Tag Archives: Roe V. Wade

Illinois bill expands abortion coverage, faces governor’s veto

FILE PHOTO: Illinois Gov-elect Bruce Rauner speaks to the media after a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama and other Governor-elects from seven U.S. states at the White House in Washington December 5, 2014. REUTERS/Larry Downing/File Photo

By Timothy Mclaughlin

CHICAGO (Reuters) – An Illinois bill that expands state-funded coverage of abortions for low-income residents and state employees passed the Democratic-controlled Senate on Wednesday but faces a likely veto by the state’s Republican governor.

The measure, which passed the Senate 33-22, also aims to keep abortions legal in Illinois if the U.S. Supreme Court follows President Donald Trump’s call to overturn its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling 44 years ago that made abortions legal.

Illinois’ Medicaid program covers abortions in cases of rape, incest and when a mother’s life or health is threatened. The expansion would enable poor women to obtain elective abortions. Also, the legislation would allow state employees to have the procedures covered under state health insurance.

The vote was a rare legislative victory for U.S. abortion-rights advocates at a time when foes have ratcheted up the heat with the election of Trump and a conservative Congress.

However, the victory will likely be short lived because Governor Bruce Rauner has promised to veto the legislation, saying Illinois should focus on less “divisive” issues and instead pass a full-year operating budget for the first time in nearly two years.

A spokeswoman for Rauner directed questions on Wednesday evening to previous statements where he said he did not support the measure. However, as a candidate in 2014, he supported expanding abortion access.

Republican lawmakers have criticized the bill as both burdensome to tax payers and immoral.

“We should be focused on ways to reduce costs—not advance costly controversial proposals that will cost the taxpayers even more,” Republican state senator Dan McConchie said in a statement on Wednesday.

A veto override would take 71 votes in the Democrat-led House, where the bill passed 62-55 in late April. It would take 36 votes in the Senate.

A veto by Rauner would be a sharp turn from his previous position, which political opponents are poised to exploit.

“We cannot allow Illinois to return to the days when women had so few options for reproductive care that they desperately resorted to back-alley quacks, poison, knitting needles, disappearing from public sight or suicide to deal with unwanted pregnancies,” state senator Daniel Biss, a Democrat, said in a statement after the bill passed on Wednesday.

(Additional reporting by Karen Pierog; Editing by David Gregorio)

Delaware legislature moves to guarantee abortion access in Trump era

An exam room at the Planned Parenthood South Austin Health Center is shown following the U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down a Texas law imposing strict regulations on abortion doctors and facilities in Austin, Texas, U.S. June 27, 2016. REUTERS/Ilana Panich-Linsman

By Barbara Goldberg

(Reuters) – The Delaware state Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would keep abortion legal in the state if a future U.S. Supreme Court shaped by President Donald Trump overturns the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized it nationally.

The measure was approved by a vote of 11-7 but needs to be passed by the House and signed by Democratic Governor John Carney Jr. to take effect.

Democrats control both houses of the Delaware legislature but are facing a June 30 end to this year’s session.

Carney “supports the rights and protections afforded women under Roe v. Wade” but has not yet said whether he will sign the bill into law, said his spokeswoman Jessica Borcky.

Trump has promised to appoint justices to the nation’s top court, including recent appointee Neil Gorsuch, who would overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling and leave it up to the individual states to decide whether to legalize abortion. Trump received strong support from anti-abortion groups in the election campaign.

Delaware is one of 11 states with a pre-Roe abortion ban still on the books, according to the Guttmacher Institute which tracks reproductive policy.

If Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion would be almost immediately illegal in four states – Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota, according to Guttmacher and the Center for Reproductive Rights. In the other 46 states, abortion would remain legal but in at least 10 states – including Delaware – it could become illegal with a step as simple and swift as a state attorney general’s opinion, Guttmacher said.

“There wasn’t a sense of urgency until President Trump got elected,” said Kathleen MacRae, executive director of the ACLU of Delaware. The ACLU and Planned Parenthood of Delaware formed the “She Decides Delaware” campaign to lobby for legislation to keep abortion legal.

“We don’t want to leave the women of Delaware in a vulnerable position,” MacRae said. “It’s up to the woman and the family to decide when she would like to become a parent.”

Momentum for the bill grew in April when a coalition of state religious leaders including Jewish, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian and Unitarian clergy publicly declared “acceptance” of abortion in a show of support for Planned Parenthood. The state’s Catholic leader, Bishop Francis Malooly of the Diocese of Wilmington, immediately denounced the statement.

MINIMALIST DESIGN

The bill itself has a minimalist design. It aims to keep the provisions of Roe v. Wade rather than repeal the 1953 state ban.

“This bill simply seeks to codify the framework in place for a very long time – that a woman has a right to choose,” Senator Bryan Townsend, a Democrat who is the bill’s sponsor, told colleagues before the vote.

