Texas’ Anti-Abortion Bill Threatens To Increase ‘Flea Market Abortions’

By Joseph Diebold/Think Progress

While media coverage of the ongoing debate on a bill to restrict the ability of women in Texas to get abortions has centered around a provision banning abortions after 20 weeks, parts of the bill that would likely reduce the number of clinics in the state from 47 to five have gone underreported.

Very few abortions actually occur after 20 weeks. But the closing of clinics would affect the ability of all Texas women to get safe, affordable abortions at any stage in their pregnancies.

And even now, without the proposed restrictions, Texas already imposes many barriers to reproductive care. Bloomberg reports on the scary options women are turning to with their access to abortion restricted:

At an open-air flea market outside McAllen, Texas, near the Mexican border, shoppers can buy a goat and get their car windows tinted. Tables with handwritten signs touting Viagra are stocked with herbal remedies promising to burn fat and boost breast size. You can also find pills to end a pregnancy.

Bazaars like this have become home to a thriving black market, where women too poor to afford an abortion at a clinic or deterred by state mandates such as a 24-hour waiting period can buy drugs to induce a miscarriage on their own, a dozen area residents and doctors said in interviews.

Hundreds of miles north in Austin, the capital, lawmakers may inadvertently increase this illegal trade. Rules set to pass as soon as this week might result in the closing of most, if not all, abortion facilities in the state. If the law — promoted as a way to improve women’s health — makes legal abortion unavailable in Texas, more women may turn to markets such as the one near McAllen and risk their lives.

Texas women have turned to Cytotec, a pill used to prevent stomach ulcers, to induce abortions for much cheaper than they can be obtained at a clinic. But they are also significantly more dangerous: Bloomberg’s story centers on Erlinda Dasquez, who took a second pill after her first attempt failed, and then bled for a month.

The report focuses on women — many of whom are poor and Hispanic — in the lower Rio Grande Valley, at the southern tip of the state. If the bill passes, those women would be forced to travel well north, likely to Austin or San Antonio, to access the nearest abortion clinic. “Only people with money go to clinics,” a community health instructor told Bloomberg. If the two clinics currently serving the lower Rio Grande Valley close, it will take even more money to get to one.

Conservatives have seized on the case of illegal abortion provider Kermit Gosnell, attempting to equate the Philadelphia doctor’s crimes with all safe, legal abortions. In fact, under bills like the one advancing in Texas, more and more women will be forced to turn to dangerous options like Gosnell and Cytotec.

Ohio budget bill loaded with controversy

From cincinnati.com editorial

It looks like the bill that will lay out Ohio’s spending and tax priorities for the next two years will go to the governor laden with stuff that has nothing to do with the budget.

For some reason, the Republicans in the GOP-controlled General Assembly think the state budget is the appropriate vehicle to inflame the culture wars anew with a series of restrictions on abortion. The most egregious is a last-minute amendment to require doctors to perform ultrasounds to detect a fetal heartbeat. This is a back-door effort to avoid public debate on a highly controversial issue. It is a watered-down version of last year’s heartbeat bill, which GOP leaders took off the table. Now it’s back, tacked onto the budget bill. It deserves to be deleted or vetoed. Politicians don’t need to meddle in the doctor-patient relationship and legislate medicine.

Republicans also kept in the budget bill a provision that would ban abortion clinics from entering into transfer agreements with public hospitals. This is an unnecessary threat to the health of women. By potentially banning a transfer to a public hospital, precisely at the time when women may need advanced medical care, Republicans are putting women at risk. This should be taken out.

The bill also contains a ban on expanding Medicaid. Gov. John Kasich, himself a conservative Republican, has proposed expanding the Medicaid program using federal dollars. It would mean health insurance, and better health care, for hundreds of thousands of Ohioans who don’t have it. The governor should veto this ban, which unnecessarily ties the legislature’s hands.

A new exemption to Ohio’s open meetings law would let city councils, county boards and other public bodies keep the public out of meetings where economic development agreements are discussed. Local and state governments don’t need any more secrecy, especially when it comes to giving tax dollars and tax breaks to businesses. This, too, should go.

