Abortion is one of this country’s most controversial political
issues, but statistics indicate more than a third of all American
women will receive an elective abortion at some point in her life,
and about one in five pregnancies end in the procedure. Abortion
rights vary somewhat from state to state, but in general US women
have a right to end their pregnancies if they choose to. Here is a
look at abortion rights in the United States
Abortion Rights and Roe v. Wade
In 1973 a Texas woman sued her District Attorney over the
state’s laws forbidding abortion. Her case made it all the way to
the United States Supreme Court, who ruled in the case—Roe v.
Wade—that the Constitution’s guarantees of privacy for citizens
made it unconstitutional for any government body at any level to
prohibit a woman from getting an abortion. While the court left the
door open to prohibiting abortions after “viability”--the point
when a fetus could live outside of the womb—in general the ruling
made it so that women could receive abortions at any time for any
reason.
In 2003 President George W. Bush signed a ban on so-called
“partial birth abortions” into law, and the Supreme Court narrowly
upheld this law’s constitutionality. This actually only bars a
particular abortion procedure, and women can still technically get
abortions late in their pregnancy. There are few doctors, however,
who will provide such a service except in extreme cases of medical
necessity.
Abortion Rights and State Laws
Various states have put into place various restrictions on
abortion. One of the most common is that many states now require
minors to notify their parents that they are getting an abortion;
some also require parents to consent to the procedure. Others
require waiting periods, and few allow public assistance funds to
be used for abortion. Another major block to abortion is the fact
that about 87% of US counties have no abortion providers. Still,
women who can afford and find an abortion provider are guaranteed
the right to the procedure according to the Supreme Court.
One other block to abortion comes in the form of “conscience”
laws which allow pharmacists and other medical providers who
personally oppose abortion rights to withhold their services in the
case of abortion. Because pharmaceutical abortifacients have become
the safest way to terminate an early stage pregnancy, this can also
make ending a pregnancy difficult.
