ColumnMarch has been madness when it comes to attacks on reproductive freedom—three states are ignoring the constitution and passing restrictive abortion bans. 

Looking at the political landscape, it’s clear that since I wrote a recap of the attacks on choice exactly two years ago, our ability to make decisions about our bodies and the course of our lives is still on the table. As individual states one-up each other passing over-the-top, unconstitutional bans, Planned Parenthood leader Cecile Richards is concerned that Roe v. Wade may be heading back to the Supreme Court.

In some states, the barriers to access would, essentially, make abortion illegal for anyone lacking the resources to travel, or in some cases pay out-of-pocket for a totally 100 percent legal medical procedure covered by most insurance policies. The fact that a woman may not have the resources to cross state lines but is expected to figure out how to access the prenatal care necessary to have a healthy pregnancy, let alone raise an actual child, doesn’t seem to be part of the conversation in the states where our rights are in the most danger. The top three offenders this month are North Dakota, Virginia and Arkansas.

Let’s start in North Dakota—a state with just one clinic offering abortion services. This month, Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed a bill that, if it goes into effect August 1, would make abortion illegal six weeks after conception. No matter what. Rape? Incest? Not Jack’s problem. He also signed into law two more measures: one that would ban abortions based on genetic defects such as Down syndrome and another requiring any doctor who performs abortions to be a physician with hospital-admitting privileges.

While it might be the least headline-grabbing, it’s the last of the laws that poses the most immediate threat to the women of North Dakota. Here’s why: The six-week ban will be tied up in court for a long time because it undermines the constitutional protections in Roe v. Wade—which guarantees the right to first-trimester abortion services. The even more radical “personhood” amendment, which could ban all abortions if voters approve it on the November 2014 ballot, will face similar legal challenges if it becomes law.

This is by design. Dalrymple doesn’t expect these laws to sail through. In the long term, they’re debates designed to get Roe v. Wade back to the Supreme Court. In the short term, they are red herrings for the real attack: Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers: TRAP laws. These are the laws requiring anyone performing an abortion to be a physician with hospital-admitting privileges. And this law could close the one clinic in North Dakota.

This popular anti-choice tactic is sold to the public as a concern for women’s safety. But this isn’t about keeping women safe. Women’s health clinics are perfectly capable of providing women with safe abortions, and surgical abortion is actually one of the safest types of medical procedures. Complications from having a first-trimester aspiration abortion are considerably less frequent and less serious than those associated with giving birth. Early medical abortion (using medications to end a pregnancy) has a similar safety profile.

In reality, TRAP laws do just what the name implies: They trap clinics by making it illegal for medical professionals to do their jobs. In Fargo, where the Red River Women’s Clinic is located, at least one of the two local hospitals won’t offer those privileges because the quality of care at the clinic is so high that the clinic doesn’t need them, according to RH Reality Check. I get it, but why not step in and offer the privileges to save the clinic from this attack?

The state’s new Democratic US Senator, Heidi Heitkamp, has been a bit cagey about her stance on abortion. While she has said she is against public funding, she hasn’t said much else and doesn’t have a voting record on the issue. Email Senator Heitkamp and let her know that these restrictions are unacceptable and unconstitutional. A recent email to her supporters asks for donations to fight Karl Rove’s efforts to keep three other women out of office. She says she wants strong women in the government, so encourage her to be strong and fight these bans.

In Virginia, Gov. Bob McDonnell is looking to limit access to abortion via health insurance. He introduced an amendment to the state’s health insurance exchange implementation bill that would prevent insurance plans in the new health exchange from covering abortion. While similar bills introduced in other states would allow a woman to buy a policy rider for abortion coverage, McDonnell’s doesn’t make that inclusion.

NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia estimates that this ban will affect the approximately  50,000 women in Virginia who will be using the state-based health benefits exchange. As in North Dakota, this ban would limit access, primarily, to lower income women. Most private insurance covers abortion services. McDonnell, on his monthly call-in to Washington’s WTOP Radio, said this amendment is simply a restatement an existing federal law — the Hyde Amendment — that prohibits use of public funds for abortion, and also a restatement of existing state law. This amendment is dangerous because, as McDonnell himself said, it provides the language to apply to federal exchanges as well.

In Arkansas, the Republican-controlled House and Senate decided they know better than their women constituents, Gov. Mike Beebe and the Supreme Court when they approved an unconstitutional bill to ban abortions after 12 weeks. The Republican-controlled Senate passed The Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act 26-8. We all started hearing about Heartbeat Bills a few years back when, in Ohio, a fetus was called to testify via ultrasound. To make sure you can hear that beat, the Arkansas bill would also require women to undergo a medically unnecessary, invasive vaginal ultrasound. Beebe vetoed the bill saying it, “blatantly contradicts the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court.” Which it does. As does the six-week bill in North Dakota.

These guys aren’t stupid. They know this. So why are they fighting to get these bills passed in their states? Because, since 1992, they can. Planned Parenthood v. Casey upheld a woman’s right to have an abortion, but some shockingly vague language opened the door for all of what we are seeing today. The Court said the government may seek to discourage women from having abortions by requiring waiting periods and other efforts—as long as these restrictions do not pose an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to an abortion. Undue burden was left undefined.

Is it an undue burden to be forced to have a medically unnecessary trans-vaginal ultrasound? To have to travel hundreds of miles for an abortion, only to be told you have to come back in 72 hours because of a waiting period? What about to be forced to pay for a procedure that should be, legally, covered by health insurance?  Yes, I think those are undue burdens.