A little-known provision would change the make-up of the boards of vocational schools such as Great Oaks. The boards are now made up of elected school board members. The change would result in business executives being appointed to the vocational boards. It would be a big change in governance, and Great Oaks, the largest career-technical district in the state, and other vocational schools oppose it.

The budget itself appears less controversial, but that’s because the taxing and spending issues have been overshadowed by the irrelevant amendments.

This budget would raise taxes on consumers, through an expansion of the state sales tax, and lower them significantly on businesses. It would raise property taxes in the future by doing away with the long-time homestead exemption. Income taxes would be cut by 10 percent, a cut that is a bigger benefit to high wage earners.

Legislators are passing up an opportunity to raise taxes on the energy companies that are rapidly expanding their drilling operations in eastern Ohio. Ohio’s tax on oil and gas extraction, the severance tax, is one of the lowest in the nation.

Kasich proposed raising it, but the Big Oil companies appear to be winning this round.

The budget process also spotlighted the one-party system that Ohio has turned into. With solid majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans were able to exclude Democrats from any serious budget negotiations.

Legislators should keep the budget bill for budget matters so Ohioans can have the benefit of full, open debate on how their dollars are spent.

Texas’ Abortion Restrictions Failed, But Other States Are Successfully Advancing Them

By Tara Culp-Ressler/Think Progress

After a battle that stretched throughout Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, state Sen. Wendy Davis (D)successfully blocked a stringent anti-abortion bill from winning approval in the Texas legislature. Davis noted that defeating SB 5 — which would have criminalized abortion after 20 weeks and forced 90 percent of the abortion clinics in the state to close their doors — represented an “incredible victory for Texas women and those who love them.”

Nevertheless, women in other states haven’t won the same kind of victories. The same provisions included in Texas’ SB 5 are already laws on the books in several other states. Here’s where supporters of reproductive freedom could turn their attention to next:

NORTH DAKOTA: Women in North Dakota have the unfortunate distinction of living in the state with the harshest abortion ban in the nation. Last session, North Dakota criminalized abortion after just six weeks — before many women even know they’re pregnant. But they didn’t stop there. The state legislature also enacted harsh restrictions on abortion clinics, identical to the ones included in SB 5, that threaten to shut down the last abortion clinic left in the entire state. Women’s health advocates are fighting back in court, and North Dakota’s lone abortion clinic filed yet another lawsuit earlier this week in an attempt to stay open. But women’s reproductive freedom hangs in the balance.

MISSISSIPPI: Like North Dakota, Mississippi is another state that has just one abortion clinic left for all of its residents — and Republicans are working to shut it down with the same type of restrictions included in SB 5. After Republicans successfully enacted harsh abortion clinic restrictions last year, the clinic fought back — and won a temporary reprieve in April from a federal judge. That ruling blocked the state law and prevented Mississippi officials from closing the clinic, but it’s not final. And abortion opponents in the state are finding other methods to limit women’s reproductive freedom, too, like blocking access to medicine-induced abortion care.

ALABAMA: In April, Alabama’s Republican governor approved stringent clinic rules that threaten to shut down the last handful of abortion clinics in the state. Similar to the warnings about SB 5, Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richardsexplained that the new restrictions could “essentially ban abortion statewide.” Alabama’s new anti-abortion law takes effect on July 1, and the state’s four licensed abortion clinics will have 180 days after that point to meet the new, unnecessary standards.

WISCONSIN: Just like Texas, Wisconsin lawmakers are trying to fast-track abortion restrictions before the legislative session ends. Gov. Scott Walker (R) has already thrown his support behind the package of bills, which would mandate invasive ultrasounds for women seeking abortions and shut down abortion clinics. Even though they’re purportedly about women’s health, the measures don’t have the endorsement of any of the major medical groups in the state. But Republicans have advanced them anyway. Lawmakers in the state have complained that other priorities are “languishing” because of the recent focus on anti-abortion bills.

