The high court’s 2007 decision on partial-birth abortion stirs up statehouses in 2008 | Lynn Vincent
A year ago this month, Denise Burke surveyed the state legislative landscape and didn't like what she saw. The Americans United for Life vice president and legal director had noticed that on abortion, some state lawmakers seemed mired in lethargy. Overall in 2006 states introduced fewer bills regulating abortion and protecting women from its harmful effects than in the two previous years.
Among some legislators, Burke said, "There was a little bit of the thought process, 'we've done everything we need to do' on abortion."
What a difference a year makes.
In 2007, states considered approximately 400 bills regulating abortion, an increase of more than 50 percent over 2006, and in 2008, the tally could be much higher. Among the catalysts: Gonzales v. Carhart.
Pro-life hot sheet
Stories to watch in 2008
In the coming year, a number of pivotal life issues hang in the balance: Will the morning-after pill be the undoing of religious rights-of-conscience? Will the Democratic candidate for president convince voters that the very "right to choose" is at stake in November? Here are five front-burner stories to watch:
Target: CPCs
"Whereas . . . 'crisis pregnancy centers' misinform and mislead women to deter or to delay them from having abortions . . ." With bill language like that, who needs a state investigation? Yet that is exactly what the Oregon legislature authorized in 2007 when it considered passage of a bill attacking Senate Bill 776 which, though containing the foregone conclusions above, requires the state department of health to investigate crisis pregnancy centers. Sparked by a 2006 report by pro-abortion congressman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), SB 776 is just one among several bills nationwide that target CPCs in an effort to brand them officially as "fake clinics" and, in some states, to cut off public funding.
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