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Thursday, January 31, 2019

The Reproductive Health Act

Much in the news about recent abortion legislation in New York and Virginia. In both states, the laws make abortion more accessible for women and Republicans/pro-life people are in coniptions about this.

The laws should come as no great surprise to Republicans and pro-lifers. In the last two years of Trump, they have done all they can both to stock the Supreme Court with super conservatives and to whittle away at abortion rights on the state level too.

Now that Democrats have won elections, their priority is to make the states ready for the probability that Roe will be overturned. If Republicans had been fair about Merrick Garland, if they had not cooked up so many obstructive state regulations to make access to abortion a virtual impossibility for some women, then maybe we wouldn't be here.

What Republicans will do now is lie about the provisions of these new laws and try to whip up furor for their side in the upcoming 2020 elections.

The Virginia bill has been tabled for now,.

The New York law, The Reproductive Health Act ...

NY will now allow nurse practitioners, physicians assistants, and licensed midwives to perform abortions. Abortion is one of the safest surgical procedures (Major complications after abortion are extremely rare, study shows) but laws requiring one or more doctors to perform them and for them to take place in hospitals have made abortion expensive and difficult to arrange.

The law also allows abortions after 24 weeks now. According to the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, 66 percent of legal terminations occur within the first eight weeks of gestation, and 92 percent are performed within the first 13 weeks. Only 1.2 percent occur at or after 21 weeks, so this change will apply to a small percentage of abortions, done because of fetal non-viability or risk to the woman's health (not just if her life is threatened). The law does not allow for unrestricted abortion up to the time of birth.

The new law also makes abortion a public health matter now, and no longer a criminal matter.

You can read more about the law here: Fact Check: Did New York Pass a Bill Legalizing Abortions Up to Birth?

And this from National Catholic Reporter: Abortion extremism will yield more laws like New York's

And this from The New Yorker: How Abortion Law in New York Will Change, and How It Won’t

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