OHIO: This week, the Ohio legislature is set to consider a proposed state budget — but, since abortion opponents have attached budget amendments that seek to limit abortion access, it will likely turn into a fight over preserving women’s reproductive freedom. Ohio’s budget would defund Planned Parenthood, close abortion clinics, and redirect state funding to right-wing “crisis pregnancy centers.” And state lawmakers hope to attack abortion rights in other ways, too. Another bill put forth by Ohio Republicans would mandate invasive ultrasounds, require doctors to mislead their patients about abortion risks, extends the waiting period for women seeking abortions, and imposes harsh punishments on medical professionals who don’t follow the new rules. Doctors have already warned about the “disastrous effects” the proposed legislation would have on their patients.

Of course, the above list doesn’t include the states that already criminalize abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, as SB 5 sought to do. According to the Guttmacher Institute, eight states currently have 20-week abortion bans based on the scientifically-disputed theory that fetuses can feel pain after that point. In several of those states — Idaho, Georgia, and Arizona – that type of ban has been blocked in court for violating women’s constitutional protections underRoe v. Wade.

House Republicans Do Their Part to Elect Hillary Clinton in 2016 By Passing Abortion Ban

By: Jason Easley/politicususa

House Republicans continued to blaze a path for their party to lose the 2016 election by passing a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks.

Republicans tried to soften Rep. Trent Franks’ bill by quietly adding an exception in case of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother, but this bill was clearly designed as a play to their anti-choice base. The bill really is a self inflicted wound, and a thumb in the eye the millions of women who supported President Obama in 2012.

The final vote was 228-196 with 6 Republicans voting no, and 6 Democrats voting yes.

Instead of reaching out to pro-choice women voters, House Republicans chose to antagonize them. So far, Republicans have ignored the advice of their own rebrand by voting to raise interest rates on student loans, threatening to kill immigration reform, and passing a federal abortion ban. In three simple steps, House Republicans have managed to alienate key parts of the constituency that has powered Barack Obama to two presidential election victories.

These votes are also paving the path for Hillary Clinton to win the White House in 2016. Republicans keep blaming the candidate at the top of the ticket, when the real problem is that the right wing zealots in the House are destroying the party’s brand. House Republicans have placed their party on a path to hand the 2016 election to Hillary Clinton.

By continuing to be anti-young person, anti-immigrant, and anti-women, the GOP is setting up a scenario where all Hillary Clinton, or any other Democrat will have to do is hold the Obama coalition together, and they will win. The great irony is that the glue that’s binding these people together is the actions of the Republican Party.

The House Republicans delivered the message to women that in their America, conservative men control their bodies. This message always plays well with the GOP rank and file, but it is absolute political suicide for future elections.

Today’s vote was an obvious political move to fire up the Republican base ahead of 2014, but that motivation could cut both ways. For men and women who truly care about liberty, and don’t want big government conservatism making our medical decisions for us, this vote should serve as motivation to get to the polls in 2014. House Republicans are setting the table for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but the message can be sent in 2014 that this sort of blatant contempt for women will not go unpunished.

Republican cites masturbating fetuses to support new abortion restrictions

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

Representative Michael Burgess (R-TX) on Monday asserted that he witnessed male fetuses pleasuring themselves as early as 15-weeks after conception, RH Reality Check reported.

His comments came during a House Rules committee debate on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions nationwide after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

“This is a subject that I do know something about,” Burgess said, citing his experience as an OB/GYN. “There is no question in my mind that a baby at 20-weeks after conception can feel pain. The fact of the matter is, I argue with the chairman because I thought the date was far too late. We should be setting this at 15-weeks, 16-weeks.”

“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” he continued. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to think that they could feel pain?”

Burgess said the Supreme Court would be forced to reconsider its landmark 1973 Roe v. Waderuling due to legal fights over anti-abortion legislation like the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. He suggested the justices would be far less permissive of abortion thanks to modern sonogram technology.

