

The Idaho Senate approved one such bill Wednesday, sending it to the House, while a similar bill won final legislative approval in the Kansas Senate. The same type of measure is pending in Oklahoma and Alabama.

In Ohio, there’s been a hearing on an even tougher measure that would outlaw abortions after the first medically detectable heartbeat — as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. At that hearing, two pregnant women underwent ultrasounds so lawmakers could see and hear the fetal hearts.

The Ohio bill and the bans on abortions after 20 weeks are direct challenges to the legal status quo, based on Supreme Court rulings that permit abortions up to the point of a fetus’ viability — approximately 24 weeks — and allow states to impose restrictions for abortions after that stage.

In Texas, a bill passed by the House would require that pregnant women have an opportunity to view a sonogram image, hear the fetal heartbeat and listen to a doctor describe the fetus. While the doctor would be obligated to provide the information, the woman could close her eyes or cover her ears, according to the bill, which doesn’t exempt victims of rape or incest.

“We don’t believe these bills will dissuade women who’ve already made their decisions,” said Donna Crane of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “What we think they will do is harass and intimidate women who don’t deserve it.”

Balch disagreed, insisting that the South Dakota bill and the sonogram measures in several states were not coercive.

“When a woman is pregnant and doesn’t want to be, the more information she has, the better,” Balch said. “That’s what these laws are trying to do — give a thoughtful pause so the mother can understand the options that are out there.”

In more than 20 states, bills have been introduced to restrict insurance coverage of abortion. In Utah, one such measures — affecting both private and public plans — has cleared both legislative chambers and been sent to Gov. Gary Herbert.

Of the various types of bills, the insurance bans could have the broadest impact, according to some abortion-rights activists.

“You could have nearly half the states where you couldn’t buy regular insurance coverage for abortion even with your own money,” Crane said. “This is having a transformational effect on the insurance industry and the way abortion is viewed.”

While routine first-trimester abortions generally cost $400 to $700, later and more complicated abortions can run into the thousands of dollars, especially if hospitalization is needed.

“A lot of these bills have an edge to them that really discounts the complications that can occur in pregnancy,” said Planned Parenthood’s Sussman. “There’s a disregard for women’s health.”

Florida is a prime battleground. With a new Republican governor, Rick Scott, who touts his anti-abortion beliefs, conservative lawmakers have introduced at least 18 bills on the topic — including proposals to require ultrasound and to ban most insurance coverage of abortion.

“That could result in tens of thousands of women losing coverage,” said Stephanie Kunkel, executive director of the Florida Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates.

A different tactic is being tried in Virginia, where lawmakers last month passed a bill requiring abortion clinics to be regulated on the same basis as hospitals. Abortion-rights group said this could entail higher costs and force several clinics to close.

Many of the states where anti-abortion bills are advancing have new Republican governors who made campaign pledges to support such efforts.

For example, Brownback urged Kansas legislators to create a “culture of life” and is considered likely to sign the pending bill that would tighten restrictions on abortion after the 21st week of pregnancy.

The sponsor of the Idaho bill to impose a similar ban after 20 weeks, Sen. Chuck Winder, summoned out-of-state medical and legal experts to tell colleagues that a fetus at that point will suffer pain during an abortion. It’s a disputed assertion; the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says it knows of no legitimate evidence showing a fetus can ever experience pain.

Thus far, the year-old Nebraska law banning most abortions after 20 weeks has not been challenged in court. That has emboldening abortion foes to promote versions of it in other states this year even though the nationwide norm is to allow elective abortions up to roughly 24 weeks.

Jill June of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, which operates in Nebraska and Iowa, said she expected the 20-week ban to be challenged at some point — either in Nebraska or some other state that passes such a law.

She cited the case of Danielle Deaver, a Nebraska woman who — under the new law — was denied the option of terminating a pregnancy at 22 weeks after she learned the baby was nonviable.

Deaver ended up going into natural pre-term labor and gave birth to a girl who died after 15 minutes. She later told her story to local media, expressing hope that other legislators would consider the ramifications as they contemplated such bans.