“It’s a decision that belongs with the woman, her doctor and her family,” said Senator Stephanie Hansen, a Democrat and bill co-sponsor.

Opponents denounced the move. “Any civilized society restricts an individual’s right to choose when it would affect an innocent person. I can think of no more innocent person than an unborn child,” said Senator Bryant Richardson, a Republican.

“You can codify abortion all you want but you are still codifying the murder of an unborn child,” said Delaware Right to Life spokeswoman Moira Sheridan.

Under the 1950s’ Delaware ban, terminating a pregnancy is a felony for the provider and a misdemeanor for the woman, except when it is deemed a “therapeutic abortion” in either case.

Dr. Larry Glazerman, medical director at Planned Parenthood Delaware, said he is confident the bill is enough to protect him and other doctors who provide abortion from prosecution.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Norma McCorvey, from Roe to Pro Life, a journey of restoration

Norma McCorvey, the anonymous plaintiff known as Jane Roe in the Supreme Court's landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling legalizing abortion in the United States, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee along with Sandra Cano of Atlanta, Georgia, the "Doe" in the Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court case, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, U.S. on June 23, 2005.

By Kami Klein

Norma McCorvey has been known over the past 4 decades as the anonymous plaintiff  Roe, in the deeply controversial Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade.  The year was 1973 when the highest Court held that a woman’s right to an abortion fell within the right to privacy protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision gave a woman a right to abortion during the entirety of the pregnancy and defined different levels of state interest for regulating abortion in the second and third trimesters. From that moment to now, over 59,115,995 children have been aborted in the United States.

The journey of Norma McCorvey ended with her death on February 18th, 2017 but the divide between Pro-Choice and Pro-Life has moved no closer to resolution.  The rights of the unborn were not even a part of the lawsuit when the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and the pro-life movement has been attempting to have those voices heard ever since.

Norma, interestingly enough, never had an abortion.  She never attended a single trial nor did she give a deposition.  She signed documents only once after failing to get an illegal abortion in which she actually went to term with the child later giving the baby up for adoption. In later years, she described herself as a “pawn” in the fight to legalize abortion.

McCorvey came forth about her part in Roe v. Wade when court documents were released, and she became the poster child of the pro-choice movement, working for abortion clinics and protesting against the pro-life message.  Her life had been battered from the beginning, but it was only when she became a Christian that she understood the full and tragic impact of Roe v. Wade.

In her book, Won By Love, she wrote:

“I was sitting in O.R.’s offices when I noticed a fetal development poster. The progression was so obvious, the eyes were so sweet. It hurt my heart, just looking at them. I ran outside and finally, it dawned on me. ‘Norma’, I said to myself, ‘They’re right’. I had worked with pregnant women for years. I had been through three pregnancies and deliveries myself. I should have known. Yet something in that poster made me lose my breath. I kept seeing the picture of that tiny, 10-week-old embryo , and I said to myself, that’s a baby! It’s as if blinders just fell off my eyes and I suddenly understood the truth—that’s a baby!

I felt crushed under the truth of this realization. I had to face up to the awful reality. Abortion wasn’t about ‘products of conception’. It wasn’t about ‘missed periods’. It was about children being killed in their mother’s wombs. All those years I was wrong. Signing that affidavit, I was wrong. Working in an abortion clinic, I was wrong. No more of this first trimester, second trimester, third trimester stuff. Abortion—at any point—was wrong. It was so clear. Painfully clear.”

Charisma magazine has written a powerful testimony of Norma’s path to God in the article, Norma McCorvey’s First Church Experience as a Believer where not only did Norma experience the love and forgiveness of Jesus, she also experienced the love and forgiveness of the body of Christ—the church.

Join Jim and Lori Bakker on The Jim Bakker Show beginning March 3rd as the Bakkers welcome Rabbi Jonathan Cahn and Mikel French to the show where they will be discussing the inauguration, the future of Roe v. Wade and the inspirational story of Lori Bakker’s God-destined meeting with Norma and the time they spent together.  

Norma’s life has been told from every angle.  She had been called names from all sides and struggled daily to discover for herself who she was. It was through Christ that she finally discovered the truth.

Norma McCorvey was and IS, simply and wonderfully, a child of God.

 

additional sources: Roe vs Wade fast facts, Norma McCorvey, ‘Roe’ in Roe v Wade, is Dead at 69, Norma McCorvey ‘Roe’ in Roe v Wade case legalizing abortion dies aged 69, U.S. abortion statistics by Year (1973-Current), Wikipedia – Norma McCorvey

 

 

New York governor calls for amending state constitution for abortion rights

Andrew Cuomo Governor of New York discusses abortion rights

By David Ingram

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday he would seek to ensure that women have access to late-term abortions in the state even if conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court remove federal legal guarantees in place since the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

Cuomo, a Democrat who is considered a potential candidate for his party’s 2020 presidential nomination, proposed an amendment to the New York Constitution that he said would preserve the status quo regardless of future Supreme Court rulings.