Watch video, clipped by AmericaBlog, below:

[Note: Updated with video]

Everything You Need To Know About The 20-Week Abortion Ban Advancing In The House

By Tara Culp-Ressler/Think Progress

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives will vote on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a measure spearheaded by Reps. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) that would cut off legal access to abortion services at 20 weeks after fertilization. It represents the most restrictive abortion bill to come to a vote in either chamber over the past decade. Here’s what you need to know about this attack on women’s reproductive rights — and how it fits into a broader, coordinated nationwide campaign to slowly chip away at abortion access:

It’s based on the scientifically-disputed theory that fetuses can feel pain before the third trimester of pregnancy.

So-called “fetal pain” measures are based on junk science that represents a minority position among medical professionals. Most doctors don’t believe that fetuses can feel pain until much later in pregnancy, after the point of viability (generally considered to be around 24 weeks), and scientific research has repeatedly confirmed this position. Nevertheless, abortion opponents have successfully stoked emotional outrage surrounding later-term abortion — particularly following the high-profile murder trial of illegal abortion provider Kermit Gosnell — by twisting the facts to make it appear that these abortions are always barbaric procedures.

It has sparked more controversy over Republicans’ attitudes toward rape.

The original version of Franks’ legislation did not include an exception for victims of rape or incest. Defending the lack of an exception in these cases, the Arizona congressman last week claimed that “the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low.” Franks is just the latest Republican to make an offensive comment about rape victims, and his comments inspired comparisons to former Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) infamous assertion that women don’t often get pregnant from “legitimate rape” because the body “has ways of shutting that whole thing down.” Following the controversy that erupted from his statements, Franks revised the legislation at the last minuteto include an exemption for survivors of rape and incest — but only if rape victims first report the sexual crime to the police, and if incest victims are minors.

Abortions after 20 weeks are already extremely rare, and the women who need them are usually in the most desperate of circumstances.

Although Franks claimed he didn’t need to legislate rape victims’ reproductive rights because the instances of pregnancies resulting from rape are “very low,” the instances of abortions after 20 weeks are actually much lower than that. Pregnancy results from rape an estimated 5 percent of the time, while abortions after 20 weeks represent just one percent of all abortions. The women who seek out this type of later abortion procedure tend to fall into one of two categories: the economically disadvantaged women who need to delay abortion until they can save up the money for it, and the women who discoverserious fetal health issues only after their pregnancy has advanced. Criminalizing abortion after 20 weeks will force some women to give birth to fetuses with no brain function — or other types of fatal anomalies — and watch their children suffer outside of the womb during their short lives.

The national legislation initially started out as an abortion restriction for the women who live in Washington, DC.

Franks has repeatedly attempted to impose his anti-abortion agenda on the women living in the nation’s capitol. Because the District of Columbia does not have its own representation in Congress, lawmakers from other areas oftenuse it as their legislative playground. Franks’ fetal pain measure failed last year, but that didn’t stop him from re-introducing it — and eventually expanding it to apply to women in every state. The Republican lawmaker said that Gosnell’s crimes compelled him to restrict abortion access not just for DC women, but for women across the entire country.

Even though a national ban has no chance of passing, 20-week bans are successfully advancing on the state level.

Franks’ 20-week ban is essentially dead-on-arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and the President has already indicated that he will veto it if it comes to his desk. But that doesn’t mean fetal pain measures are nothing to worry about. In fact, this anti-choice strategy is successfully advancing on the state level. After Nebraska first enacted a 20-week ban on abortion in 2010, a handful of other states rushed to do the same. Now, according to the Guttmacher Institute, about 11 states have banned abortion services before the point of viability specifically based on the notion that fetuses can feel pain — and more states are currently advancing fetal pain bills. Texas is considering a 20-week abortion ban in its special session, and anti-choice lawmakers arehoping to rush it through. GOP-led legislatures in South Carolina and Wisconsinalso may advance fetal pain laws in the last days of their sessions.

“Fetal pain” laws are unconstitutional, and state-level versions have been repeatedly blocked in court.

As increasing numbers of states have enacted 20-week abortion bans, courts have blocked several of them from taking effect. Fetal pain measures effectively narrow the window during which women may exercise their constitutional rights by moving up the cut-off for legal abortion services — a direct violation of Roe v. Wade guarantees the right to legal abortion until the point of viability. Twenty-week bans in Idaho, Georgia, and Franks’ home state of Arizona have all been blocked for this reason.

