United States abortion-rights movement
Such people believe the death rate of women due to such procedures in areas where abortions are only available outside of the medical establishment is unacceptable.
[9] Many abortion-rights campaigners also note that some anti-abortion activists also oppose practices that correlate with less demand for abortion, namely sex education and the ready availability of contraception.
[10][11] Proponents of this argument point to cases of areas with limited sex education and contraceptive access that have high abortion rates, either legal or illegal.
One common reason women give for terminating unintended pregnancies is that having a baby would prevent them from achieving goals, such as pursuing an education.
They disliked abortion but thought anti-abortion laws did not apply "the proper remedies", according to one nineteenth-century women's rights pioneer.
[18] As the historian Christine Stansell explained, many religious leaders came to approach the abortion rights argument from a position of individual conscience instead of from dogma by witnessing the "strains unwanted pregnancies put on members of their congregations".
[19] In its landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade, in which a woman challenged the Texas laws criminalizing abortion, the U.S. Supreme Court reached two important conclusions: The outcome of Roe V. Wade divided Americans over the issue of abortion and the laws surrounding it.
The issue became highly politicized as the Democratic and Republican parties took more polarized positions on abortion policy.
[3] In the 2010s, the Abortion-rights movement faced setbacks as more anti-abortion policies were beginning to be passed across various state legislatures.
The election of these officials helped solidify party control of anti-abortion Republicans in both houses of state legislatures.
In 2015, 31 of the 50 governors in the U.S. and two-thirds of the state legislatures they controlled held strong favorability towards anti-abortion policy.
[4][5] Abortion-rights groups are active in all American states and at the federal level, campaigning for legal abortion and against the reimposition of anti-abortion laws, with varying degrees of success.
In the wake of extreme abortion restrictions in states like Georgia, Alabama, Missouri and Ohio, transgender, intersex and other gender-nonconforming people felt forgotten in this movement.
[22] The Democratic Party's platform endorses the abortion-rights position, stating that abortion should be "safe and legal".
A lawsuit was filed on behalf of McCorvey by her lawyers, Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, claiming that particular articles for the Texas penal code, 1191-1194 and 1196, were unconstitutional.
On January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jane Roe and banned the law in Texas that only allowed abortions if the mother's life was at stake.
Before this Supreme Court case, some women had to resort to having unsafe and illegal abortions that could cost them their health or lives.
The abortion rights movement includes a variety of organizations, with no single centralized decision-making body.
Most major feminist organizations also support abortion-rights positions, as do the American Medical Association, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and pro-abortion rights physicians such as Eugene Gu[28] and Warren Hern[29] who have fought political opposition from anti-abortion Senator Marsha Blackburn.
[33] Hall, Freiman, Susman, and Planned Parenthood argued against House Bill 1211 and its definition of viability.
They argued that it gave a vague definition of viability that allowed for any fetus to be considered viable, essentially making abortions illegal.
[33] Other than Planned Parenthood's advocacy efforts for the abortion rights movement, their members also provide information at their clinics and website for the public.
The NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation advocates for access to abortion, birth control, and paid parental leave, and against discrimination toward pregnant women.
This amendment prohibits women on government health care programs, such as Medicaid, from receiving funds to pay for an abortion.
They provide a Patient Partnership program that allows people who have had abortions to share their personal experiences and stories to lawmakers.
[38] The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) is a national nonprofit organization that was founded in 1973 shortly following the Roe v. Wade ruling.
Beyond this, the organization offers religious resources and services to those who are considering or recovering from an abortion, as well as clinics and practitioners.
[40] Several states have a state-level coalition with varying amounts of resources: Catholics for Choice is a nonprofit that supports reproductive freedom, including abortion rights.