“There will be more women like her who will be harmed if these laws continue to be passed in other states,” June said.

Concentrated effort to tighten abortion laws advances in Florida Legislature

TALLAHASSEE — Between a conservative Legislature and a more conservative governor, there’s a concentrated effort this year to tighten Florida’s abortion laws.

From reviving a controversial measure to require a woman to receive an ultrasound before undergoing an abortion to a blanket ban that would pose a legal challenge to Roe vs. Wade, at least 18 bills are filed.

“It’s an unprecedented year,” said Stephanie Kunkel, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates.

The number puts Florida among the top five states in the country for antiabortion bills, Kunkel said. (West Virginia is first with more than 30.)

“There are some that are just chipping away at a woman’s right to choose and there are some that are wholesale assaults,” said Danielle Prendergast, director of public policy for the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposes the bills. “Given the makeup and the tone of this Legislature, I think more will pass than may have passed in previous sessions.”

The push contrasts heavily with last year when the ultrasound bill came under intense, emotional debate and was ultimately vetoed by then-Gov. Charlie Crist, who said, “Personal views should not result in laws that unwisely expand the role of government and coerce people to obtain medical tests or procedures that are not medically necessary.”

The most significant proposal is a bill from Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Palatka, that would challenge the U.S. Supreme Court decision that guaranteed a woman’s right to choose. But without a companion in the Senate, it isn’t likely to progress.

Other bills, however, are moving quickly, and three made it through committee Tuesday, including the ultrasound measure that requires a woman to get one before undergoing an abortion and be asked if she wants to review the results.

“This is about the right of a woman considering the termination of a pregnancy to possess all of the relevant information made available to her so she can make a fully informed decision,” the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Elizabeth Porter, R-Lake City, told members of the House Health and Human Services Quality Subcommittee. “Knowledge is never a bad thing.”

Opponents, though, say the measure interferes with the doctor-patient relationship and forces doctors to perform a procedure that may not be medically necessary.

Rep. Scott Randolph, D-Orlando, called out Republican members for voting earlier in the day to prohibit laws requiring individuals to have health insurance because it intrudes on the doctor-patient relationship and then supporting the ultrasound bill.

“Is this legislation not practicing an ideology of convenience or are we just being hypocritical?” he asked.

The bill passed along party lines.

The Health and Human Services Committee passed a bill sponsored by Rep. Rachel Burgin, R-Riverview, that would limit third-trimester abortions, require doctors performing abortions to receive ethics training and mandate that abortion clinics be owned by physicians.

And the Senate banking and insurance committee passed a bill that would prohibit private insurers from covering abortions if the policy is paid for using any public money.

“This bill does not prohibit women from making the choice to terminate a pregnancy,” said Sen. Stephen Wise, the Jacksonville Republican who sponsored the legislation. “This bill says that the taxpayers will not pay for an abortion.”

Kunkel said she’s particularly troubled by a proposed constitutional amendment backed by Sen. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, that would prohibit using public money for health insurance policies that include coverage of abortion (already the situation in many cases). It provides no exception in cases of rape or incest, if the pregnancy would jeopardize a mother’s health, or if the fetus is not developing properly.

“It’s not a lot of cases, but the cases it prohibits coverage for are particularly tragic,” Kunkel said. “They are things like lethal anomalies, or a woman with cancer who needs chemotherapy so maybe she couldn’t get her treatment paid for because it might end the pregnancy. These are real and awful cases.”

Similarly, a bill sponsored by Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, and Rep. Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami, that would prohibit abortions after 20 weeks gestation, provides no exceptions for rape, incest and health issues.

Called the “Pain-capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” that bill reasons that an abortion shouldn’t be performed at a gestational stage when the unborn child might experience pain. Current law allows abortions up to the 24th week of pregnancy.

Kunkel said the Legislature’s priorities are off.

“The focus should be on strengthening the economy and creating jobs,” she said.