The anti-choice movement is growing bolder, and abortion opponents are demonstrating they’re not afraid to directly challenge Roe v. Wade.

Even though the national 20-week ban has no chance of becoming law, the fact that Republicans in the House brought it to a vote illustrates the fact that abortion opponents aren’t backing down from the fight. Over the past decade, anti-abortion Republicans have relied on an “incremental” strategy to limit abortion access, passing dozens of state-level restrictions couched in terms of “women’s health and safety” rather than attempting to ban the procedure altogether. Lawmakers used to be wary to advance stringent laws that overstepRoe and are likely be struck down in court. That’s not the case anymore. This session, state legislatures have passed increasingly harsh abortion bans — like a six-week ban in North Dakota and a 12-week ban in Arkansas — and they’ve made it clear that they want to test the boundaries of Roe v. Wade. “These laws are flying through,” Elizabeth Nash, a policy analyst for the Guttmacher Institute, told the New York Times. “The attention has really been at the state level around abortion issues. Now what you also see at the federal level is very disturbing, and it shows that abortion opponents are very emboldened.”

UPDATE

A previous version of this post stated that the House voted to approve the 20-week ban on Tuesday afternoon. In fact, the House voted to approve a vote on the legislation. The vote is expected to be later on Tuesday evening.

UPDATE

On Tuesday evening at about 6:45 pm, the House passed the 20-week abortion ban by a vote of 228 to 196.

Ryan on abortion exceptions: Rape is just another ‘method of conception’

By David Edwards/Raw Story

Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan says that he personally believes that rape is just another “method of conception” and not an excuse to allow abortions.

During an interview with WJHL this week, Ryan was asked his view about Rep. Todd Akin, who recently asserted that women could not get pregnant from “legitimate rape.”

“Specifically where you stand when it comes to rape, and when it comes to the issue of should it be legal for a woman to be able to get an abortion if she’s raped?” WJHL reporter Josh Smith wondered.

“I’m very proud of my pro-life record, and I’ve always adopted the idea that, the position that the method of conception doesn’t change the definition of life,” Ryan explained. “But let’s remember, I’m joining the Romney-Ryan ticket. And the president makes policy.”

“And the president, in this case the future President Mitt Romney, has exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother, which is a vast improvement of where we are right now.”

MSNBC’s Steve Benen noted that responses like this were probably the reason that Romney is refusing to take any questions about Akin or abortion.

“In this case, when Ryan says ‘the method of conception’ is irrelevant, he’s talking about rape,” Benen wrote. “In other words, the Republicans’ vice presidential nominee clearly believes the government should force women to take their pregnancy to term if they are impregnated by a rapist.”

“Republicans can only distance themselves so much from Todd Akin before we realize they share his views.”

Watch this video from WJHL, broadcast Aug. 23, 2012.

CHART: Akin’s Views On Women’s Health Are In Line With GOP

By Igor Volsky and Adam Peck/Think Progress

Republicans have distanced themselves from Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) “legitimate rape” comments, arguing that his insulting remarks are an embarrassment to the party. But peel away the outrageous rhetoric, and Akin’s policy positions on women’s health — his opposition to a woman’s right to choose and support for restricting access to contraception — are in line with GOP orthodoxy:

Akin has voted with a majority of his GOP colleagues 95.5 percent of the time in the 112th Congress, tied for the sixth-highest member who has voted in line with his party.

2012 Republican Platform To Advocate Abortion Ban Without Rape Exception

By Aviva Shen/Think Progress

Republican politicians have been falling over themselves to condemn from Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican Senate candidate in Missouri, who said Sunday that women who have experienced “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” The Romney-Ryan campaign called Akin’s comments “insulting, inexcusable and frankly wrong,” in spite of Ryan’s close working relationship with Akin on a number of radical anti-abortion and contraception bills. A Romney spokesperson added that the “Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.”

