By Dave Andrusko
The Guttmacher Institute is the abortion movement’s in-house think tank, which is what you would expect from the former “special affiliate” of Planned Parenthood.
Last week we posted about “How a preeminent pro-abortion think-tank views 2015 (Hint: they are not happy).” That was based on a reported titled, “Laws Affecting Reproductive Health and Rights: 2015 State Policy Review.”
Today Guttmacher added still more detail in a “News in Context” post titled, “Last Five Years Account for More Than One-quarter of All Abortion Restrictions Enacted Since Roe.”
Sounds sort of self-explanatory, right? Well, there’s much more to it than writing that of the “1,074 abortion restrictions” enacted since Roe, “288 (27%) have been enacted just since 2010.”
Bearing in mind that Guttmacher counts differently than NRLC does and addresses issues outside our single-issue purview, let’s see what more we can learn.
As the graphic below indicates, according to Guttmacher, “Specific approaches to restricting abortion access has changed significantly since Roe v. Wade.”
Well, of course! The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence has allowed more flexibility in passing state legislation and in one case, the justices allowed the federal government to ban a particular abortion technique–the grisly, horrific partial-birth abortion technique.
So, naturally, if for no other reason, protective legislation would change. But there are other reasons, including the obvious: that you would reach a certain saturation point where it would be difficult for more states to pass a given kind of bill.
In addition, there was, for example, no need to insist that abortionists be in the same room as the pregnant woman before the arrival of dangerous “webcam” abortions. That technology allows abortionists to be a centrally located hub clinic and teleconference with a woman at one of the smaller satellite offices.
After a few perfunctory questions, he then clicks a mouse, remotely unlocking a drawer at her location. In that drawer are the abortion pills which make up the two-drug abortion technique (RU-486 and a prostaglandin). She takes the RU-486 there and takes the rest of the pills home to administer to herself later.
Ditto for pre-ObamaCare days. Among many other objectionable provisions, the 2010 Obamacare law authorized massive federal tax subsidies to assist many millions of Americans to purchase private health plans that will cover abortion on demand.
Likewise, you propose bans on pain-capable unborn children when the science demonstrates that by 20 weeks (if not earlier), the unborn child is capable of experiencing unimaginable pain as she is ripped apart.
Remembering these last few paragraphs helps you understand the following paragraph from Guttmacher:
From 2011 through 2015, states added, on average, 57 new restrictions per year. Five types of restrictions—limits on medication abortion, private insurance coverage and later abortions as well as expanded requirements for parental involvement and abortion counseling—account for more than half of the new restrictions adopted over this period.
Finally, the very last sentence is music to our ears:
Moreover, the Supreme Court’s impending consideration of restrictions recently enacted in Texas may well change the standards under which abortion restrictions are evaluated, potentially ushering in a new legal landscape for abortion going forward.
Amen to that.
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