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Abortion Rights

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Anonymous

14y ago
Updated: 3/26/2022

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.

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14y ago

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