But embracing a rape exception for abortion rights would put the campaign at odds with the Republican Party’s longstanding platform, the newest iteration of which will be officially unveiled at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. In spite of the massive public outcry from the right over Akin’s comments, the official GOP platform committee drafted a provision Monday supporting a “human life amendment” that would outlaw abortion without specifying exemptions for rape or incest. The platform reads:

Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.

Heading the committee is Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA), best known for his “mandatory ultrasound” law requiring any woman getting an abortion to undergo an unnecessary ultrasound. McDonnell also revealed his regressive position on women’s rights in his college thesis, which slandered working women, contraception, and “fornicators.” It’s no surprise, then, that under his guidance, the Republican Party will reaffirm its support for a constitutional amendment that would outlaw abortion and likely many forms of contraception.

In saying they would not oppose a rape exception, Romney and Ryan are both changing their tune. Romney said in 2007 he would be “delighted” to sign a bill banning all abortions, and Ryan has been staunchly anti-abortion in all cases, even attempting to restrict abortion access to victims of “forcible rape” only.

The human life amendment has been a tenet of the Republican Party platform since the dawn of the Reagan era in 1980. It has survived for 32 years and nine presidential elections, even after former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) pushed hard in 2000 for an explicit exception for rape and incest. McCain ceded the language to party officials during his own run in 2008.

UPDATE

The Republican National Convention Platform has approved the “human life amendment,” which would ban abortion without exception for rape or incest.

Iowa Republicans seek to halt Medicaid funded abortions for rape victims

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and other groups have condemned a petition requesting the state deny Medicaid reimbursements for abortions resulting from rape, incest, or a devastating fetal health diagnosis.

Forty-one Republican state lawmakers filed the petition last month with the Iowa Department of Human Services. The lawmakers said that government funding for abortions was “in conflict with the express language and intent of the laws enacted by the General Assembly and signed by the Governor.” The agency has until August 10 to dismiss the petition or initiate the rulemaking process.

“The petitioners ask the department to withhold medical coverage from women who have been raped or whose pregnancy has taken a catastrophic turn,” Ben Stone, ACLU of Iowa Executive Director, said on Monday. “It doesn’t get more mean-spirited than that.”

“Their petition asks the department for a procedural run-around that violates Iowa law about how administrative agencies can make rules,” he added. “Iowa law is very clear about when emergency rulemaking is allowed, and when it’s inappropriate.”

The proposal to prohibit Medicaid-paid abortions could threaten Iowa’s entire Medicaid budget. The Hyde Amendment of 1976 allows states to prohibit federal funds for abortion, but not when a mother’s life is in danger or in cases of rape or incest.

In fiscal year 2012, there were 22 Medicaid-paid abortions performed in Iowa. Fifteen of those abortions were the result of severe fetal anomalies, five were performed to save the mother, and two were for pregnancies that were the result of rape.

“It is shockingly callous that these politicians would try to compound the trauma of rape or incest by depriving a woman who becomes pregnant the ability to make the best decision for her circumstances, whether that decision is raising a child, adoption, or abortion,” Stone said.

Five Reasons Why Michigan’s Anti-Abortion Bill Is The Nation’s Worst

By Amanda Peterson Beadle/Think Progress

The Michigan House has passed HB 5711, thenation’s most restrictive anti-abortion billthat combines some of the worst attacks on women’s access to abortion care into one bill. The massive 45-page, Republican-backed legislation limits when a woman could have an abortion and puts a greater, unnecessary burden on abortion providers.

Opponents have loudly protested against the measure that has been jammed through the legislature — it was introduced on May 31 and a committee approved it last week — and Democratic lawmakers spoke out against it before the House passed the bill 70-39. “This bill is not about protecting women’s health,” said state Rep. Kate Segal (D).

Here’s what you should know about these far-reaching anti-abortion bills:

1) Bans Abortions After 20 Weeks, Even For Rape And Incest Victims: A woman would not be able to have an abortion after 20 weeks of gestation based on the widely disputed idea that a fetus can feel pain after that point. The only exception would be if a woman’s life was in danger.

