Late-Term Abortion in Wanted Pregnancies

From the Chicago Tribune:

TIMELINE OF US ABORTION LAWS AND EVENTS

The earliest anti-abortion laws were intended to protect women from untrained abortionists. Records indicate abortions occurred unregulated during the 1800s, and the number of deaths caused by complications from illegal and unsafe abortions is impossible to determine. By the end on the 19th century, abortion was criminalized

• 1821 — America’s first statutory abortion regulation is enacted in Connecticut in order to protect women from abortion inducement through poison administered after the fourth month of pregnancy.
• 1856 — Leading pro-life advocate Dr. Horatio Storer establishes a national drive by the American Medical Association (AMA) to end legal abortion. First trimester abortion at this point (in most states) is legal or a misdemeanor.
• 1873 — The Comstock Act bans access to information about abortion and birth control.
• 1890 — Abortion is regulated by statutes advocated by the AMA, and abortion is permitted upon conferral of one or more physicians who believe the procedure is necessary to preserve the life of the mother.
• 1961 — Vacuum aspiration-style abortion spreads throughout Europe and is considered safer than traditional methods
• 1963 — The Society for Human Abortion is established in San Francisco. SHA challenges the law by openly providing information on abortion and contraception.
• 1967 — Abortion is classified a felony in 49 states and Washington D.C. Dr. Leon Belous is convicted for referring a woman to an illegal abortionist — a case leading to a 1969 California Supreme Court decision in favor of the right to choose abortion.President Kennedy creates the Presidential Advisory Council on the Status of Women and calls for the repeal of abortion laws.
• 1970 — Abortion activist Dr. Jane Hodgson is convicted in Minnesota for performing an abortion on a 23 year-old woman. The judge does not submit the case to the state supreme court.Hawaii becomes the first state to allow abortions performed before 20 weeks of pregnancy, thereby repealing its criminal abortion law. Soon after, New York State repeals its criminal abortion law.
• 1971 — The Comstock Act prohibiting information on abortion is repealed. (State laws banning contraception remain.) Abortion under “certain” conditions is allowed in 14 states; four states guarantee a woman the choice of pregnancy termination.Norma McCorvey, an unmarried pregnant woman in Texas, challenges a state law that makes it a crime for a doctor to perform an abortion unless a woman’s life is at stake. To protect her privacy, McCorvey is listed as “Jane Roe” in all court documents.The Supreme Court, in Roe vs. Wade, grants women the right to terminate pregnancies through abortion. The ruling is based on a woman’s right to privacy.In a separate case, Doe vs. Bolton, the Supreme Court votes 7-2 to invalidate Georgia law that required a woman to get approval from three physicians before having an abortion.
• 1974 — Federally funded research using fetal tissue is prohibited through the National Science Foundation Authorization Act.
• 1976 — Congress passes the Hyde Amendment, banning the use of Medicaid and other federal funds for abortions. The legislation is upheld by the Supreme Court in 1980.
• 1979 — A Missouri requirement that abortions after the first trimester be performed in hospitals is found unconstitutional. Another law mandating parental consent is upheld.
• 1981 — In Bellotti vs. Baird, Supreme Court rules that pregnant minors can petition court for permission to have an abortion without parental notification
• 1983 — The court strikes down an Akron ordinance that requires doctors to give abortion patients antiabortion literature, imposes a 24-hour waiting period, requires abortions after the first trimester to be performed in a hospital, requires parental consent and requires the aborted fetus to be disposed of in a ‘human’ manner.
• 1989 — In Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services, a law in Washington State declaring that “life begins at conception”; and barring the use of public facilities for abortions is found unconstitutional. It marks the first time the Supreme Court does not explicitly reaffirm Roe vs. Wade.
• 1992 — In Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, the court reaffirms Roe’s core holding that states may not ban abortions or interfere with a woman’s decision to have an abortion. The court does uphold mandatory 24-hour waiting periods and parental-consent laws.
• 1993 — Abortion protestor Michael Griffin shoots Dr. David Gunn outside a clinic in Pensacola, Fla., during a March demonstration; he is later sentenced to life in prison. In August, Dr. George Tiller is shot in the arm while leaving clinic in Wichita, Kan.; Rachelle ‘Shelley’ Shannon is convicted and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
• 1994 — In July, Dr. John Bayard Britton and bodyguard are slain outside clinic in Pensacola, Fla., by former minister Paul J. Hill; Hill is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. In December, John Salvi walks into two Boston-area abortion clinics with a rifle and opens fire, killing two receptionists and wounding five others; he is sentenced to life in prison without parole, but he kills himself in prison in 1996.
• 1995 — Norma McCorvey (“Jane Roe”, who didn’t have an abortion because the court ruling came too late, is befriended by the national director of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, who baptizes her upon her conversion to Christianity. McCorvey declares that she is pro-life and regrets her role in the landmark case.
• 1996 — The abortion debate shifts to state bans on “partial-birth abortions” which generally include late-term abortions performed with the “dilation and evacuation” method. 104th Congress passes HR 1833, a bill to outlaw such procedures; President Clinton vetoes the bill.
• 1997 — Two bombs blast outside an Atlanta building containing an abortion clinic; six people injured; the clinic is left in ruins and the blast blows out windows across the street.

