"There are two Americas when it comes to abortion"
There are two Americas when it comes to abortion—one in which it’s nearly impossible to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, and one in which access to the procedure is mostly unfettered and often publicly financed. Geography is everything. While abortion has been a federally protected right for 40 years, in some states, women must travel hundreds of miles and devote days to terminating pregnancies; poor women who can’t afford to pay out of pocket must find privately-funded organizations to pick up the tab. In others, obtaining an abortion is logistically as simple as making and showing up to a standard doctor’s appointment.
New York is one of the latter, with few abortion restrictions and greater access to the procedure than nearly any other state. Gov. Andrew Cuomo reportedly wants to widen access even further and has proposed rewriting a state law that now limits abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy to women whose lives are in danger. Cuomo’s proposal, as reported by the New York Times, would also allow abortions after 24 weeks to protect a woman’s health. According to the New York Times, Cuomo wants to ensure wide access to abortion in New York state is on the books in case the Supreme Court ever overturns Roe v. Wade.
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Still, Cuomo’s move to widen access even further goes against a tide of restrictive state laws making it extremely arduous to obtain abortion services in some parts of the country. As I wrote in a recent Time cover story, in parts of the South and Midwest, it is more difficult to access abortion than at any point since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. There are four states that have just a single abortion provider and some 40 percent fewer providers nationwide now compared to the 1980s. In recent years, anti-abortion activists have successfully lobbied for state laws that make getting abortion more time-consuming and expensive. They have also succeeded in persuading some states to pass zoning laws and other regulations that make it hard for independent abortion clinics to stay open.
Anti-abortion activists have pursued these state-level regulations at the same time they have been trying to land a new abortion case before a sympathetic Supreme Court. If pro-life efforts at the state level are any guide, these activists may one day succeed, which is why abortion rights groups want governors like Cuomo want to make it explicitly clear that abortion will be available in states even if the procedure is no longer protected by federal law.
Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/02/19/what-andrew-cuomos-abortion-proposal-says-about-access-in-2013/#ixzz2LLkpiS4W