2) Transforms Doctors Into Detectives: The Republican-backed legislation would make it a crime for anyone to coerce a woman into having an abortion. Doctors will have to give their patients a questionnaire to inform them of the illegality of coercion and determine if the woman had been coerced or is the victim of domestic abuse before the abortion procedure.

3) Limits Access For Rural Women: Under the omnibus bill, doctors would have to be physically present to perform a medical abortion, thus preventing a doctor from administering abortion-inducing medication by consulting via telephone or internet. This would especially hurt rural women, who may have to travel hours to meet in-person with a specialist.

4) Requires Doctors To Purchase Costly Malpractice Insurance: If HB 5711 goes into effect, then doctors would be required to carry $1 million in liability insurance if they perform five or more abortions each month or have been subject to two more more civil suits in the past seven years, among other requirements. But the qualifications are so vague that almost all doctors who perform abortions could be required to carry the additional liability insurance at a potential cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

5) Regulates Clinics Out Of Existence: HB 5711 would create new regulations so that any clinic that provides six or more abortions in a month or one which advertises abortion services would have to be licensed as a “freestanding surgical outpatient facility.” That means that even if a clinic does not offer surgical abortions, it would be required to have a full surgical suite.

Now that the state House has passed the largest of the three bills, it will likely approve the twocompanion measures as well. Even though lawmakers rushed the bill through the House, the state Senate is not expected to vote on the measure until September. The body is composed of 26 Republicans and 12 Democrats.

Annie-Rose Strasser contributed to this report.

UPDATE

The ban on abortions after 20 weeks is in HB 5713, one of the companion bills that the House is expected to pass soon.

FBI steps in as attacks on Georgia women’s clinics escalate

By David Ferguson/Raw Story

A series of break-ins and arson incidents have workers and patients at women’s health clinics in Atlanta on “heightened alert,” according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The FBI and ATF are conducting a joint investigation of what appears to be a sharp escalation in a campaign to intimidate and threaten providers of women’s health care, including abortion services.

In recent weeks, clinics specializing in women’s health services have been the scene of three burglaries and now two fires. The first fire took place at a private OB/GYN office in the north Atlanta suburb of Gwinnett on Sunday, the second just Wednesday at the Alpha Group GYN offices, a large and bustling facility in Marietta.

Raw Story asked Jaime Chandra, Communications Manager for Atlanta’s Feminist Women’s Health Center, if she believes that the attacks are related to Georgia’s recent passage of stringent new anti-abortion measures. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” she said, “I would love to believe that it’s not related and that we live in a civil society, but, no, I don’t think it’s coincidental.”

Chandra pointed out that all of the doctors targeted so far are part of a group of OB GYN physicians who spoke out against the state’s controversial HB 954, a so-called “fetal pain” bill that placed tight new restrictions on late-term abortions and was passed into law on March 29. Under the new rules, physicians and other health care workers who provide abortion services outside the confines of the law are subject to criminal prosecution.

It was after the physicians’ group had made their resistance to the law known that the first break-in occurred. On Sunday, March 4, the North Atlanta Women’s Specialists’ offices were burglarized by a thief who stole two laptop computers that contained employees’ names and personal information. A second break-in took place onSaturday, March 17, when a suspect broke into the offices of The Georgia Obstetrical & Gynecological Society, again stealing laptop computers with staff members’ personal information.

Dr. David Byck, president of the Georgia Obstetrical and Gynecological Society told The Suwannee Patch, “The police officers said that the break-in looked well planned, and it’s frightening that the personal and family information of our membership has been stolen. There cannot be a good intent behind such a crime.”

The first fire took place at around 4:30 a.m. Sunday at the offices of Atlanta Gynecology and Obstetrics. A front window of the clinic was broken and police dogs indicated the presence of an “incendiary substance.”

Witnesses to Wednesday’s fire at Alpha Group GYN say that two men entered the building and went upstairs, then left just before the fire was discovered. The fire started on the offices’ fourth floor, damaging records and equipment, but no one was hurt.

