Opinion: The Threat To Our Communities Comes From Anti-Abortion Laws, Not Abortion

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

67% : Many of us conjure the image of a coat hanger when thinking about the repercussions of anti-abortion laws.
64% : The threat to our communities comes from anti-abortion laws themselves, not abortion.
55% : Even without medical concerns, all reasons for seeking abortion are valid and normal.
55% : When anti-abortion sentiment rose in the U.S., much of the concern focused on Black and Brown women having more children than white women.
51% : Even the widespread religious opposition to abortion in the U.S. is modern.
50% : This means that people employed by the government, armed service members, Indigenous people who are insured through the Indian Health Service, AmeriCorps workers, everyone whose insurance is federal Medicaid, and D.C. residents, among others, are required to pay for abortion out of pocket.
48% : Together, we can change the narrative on pregnancy and abortion on this country -- after all, we are already the majority.
47% : It's important to know that abortion is still legal in all 50 states.
47% : Before Roe v. Wade, the Clergy Consultation Service for Abortion, made up of Protestant ministers and Jewish rabbis, helped connect people to safe abortion in the 1960s.
46% : Let's be clear: Adoption isn't an alternative to abortion.
46% : If anti-abortion activists want to be truly pro-family, I have some recommendations.
45% : According to the Pew Research Center, in March 2022, 61% of Americans believed that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, a number that has gradually increased over the last few decades.
44% : It was restricted by later cases, such as Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, which applied a standard that states couldn't impose an "undue burden" on people seeking abortion.
43% : Even though abortion has been technically legal in the United States for almost 50 years, it is extremely hard to access in many parts of the country.
41% : Another important fact is that abortion used to be much less controversial.
41% : Abortion restrictions don't begin to appear in the United States until the 1820s, and laws weren't widespread until the American Medical Association started opposing abortion in the 1860s (the organization's stance has since changed -- the AMA now affirms that abortion is safe, essential health care).
40% : Anyone who experiences pregnancy loss could be prosecuted if abortion is illegal.
39% : Many states have banned public insurance programs, such as Medicaid and Medicare, from funding abortion as well.
39% : Most major Protestant churches continued to support abortion rights after Roe v. Wade as a matter of their strong belief in religious freedom, specifically from the Catholic Church, who opposed abortion.
38% : The Supreme Court draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that was leaked earlier this week reveals that Roe v. Wade, and all subsequent cases reaffirming the right to abortion, will likely be overturned this summer.
37% : In some states it's even illegal for private insurance companies to offer coverage.
36% : Severe hyperemesis can also cause miscarriage, so either option would have left her open to criminal prosecution.
36% : Although abortion is a politically charged issue in the U.S., it's a lot less controversial to everyday Americans.
35% : The opposition to abortion by doctors was largely driven by abortions being performed by midwives and women in the community, who doctors saw as a threat to their medical practice.
34% : The famous Supreme Court case legalizing abortion in 1973, Roe v. Wade, made abortion legal up to "viability," a nebulous concept that varies but is commonly defined as 24 weeks.
33% : The Hyde Amendment, which was first added as a rider to the federal spending budget in 1980 and has been added annually since then, makes it illegal for federal funds to cover the cost of abortion.
31% : The criminalization of abortion will cause scrutiny of all pregnant people, and puts all of our communities at risk.
31% : It's telling that Justice Alito's opinion also states that there is no constitutional basis for Loving v. Virginia, the case that legalized interracial marriage, and Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that legalized same-sex marriage.
29% : In 2021, Texas enacted a new anti-abortion law (called "SB8") that made abortion illegal past about six weeks -- a time when most people don't even realize they're pregnant.
29% : The same states trying to restrict abortion coincidentally also have the worst maternal and infant outcomes -- and the worst racial disparities.
15% : Some states mandate that doctors give pregnant people medically inaccurate information about abortion by reading scripts written by the state filled with fear-mongering lies that abortion causes breast cancer (it does not) or that it may impact future fertility (it does not).

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