Gov. Rick Scott made it clear on the campaign trail that he’s all for tightening Florida’s abortion laws.

Asked Tuesday about the bills making their way through the Legislature, Scott said: “I let people know my position. I’ve not surprised people. I’m going to be a pro-life governor.”

Janet Zink can be reached at jzink@sptimes.com or (850) 224-7263.

 

.FAST FACTS

Abortion-related bills filed this year

HB415: “Florida for Life Act” would ban all abortions in Florida.

SB1948 and HB321: “Pain-capable Unborn Child Protection Act” prohibits abortions after 20 weeks

SB1748 and HB1387: Add restrictions on third-trimester abortions; require ethics training for doctors who perform abortions.

SB1744 and HB1127: Require a woman to receive an ultrasound before undergoing an abortion and be offered the opportunity to review the results.

HB1179 and SB1538: Propose a constitutional amendment prohibiting use of public funds on health plans that offer abortion coverage.

SB1414 and HB97: Prohibit private insurers from offering abortion coverage if policy is paid for using public money.

SB1770 and HB1247: Tighten requirement for parental notification when a minor seeks an abortion.

SB196 and HB501: Direct proceeds from sales of “Choose Life” license plates to Choose Life Inc. to provide services to pregnant women. (Proceeds currently go to counties.)

SB1760 and HB747: Give an infant born alive subsequent to an abortion the same rights as a child born in other circumstances.

SB1858: Exempts information identifying women who have received abortions from public records laws.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/abortion-bills-pass-florida-house-committee/1158894

Idaho Senate approves ban on abortions after 20 weeks

The Idaho Senate on Wednesday approved a measure that would ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and subject abortion providers who violate the ban to criminal prosecution and lawsuits.

The bill now heads to the state House of Representatives, where passage is expected. And a representative with the National Right to Life Committee, which is behind the legislation, predicted the ban will find favor with Idaho’s Republican governor.

The legislation is patterned after a law adopted last year in Nebraska and is pinned to some medical research suggesting a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks.

The measure is part of a broader push this year by National Right to Life to tighten restrictions on abortion in many states after conservatives gained legislative and gubernatorial seats in elections last November.

Idaho is one of 17 states considering bills that would outlaw abortion after 20 weeks of gestation unless it could be proved the pregnancy endangered the woman’s life.

The debate over abortion in Idaho comes after South Dakota’s governor on Tuesday signed into law the longest abortion waiting period in the nation at three days.

Abortion rights groups such as Planned Parenthood Federation of America say the South Dakota law and measures such as the one in Idaho constitute attacks on Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court decision in 1973 legalized abortion but allowed states to ban abortion after viability unless it risked the woman’s health.

‘WAKE UP AND PAY ATTENTION’

“Women around the country need to wake up and pay attention to what’s happening in state legislatures,” said Elizabeth Nash, who tracks abortion polices for the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights think tank.

Mary Spaulding Balch with the National Right to Life Committee said abortion foes seek to return the focus to the fetus.

“What we’re hoping to do is keep the unborn child in the debate,” Balch said. “We want to use legislation in as many ways as possible to talk about the humanity of the unborn child. This is a debate that the American people need to participate in.”

The bill would make it a felony to violate the 20-week ban and open violators to lawsuits by the woman and the unborn’s father. It also would allow others — a spouse, relatives, other doctors – to file legal injunctions against abortion providers who break the ban.

Idaho Senate Assistant Majority Leader Chuck Winder on Wednesday urged support for the bill he is sponsoring on behalf of Idaho Right to Life.

“This is not an effort to challenge Roe v. Wade; this is to take a bite out of the apple,” the Boise Republican said.

Opponents, mostly Democrats in the minority, argued that an opinion by Idaho’s attorney general suggested the legislation wouldn’t pass legal muster and would cost the state dearly to defend.

The number of abortions in Idaho and in the nation has been growing over the past decade, according to figures from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.

According to the state, out of 1,650 abortions performed in 2009 in Idaho, only 14 involved pregnancies at 16 to 20 weeks.