The FBI has released a security camera photo of a suspect from a bank near the clinic. He is described as a male between 5-feet-10-inches in height and 6-feet-one-inch. On Wednesday, he wore khaki pants and a blue polo shirt. He was driving a gray Mercury Marquis with tinted windows and what the police called “large, chrome wheels.”

Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, told the Journal-Constitution that the crimes are alarming because of their rapid escalation. “It’s not a good sign when one arson follows another, after following several burglaries. Something clearly is escalating there and we’re hoping that the strong law enforcement so far can stop it.” The National Abortion Federation and law enforcement agencies have issued warnings to staff and patients at women’s health centers in and around Atlanta to exercise reasonable caution and to be aware of their surroundings at all times.

When asked if she fears for her safety, FWHC’s Chandra said that she and her organization have been very impressed by the coordinated response by law enforcement, who are on the premises at all times, in both marked and unmarked cars. Threats, she said, aren’t really something she concentrates on. They’re just another part of doing business.

“We’re not afraid,” she said, “We’re confident about the safety of our patients and staff. The most important thing is for us to serve the women who need our services and to treat them with dignity and respect.”

Watch this report on the attacks, which aired Thursday, May 24, embedded below via Atlanta’s Fox 5 News:

Arizona bill would declare pregnancy 2 weeks before conception

By David Edwards/

A measure passed Arizona’s Senate claims that it would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, but experts say that the bill is far more restrictive, effectively banning abortions after 18 weeks and declaring that a woman could be pregnant 2 weeks before she even had sex.

Arizona’s HB 2036 takes Nebraska’s 20-week abortion ban one step further by starting the clock on pregnancies at the woman’s last last menstrual period, which could be two weeks before fertilization.

Specifically, the bill would “[p]rohibit abortions at or after twenty weeks of gestation, except in cases of a medical emergency, based on the documented risks to women’s health and the strong medical evidence that unborn children feel pain during an abortion at that gestational age,” where gestational age is defined as “age of the unborn child as calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman.”

Guttmacher Institute’s State Issues Manager Elizabeth Nash told Raw Story that obstetricians start the clock on pregnancies after the “last menstrual period” to “be on the safe side.”

“Certainly, they are trying move the gestational cutoff from what had been over the last two years a 20-week gestational cutoff to an 18-week gestational cutoff,” Nash explained. “At the same time, they are trying to say, ‘Oh, this is a 20-week abortion ban.’ And they get away with that with the definition of gestational age that’s in the bill.”

RH Reality Check’s Amanda Marcotte noted that this means legislators are arguing women could be pregnant before they even have sex.

“Think about the implications down the road,” she wrote. “If a woman is ‘pregnant’ two weeks before she becomes pregnant, than any fertile woman—including those currently menstruating!—should really be considered pregnant. After all, we don’t know the future. We don’t know that any non-pregnant woman couldn’t be pregnant two weeks from now, making her retroactively pregnant now.”

“Considering that it’s anti-choice nuts we’re talking about, it’s safe to assume that they’d simply prefer a situation where all women of reproductive age are considered to be pregnant, on the grounds that they could be two weeks from now,” Marcotte added. “Better safe than sorry, especially if that mentality means you get to exert maximum control over the bodies of women of reproductive age.”

At this point, Nash said the Arizona bill has “very good chances of passage” because it is largely misunderstood.

“The media has been talking about this as a 20-week abortion ban without, I think, really looking into the definition,” she observed. “Two weeks is a long time. … [The bill] does not talk about any sort of fetal impairment. In this time frame is when you would have an [amniocentesis] done or other tests and it takes away women’s options if there is a problem with the pregnancy.”

Because clinicians use the definition of “last menstrual period” to determine the start of the pregnancy, Nash did not expect any legal challenges on those grounds — but the bill has other problems.

“What the Supreme Court has said is that states have the right to ban abortion after viability, but that any ban on abortions after viability must protect a woman’s life or health,” she told Raw Story. “So, a law like this would be in conflict with those decisions in the sense that it bans abortion much earlier than viability and does not take into account the full ramifications of life and health.”

“This is a very dangerous bill,” Nash concluded.