The War on Women Is About to Get a Whole Lot Worse
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Here are some of the abortion-related activities to watch for in 2016:
SUPREME COURT
For the first time in nine years, the US Supreme Court will hear a case on abortion as the justices review a 2013 Texas law. They must decide if HB 2 unconstitutionally restricts access to abortion by subjecting outpatient abortion clinics to some of the same standards as hospitals. The law also requires providers to obtain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. Pro- and anti-choice activists alike have said the case has the potential to end the right to safe and legal abortion in the United States. The law has already lead to the closure of more than half the abortion clinics in Texas, leaving huge swathes of the state without a provider and forcing women to travel hundreds of miles to get care.
The Supreme Court will also rule next year on whether the Affordable Care Act's contraception coverage requirements infringe on nonprofit religious groups' freedom of conscience. The Court decided to consolidate seven appeals from religious nonprofits, ranging from nursing homes run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Roman Catholic religious order, to religiously affiliated schools such as Southern Nazarene University and Geneva College.
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Planned Parenthood and the Supreme Court cases are sure to come up during next year's presidential campaign. Republican presidential hopefuls have competed to claim the most extreme anti-abortion position by defending their anti-abortion legacies and attacking Planned Parenthood and other women's health care organizations. All the GOP candidates have said they oppose abortion in most cases, the vast majority of them say they want to overturn Roe v. Wade, and about half of them think abortion should be outlawed, even in cases of rape or incest.
STATE BATTLES
Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion advocacy group that has been a powerful force in shaping abortion legislation by writing model legislation for state and local governments, helped push through at least 38 pro-life laws at the state level in 2015. Its legislative priorities for 2016 include restrictions on late-term abortions and those based on the sex of the fetus, a ban on the sale of aborted fetal tissue, and an "Unborn Wrongful Death Act," which would allow civil charges to be brought against anyone responsible for the death of an "unborn child at any stage of development." . . .
THE REST:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/01/watch-abortion-trends-battle-2016
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