What happens when abortion access is severely restricted for 26 million Americans?
Texas is about to find out. In July 2013, the Texas legislature passed one of the
country’s most restrictive laws that not only bans most abortions after 22 weeks and
limits the use of medical abortion but also contains several provisions that are likely
to lead to the closure of most abortion clinics in the state. The law requires facilities
to meet the standards of ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) and mandates physicians
to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. Proponents of the law claim it will
improve safety, despite overwhelming evidence that abortions provided in outpatient
clinics have a very low level of complications [
[1]
]. This legislation comes on the heels of measures passed in 2011 that drastically
reduced funding for family planning, effectively removed Planned Parenthood from all
state-funded family planning programs and required women seeking abortion to make
an extra visit at least 24 hours before the abortion in order to undergo an ultrasound
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References
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- Risk factors for legal induced abortion-related mortality in the United States.Obstet Gynecol. 2004; 103: 729-737
Grimes DA, Benson J, Singh S, et al. Unsafe abortion: the preventable pandemic. Lancet 2006; 25;368(9550):1908–19.
- Induced abortion: incidence and trends worldwide from 1995 to 2008.Lancet. 2012; 379: 625-632
Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 06, 2013
Accepted:
October 26,
2013
Received:
October 19,
2013
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
