The United States abortion-rights movement is a sociopolitical movement in the United States supporting the view that a woman should have the legal right to an elective abortion,meaning the right to terminate her pregnancy,and is part of a broader global abortion-rights movement. The movement consists of a variety of organizations,with no single centralized decision-making body.
Abortion is a divisive issue in the United States. The issue of abortion is prevalent in American politics and culture wars,though a slight majority of Americans support continued access to abortion. There are widely different abortion laws depending on state.
The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 is a United States law prohibiting a form of late termination of pregnancy called "partial-birth abortion",referred to in medical literature as intact dilation and extraction. Under this law,any physician "who,in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce,knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years,or both". The law was enacted in 2003,and in 2007 its constitutionality was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Gonzales v. Carhart.
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 is a United States law that recognizes an embryo or fetus in utero as a legal victim,if they are injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens,at any stage of development,who is carried in the womb."
This is a timeline of reproductive rights legislation,a chronological list of laws and legal decisions affecting human reproductive rights. Reproductive rights are a sub-set of human rights pertaining to issues of reproduction and reproductive health. These rights may include some or all of the following:the right to legal or safe abortion,the right to birth control,the right to access quality reproductive healthcare,and the right to education and access in order to make reproductive choices free from coercion,discrimination,and violence. Reproductive rights may also include the right to receive education about contraception and sexually transmitted infections,and freedom from coerced sterilization,abortion,and contraception,and protection from practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM).
The legality of abortion in the United States and the various restrictions imposed on the procedure vary significantly depending on the laws of each state or other jurisdiction. Some states prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy with few exceptions,others permit it up to a certain point in a woman's pregnancy,while others allow abortion throughout a woman's pregnancy. In states where abortion is legal,several classes of restrictions on the procedure may exist,such as parental consent or notification laws,requirements that patients be shown an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion,mandatory waiting periods,and counselling requirements.
Ron Worley is a former Republican member of the Kansas House of Representatives,representing the 30th district. He served from 2007 through 2013,having been defeated in the 2012 Republican primary by Rep. Lance Kinzer of Olathe,after Kinzer and Worley were put in the same district after re-districting. Kinzer then subsequently retired in 2014,endorsing Randy Powell as his successor. Worley challenged Powell for his old seat in the primary,but was subsequently defeated.
The North Carolina Woman's Right to Know Act is a passed North Carolina statute which is referred to as an "informed consent" law. The bill requires practitioners read a state-mandated informational materials,often referred to as counseling scripts,to patients at least 72 hours before the abortion procedure. The patient and physician must certify that the information on informed consent has been provided before the procedure. The law also mandated the creation of a state-maintained website and printed informational materials,containing information about:public and private services available during pregnancy,anatomical and physiological characteristics of gestational development,and possible adverse effects of abortion and pregnancy. A review of twenty-three U.S. states informed consent materials found that North Carolina had the "highest level of inaccuracies," with 36 out of 78 statements rated as inaccurate,or 46%.
A six-week abortion ban,also called a "fetal heartbeat bill" by proponents,is a law in the United States which makes abortion illegal as early as six weeks gestational age,which is when proponents claim that a "fetal heartbeat" can be detected. Medical and reproductive health experts,including the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists,say that the reference to a fetal heartbeat is medically inaccurate and misleading because a conceptus is not called a fetus until eight weeks after fertilization,as well as that at four weeks after fertilization,the embryo has no heart,only a group of cells which will become a heart. Medical professionals advise that a true fetal heartbeat cannot be detected until around 17 to 20 weeks of gestation when the chambers of the heart have become sufficiently developed.
Abortion in Texas is illegal in all cases,with no exceptions for rape or even to save a woman's life. A trigger law has been in effect since August 25,2022,which bans abortion in all cases except to save the life of the mother.
The Reproductive Health Act is a New York statute enacted on January 22,2019,that expanded abortion rights,decriminalized abortion,and eliminated several restrictions on abortion in the state. The RHA repealed §4164 of the state Public Health Law. The law has received national media attention.
As of 2023,Abortion is currently illegal in Indiana,with exceptions for fatal fetal abnormalities,to preserve the life and physical health of the mother,or in cases of rape or incest. Previously abortion in Indiana was legal up to 20 weeks;a near-total ban that was scheduled to take effect on August 1 was placed on hold due to further legal challenges,but is set to take place,after the Indiana Supreme Court denied an appeal by the ACLU,and once it certifies a previous ruling,that an abortion ban doesn't violate the state constitution. In the wake of the 2022 Dobbs Supreme Court ruling,abortion in Indiana remained legal despite Indiana lawmakers voting in favor of a near-total abortion ban on August 5,2022. Governor Eric Holcomb signed this bill into law the same day. The new law became effective on September 15,2022. But on September 22,2022,Special Judge Kelsey B. Hanlon of the Monroe County Circuit Court granted a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the ban. Her ruling allows the state's previous abortion law,which allows abortions up to 20 weeks after fertilization with exceptions for rape and incest,to remain in effect.
