Abortion rights a tale of 2 countries

by The Editorial Board,

Four decades after ‘Roe v. Wade,’ protection is meaningless in too many states.

Precisely 41 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that women have a constitutional right to an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb. In a later decision, the justices held that states must not place an “undue burden” on that right.

Today, in too many places for too many women, those protections are becoming all but meaningless. Abortions are fraught with so many restrictions that they are hard to obtain in a growing number of states and almost impossible to obtain in a few.

Abortion opponents, unable to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling outright, have waged an increasingly successful battle of attrition. More limits on abortion were approved in state legislatures in the past three years — 205 of them — than during the entire previous decade.

Some limits approved years ago, such as parental consent for minors, are sensible. But recently, many that might sound reasonable on their face have real consequences that prevent women from terminating a pregnancy before fetal viability, typically 23 to 24 weeks.

Some states have imposed mandates on counseling, waiting periods and how abortion clinics must be built. Some ban later abortions. Others make it tougher to get abortions in the first nine weeks of pregnancy.

In a contentious session last summer, Texas, the nation’s second most populous state, chipped away at abortion rights from many angles.

Texas joined a line of states that have passed constitutionally dubious bans on most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The problem is that many grave, even lethal fetal anomalies or genetic conditions aren’t discovered by testing until at or near 20 weeks, at which point some women decide to terminate a pregnancy. Is this really a decision that politicians should force on a woman or a couple?

When states prevent reputable doctors from performing these abortions, they leave a void that criminals could slither in to fill, increasing the potential for tragedy. Arizona’s 20-week ban was thrown out last year by an appellate court, but similar bans remain the law in nine other states.

Yet until or unless the Supreme Court reverses itself, a constitutional right shouldn’t vary dramatically depending where you live. In the space of four decades, America has headed too far back toward the days when government dictated what should be a very personal choice.

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