President Donald Trump, the Republican who took office on Jan. 20, plans to announce a nominee to the Supreme Court on Tuesday. That person, if confirmed, is expected to restore the court’s conservative majority after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016.

The high court ruled four decades ago that the U.S. Constitution protects the right of a woman to have an abortion until the point of viability.

The court defined that as when the fetus “has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother’s womb,” generally at about 24 weeks into pregnancy.

The court also recognized a right to abortion after viability if necessary to protect the woman’s life or health.

If the Supreme Court were to overrule Roe v. Wade, as abortion opponents have long hoped, the procedure would remain legal only where state laws allow it.

In New York, a state law that dates to 1970 legalized abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, and afterward only if the woman’s life is at stake, with no exception for health. The law is not enforced but could be if Roe v. Wade were overruled, abortion advocates say.

The state’s law was “revolutionary back in the day because it legalized abortion before Roe v. Wade, but is now unchanged,” Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in an interview this month. “The state law is not as protective as Roe,” she said.

Dennis Poust, a spokesman for the New York State Catholic Conference, which opposes abortion, predicted that Cuomo’s proposal would fail.

“How many abortions are enough?” he said in a statement, noting New York’s high rate of abortions. “No one can credibly claim that access to abortion is under any threat in New York.”

There were 29.6 abortions per 1,000 women in New York in 2014, compared to 14.6 abortions per 1,000 women nationally, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group that supports abortion rights.

Cuomo told a Planned Parenthood rally in Albany, New York, on Monday that women’s rights were under attack in Washington.

“As they threaten this nation with a possible Supreme Court nominee who will reverse Roe v. Wade,” Cuomo said, according to a transcript provided by his office. “We’re going to protect Roe v. Wade in the State of New York.”

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman issued a legal opinion in September making clear that federal court rulings supersede the state’s 1970 law.

For a constitutional amendment to succeed in New York, majorities in the legislature must approve it twice, in successive terms, and voters must approve it.

Republicans control the New York Senate, although it is possible some Republicans might support such an amendment if pressured by constituents who favor abortion rights, said Costas Panagopoulos, a political scientist at New York’s Fordham University.

Opposition to Trump may galvanize liberals into being aggressive, Panagopoulos said.

“People are scared, and that might compel them to action in a way that different circumstances might have them sitting on the sidelines,” he said.

For years, states have planned for a day when the Supreme Court might overrule Roe v. Wade. Some 19 states have laws that could restrict abortion in that event, while seven have laws that would still guarantee the right to an abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

(Reporting by David Ingram; Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Frank McGurty and David Gregorio)

Court: Wisconsin abortion law unconstitutional

A state law requiring abortion providers in Wisconsin to obtain the ability to admit patients at nearby hospitals has been declared unconstitutional.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued the 2-to-1 ruling on Monday, multiple news agencies reported, upholding the ruling of a lower court judge.

The Associated Press reported Planned Parenthood and Affiliated Medical Services had challenged the 2013 state law, arguing the law was essentially an illegal impediment on the procedures, which are currently legal in the United States under Roe v. Wade.

Proponents of the Wisconsin legislation argued it was designed to protect women whose procedures did not go smoothly and needed hospitalization. Those against it countered that some doctors could not obtain the required privileges, which would force some clinics to shut.

A district court judge in March sided with the providers, Reuters reported. The law had been on hold since.

Richard Posner, one of the Seventh Circuit judges who voted to declare the law unconstitutional, said it could have placed women in danger. If clinics shut down, women would have to wait longer for the procedures at other clinics. That could push their pregnancy into another trimester.

Many national abortion issues may be decided next year when the United States Supreme Court weighs challenges to a Texas state law regarding the procedures.

Montana House Advances Personhood Bill

The Montana House of Representatives has passed a bill that would recognize unborn children as persons.

The bill, HB 425, now moves to the Senate.  If the bill passes the Senate, it would put the measure on the ballot for voters to amend the state Constitution.

“No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, the bill reads. “As used in this section, the word ‘person’ applies to all members of the species Homo sapiens at any stage of development, including the stage of fertilization or conception, regardless of age, health, level of functioning, or condition of dependency.”

The sponsor of the bill, Rep. Matthew Monforton, says the bill would restore the state’s abortion law to the pre-Roe v. Wade state.  He said that it would sanctify the life of a child.

The Guttmacher Institute said that in 2011, the last year of recorded data, 2,200 women killed their children via abortion in the state.

 

North Dakota Governor Aims To Test Roe v. Wade Boundaries

North Dakota governor Jack Dalrymple has signed the nation’s most restrictive abortion bill with an aim to test the boundaries of the Roe v. Wade decision.

In addition to the bill that would ban abortion after six weeks, Dalrymple signed a second law banning abortion based on generic abnormality and a third that requires doctors who perform abortions to have hospital admitting procedures. Continue reading →