Sources: The Chicago Tribune, California Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, National Right to Life

From CNN’s “Before and After Roe vs. Wade”–

1994: President Bill Clinton signs the Abortion-Clinic Protection Bill into law, which is designed to protect abortion clinics from attacks, blockades and acts of intimidation by pro-life protesters.

2000: The Food and Drug Administration approves the abortion pill RU-486. The drug enables a woman to terminate a pregnancy within seven weeks from her last menstrual period, without the need for a surgical abortion.

2003: President George W. Bush signs the “partial-birth abortion” bill, outlawing the procedure known as intact dilation and extraction (D&X). Federal judges quickly issue injunctions that temporarily nullify the law’s effect for many abortion providers.

2004: About 800,000 demonstrators gather in Washington for the “March for Women’s Lives,” a protest against Bush’s reproductive rights policies. This is the largest abortion-rights demonstration since a 1992 rally that drew at least 500,000 participants.

2007: The Supreme Court upholds the partial-birth abortion law 5-4 in the first federal restriction on a particular abortion method since Roe v. Wade.

In a bitter dissent read from the bench, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says the majority’s opinion “cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away a right declared again and again by this court.”

Pararmedics work on George Tiller after he was shot outside his clinic in 1993.

2009: President Barack Obama ends a banon the use of U.S. foreign aid funds by international family planning programs that provided abortions or advice on obtaining one. The ban had first been instituted in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan.

George Tiller, a physician who performed late-term abortions, is shot and killed in Wichita, Kansas. Tiller, who had been subject to antiabortion protests and harassment for more than 20 years, was the first abortion provider killed since 1998.

2011: Voters in Mississippi reject the “personhood” amendment, which would have outlawed all forms of abortion, including for cases of rape, incest and life-threatening pregnancies.

Research from the Alan Guttmacher Institute finds the number of abortions is at its lowest level since Roe v. Wade, remaining steady at about 1.2 million reported procedures in 2011, down 25% since the all-time high in 1990.

2012: Susan G. Komen for the Cure announces it will cut off fundingto affiliates of Planned Parenthood. The organization reverses the decision three days later amid a public outcry.

Rally participants support Planned Parenthood at the National Mall in Washington on April 7, 2011.

The Supreme Court upholds President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. Starting in 2014, the level of abortion coverage each woman will receive will depend on their state’s policy, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The ACA prohibits states from including abortion in any essential benefits package and no plan in an insurance exchange is required to offer abortion coverage. In addition, states can bar all plans participating in the exchanges from covering abortions.

Sources: “When Abortion Was A Crime,” by Leslie Reagan; Kaiser Family Foundation; 4,000 Years For Choice; NPR; National Right to Life.