More than 25% of the abortion restrictions passed since Roe v. Wade happened in the last five years

By Katie McDonough  |  January 13, 2016 | 9:55pm
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In case there was any doubt—what with Republicans in Congress attempting to defund Planned Parenthood and dismantle the only federal program dedicated entirely to family planning services and ban abortion pre-viability, which, oh by the way, happens to be a direct violation of Roe v. Wade—2015 was a really bad year for abortion rights.

And according to a report released this week by the Guttmacher Institute, it wasn’t just Congress keeping busy. Last year, states passed 57 new laws aimed at restricting access to abortion—more than double the number of restrictions passed in 2014.

Anti-abortion lawmakers have been on something of a bender when it comes to passing laws rolling back access to abortion services: as the Guttmacher report notes, more than 25% of the abortion restrictions passed since Roe happened in the last five years.

This is what that looks like:

Different states took different approaches to impeding access to services.

Oklahoma and North Carolina approved a 72-hour waiting period, while Idaho and Arkansas imposed bans on the use of telemedicine, which facilitates medication abortion at smaller, often rural clinics that lack an abortion provider by allowing patients to consult with a physician through a teleconference.

And in what may be one of the more bizarre approaches to curtailing abortion rights, Arizona and Arkansas passed laws requiring doctors to inform patients that medication abortions are “reversible.” (It’s a claim that is medically dubious, to say the very least.)

All told, states have enacted 1,074 abortion restrictions in the 43 years since Roe. And while the new year is less than two weeks old, if recent news is any indication, anti-abortion lawmakers have no plans to slow down.

 
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