Common Legislative Interference and their Consequences
Anti-abortion activists have worked to erode access to abortion care through both outright abortion bans and policies that interfere with patients' ability to access legal abortion care. Laws that require extraneous counseling or ultrasounds, unnecessary regulation of abortion care facilities, and targeted regulation of abortion providers, known as TRAP laws, have effectively reduced abortion access in places where the procedure is still legal.
Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers
Targeted regulation of abortion providers, colloquially known as TRAP laws, are laws that burden abortion providers with unnecessary requirements like redundant reporting and certification conditions, with the goal of forcing clinicians to stop providing care. In this tab, we’ve compiled resources that can explain the intricacies of some of these laws, as well as help providers navigate them.
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Abortion Reporting Requirements [Guttmacher Institute, 7/1/23]
Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers [Guttmacher Institute, 7/1/23]
Requirements for Ultrasound [Guttmacher Institute, 6/1/23]
The impact of provider restrictions on abortion-related outcomes: a synthesis of legal and health evidence [Reproductive Health, 4/18/22]
Trap'd Teens: Impacts of Abortion Provider Regulations on Fertility & Education [Social Science Research Network, 5/19/22]
Communities Need Clinics 2021 [Abortion Care Network, 11/21]
What Are TRAP Laws? [Planned Parenthood, Date unknown]
Hospital Admitting Privilege Mandates Undermine Physician Practice and Unduly Burden Women's Access to Abortion [ACOG, Date unknown]
Abortion Clinic Regulations [ACLU, Date unknown]
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TRAP Laws - Abortion Facility Licensing Requirements [The Policy Surveillance Program, 11/1/22]
Regulations on Facilities and Clinicians Providing Abortions [Kaiser Family Foundation, 5/1/22]
Legal Help for Current and Prospective Abortion Providers [National Women’s Law Center, Date unknown]
Viability Bans
Though Roe v. Wade was a landmark Supreme Court decision that enshrined the right to procure an abortion in the United States, it always allowed for states to ban abortion after “fetal viability” – the term created by Roe and popularized by anti-abortion advocates to describe the gestational stage at which a fetus could survive outside the womb. In reality, there is no medically agreed upon gestational age that would constitute “fetal viability,” as the survival of a fetus outside of the womb is dependent on a number of complex factors. This makes “fetal viability” an unreliable legal measure, and yet it continues to define the abortion conversation.
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Exploring the Impact of a Viability Limit on Support for Ballot Measures [PerryUndem, 7/12/23]
Counseling for the option of termination of pregnancy for severe fetal anomalies in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling to remove the constitutional right to an abortion [Seminars in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine, 6/23]
The V Word: Proposition 1 Revives Historic Abortion Debate Over 'Viability' in California [KQED, 10/4/22]
What is fetal viability, and how does it impact abortion cases? [WTHR, 5/13/22]
3 key facts about fetal viability and its pivotal role in US abortion laws [Insider, 3/11/22]
The End of the Viability Line [Intelligencer, 11/23/21]
Is ‘viability’ viable? Abortion, conceptual confusion and the law in England and Wales and the United States [National Library of Medicine, 10/9/20]
The science of “viability” [Later Abortion Initiative, 4/18]
Fetal Pain & Viability in Later Abortion [Allentown Women’s Center, 2/1/16]
Banning Abortion at Potential “Viability” Is Not Good Policy [Who Not When, Date unknown]
The Facts: Abortion Bans with Exceptions [Who Not When, Date unknown]
Law and Policy Guide: Fetal Viability and Impairments [Center for Reproductive Rights, Date unknown]
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Discussing “Viability” and Abortion Care [SMFM; Accessible Upon Request Only]
Abortion Gestational Limits and Exceptions [Kaiser Family Foundation, 8/23/23]
Consequences of Legislative Interference
Abortion regulations have undermined patients' ability to receive safe abortion care in the United States. Patients are having to work increasingly hard to access abortion care, including traveling across state lines, and providers are being forced to make unsafe decisions about care to comply with state regulations. The resources on this tab illustrate the consequences of unnecessarily regulating abortion.
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Abortion Restrictions and the Threat to Women’s Health [Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 5/19/23]
Trauma of abortion restrictions and forced pregnancy: urgent implications for acute care surgeons [BMJ Journals, 1/30/23]
The economics of abortion bans [Economic Policy Institute, 1/18/23]
State Abortion Bans Will Harm Women and Families’ Economic Security Across the U.S. [Center for American Progress, 8/25/22]
Cross-state travel for abortion care [The Lancet Regional Health - Americas, 6/22]
Health and Economic Effects of Reduced Access to Abortion [Econofact, 6/28/22]
Dobbs: The Immediate Aftermath and the Coming Legal Morass [Commonwealth Fund, 6/27/22]
The impact of provider restrictions on abortion-related outcomes: a synthesis of legal and health evidence [Reproductive Health, 4/18/22]
The pregnancy-related mortality impact of a total abortion ban in the United States: a research note on increased deaths due to remaining pregnant [Duke Press, 12/1/21]
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Consequences of Legislative Interference of Abortion Care [SMFM; Accessible Upon Request Only]
Glossary: Abortion Bans, Restrictions and Protections [Center for Reproductive Rights, Date unknown]