Abortion in Kansas is legal. Kansas law allows for an abortion up to 20 weeks postfertilization. After that point,only in cases of life or severely compromised physical health may an abortion be performed,with this limit set on the belief that a fetus can feel pain after that point in the pregnancy. The state also had detailed abortion-specific informed consent requirement by 2007. Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law applied to medication-induced abortions and private doctor offices in addition to abortion clinics were in place by 2013. In 2015,Kansas became the first state to ban the dilation and evacuation procedure,a common second-trimester abortion procedure. State laws about abortion have been challenged at the Kansas Supreme Court and US Supreme Court level. On August 2,2022,Kansas voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have allowed the Republican-controlled legislature to restrict or ban abortion in Kansas,following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Abortion in Michigan is legal throughout all stages of pregnancy. A state constitutional amendment to explicitly guarantee abortion rights was placed on the ballot in 2022 as Michigan Proposal 22–3;it passed with 57 percent of the vote,adding the right to abortion and contraceptive use to the Michigan Constitution. The amendment largely prevents the regulation of abortion before fetal viability,unless said regulations are to protect the individual seeking an abortion,and it also makes it unconstitutional to make laws restricting abortions which would protect the life and health,physical and/or mental,of the pregnant individual seeking abortion.
Abortion in Ohio is legal on request up to the point of fetal viability. After viability,abortion is legal if,in the professional judgement of an attending physician,the abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant individual’s life or health.
Abortion in California is legal up to the point of fetal viability. An abortion ban was in place by 1900,and by 1950,it was a criminal offense for a woman to have an abortion. In 1962,the American Law Institute published their model penal code as it applied to abortions,with three circumstances where they believed a physician could justifiably perform an abortion,and California adopted a version of this code. In 2002,California passed a law guaranteeing women the right to have an abortion "prior to viability of the fetus,or when the abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman." In 2022,California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 1,which amended the Constitution of California to explicitly protect the right to abortion and contraception by a margin of 33.76%.
Planned Parenthood v. Rounds,686 F.3d 889,is an Eighth Circuit decision addressing the constitutionality of a South Dakota law which forced doctors to make certain disclosures to patients seeking abortions. The challenged statute required physicians to convey to their abortion-seeking patients a number of state-mandated disclosures,including a statement that abortions caused an "[i]ncreased risk of suicide ideation and suicide." Planned Parenthood of Minnesota,North Dakota,South Dakota,along with its medical director Dr. Carol E. Ball,challenged the South Dakota law,arguing that it violated patients' and physicians' First Amendment free speech rights and Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. After several appeals and remands,the Eighth Circuit,sitting en banc,upheld the South Dakota law,holding that the mandated suicide advisement was not "unconstitutionally misleading or irrelevant," and did "not impose an unconstitutional burden on women seeking abortions or their physicians." This supplemented the Eighth Circuit's earlier rulings in this case,where the court determined that the state was allowed to impose a restrictive emergency exception on abortion procedures and to force physicians to convey disclosures regarding the woman's relationship to the fetus and the humanity of the fetus.
The 2022 Kansas abortion referendum was a rejected legislatively referred constitutional amendment to the Kansas Constitution that appeared on the ballot on August 2,2022,alongside primary elections for statewide offices,with early voting from July 13. If enacted,the amendment would have declared that the Kansas Constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion,given the Kansas state government power to prosecute individuals involved in abortions,and further declared that the Kansas government is not required to fund abortions.
2022 Michigan Proposal 3,the Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative,also known as Reproductive Freedom for All,was a citizen-initiated proposed constitutional amendment in the state of Michigan,which was voted on as part of the 2022 Michigan elections. The amendment,which passed,codified reproductive rights,including access to abortion,in the Constitution of Michigan.
The 2023 Ohio reproductive rights initiative,officially titled "The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety",and listed on the ballot as Issue 1,was a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment that was adopted on November 7,2023,by a majority of 56.8% of voters. It codified reproductive rights in the Ohio Constitution,including contraception,fertility treatment,whether to continue one's own pregnancy,and miscarriage care,restoring Roe v. Wade-era access in Ohio and protecting "the right to abortion up to the point of fetal viability" while permitting restrictions after.