This death by a thousand cuts approach isn’t new. Republicans have applied it to voting rights, civil rights, gay rights and other social issues for decades. Public opinion on social issues is changing, and the party can’t win national elections with its throwback views. So Republicans attack issues like abortion and gay marriage piece by piece, state by state. But this isn’t just a fight against abortion; it’s a fight against equality. This is a relatively small number of people—with deep pockets and loud voices—who fear that ensuring the freedom of choice to everyone will rob them of their power. And that would be the best possible outcome.  

Image: alexandralee

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The next four years could be like a bad episode of ‘Mad Men.’

I’ll admit it: prior to attending the Democratic National Convention earlier this month, I knew very little about what was at stake for women’s health this election season. Sure, I had heard rumblings about Republican Sen. Todd Akin’s legitimate rape blunder, rolled my eyes when hearing about Republican Rep. Mike Callton’s squeamishness over the v-word, and laughed at the ridiculous conservative notion that women can technically become pregnant two weeks before even doing the deed.

But by the end of DNC, it was very clear that the rights I have taken for granted my whole life are at risk. November 6 doesn’t just present a choice between Obama-Biden and Romney-Ryan. It presents a choice about women’s rights, particularly those involving our health.

Throughout the three-day convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, women took center stage, both figuratively and literally. During the televised speeches at the Time Warner Arena, nearly every major speaker forcefully advocated for women’s rights, to raucous applause. Down the street, enthusiastic cheers from the over-capacity Women’s Caucus meetings echoed through the Charlotte Convention Center. There were panel discussions and workshops, mixers and meetings. On the city streets, pink-shirted Planned Parenthood volunteers, male and female, distributed condoms that read: “Protect Yourself from Romney & Ryan.”

“I never thought I’d see a week when men and women hit the stage time after time and talked about women’s issues,” said Tina Tchen, Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, at a Women’s Caucus meeting on the last day of the convention. The crowd went wild.

In 2012, as in 2008, women voters will decide this election. Women make up approximately 51 percent of the nation’s electorate, reports CNN. Plus, we vote in greater numbers than men. In 2008, 65.7 percent of women turned out to the polls, compared with 61.5 percent of men, says USA Today.

That still leaves more than one-third of women who don’t vote. With so much at stake, that’s simply unacceptable. Here are some of the most resounding women’s health battle cries from the DNC, which will hopefully convince those undecided few of the need to stand up and vote.

“We can’t see a reversal of Roe v. Wade.”

The historic piece of pro-choice legislation has set the tone for the abortion debate in America since 1973. But if recent Republican-led initiatives are any indication, this may not always be the case.

The official GOP platform states that “the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed” and supports a strict ban on abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, and when the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother. According to The Guardian, a staggering number of Republican-led state initiatives have attempted to further restrict abortion rights over the past year. Ohio’s “Heartbeat Bill,” for instance, would ban abortion at as early as five weeks, while Mississippi’s “Personhood” initiative would outlaw abortion, the morning-after pill, hormonal contraception like the pill and the IUD, and even in vitro fertilization.

Such attempts to revoke a woman’s right to choose aren’t just archaic and regressive – they’re downright scary. “It’s like we woke up in a bad episode of Mad Men,” said Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards on night two of the convention.

“Birth control decisions should be left to women, not to the government or their employers.”

President Obama’s Affordable Care Act makes it mandatory for health insurance providers to cover all forms of birth control, without co-pays or deductibles. Previously, birth control coverage was a decision made by state agencies or individual employers.

In comparison, Republican efforts to shut down Planned Parenthood and abolish sex education are aiming to restrict information and access to basic reproductive health services.

Unsurprisingly, men are at the helm of these efforts. In a Republican hearing on contraception earlier this year, not a single woman was included on the panel. The Democrats, who were allowed one witness, chose to present student activist Sandra Fluke. She was dismissed for being “unqualified,” then famously called a slut and prostitute by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Politicians across party lines, including President Obama, sprung to Fluke’s defense. Romney was notably silent.

“During this campaign, we’ve heard about the two profoundly different futures that could await women – and how one of those futures looks like an offensive, obsolete relic of our past,” Fluke said on day two of the convention. “Warnings of that future are not distractions. They’re not imagined. That future could be real.” 

Richards echoed that notion at a Women’s Caucus meeting. “This is 2012 and we are still actually arguing over whether women should have the right to birth control in America. That is absolutely unbelievable.” She shared a story of meeting older women who had participated in the women’s rights movement while on the campaign trail. “They carried signs that said: ‘I can’t believe I have to fight this shit again.’”

“Being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition.”

Before the Affordable Care Act, health insurance companies could deny health coverage to women because of “pre-existing conditions” like having breast cancer, being pregnant, or surviving domestic violence, according to Slate. Insurance companies were also able to drop women’s coverage due to pregnancy or sickness, and charge women more for coverage solely because of gender.

“Under Obamacare, insurance companies can no longer discriminate against women,” said Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, on the first night of the convention.

 Before, some wouldn’t cover women’s most basic needs, like contraception and maternity care, but would still charge us up to 50 percent more than men—for a worse plan. They said women who had C-sections or survived breast cancer or even domestic violence had “pre-existing conditions” and would deny them coverage. But this president made it illegal to discriminate against women and ended the practice of insurance companies charging women higher premiums than men for the same coverage. This president ensured women’s free access to preventive services like breast cancer screenings. Being a mother is no longer a liability, and being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition! That’s what change looks like.

“We need a president who respects women.”

Many are familiar with the famous Ms. Magazine cover featuring a Photoshopped President Obama wearing a t-shirt that reads: “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like.” Judging from actions and remarks made over the past several months, it’s obvious that his opponents have a long way to go.

Sebelius hit the nail on the head when she voiced her observations on the Republican National Convention.

I must say I wouldn’t have known it unless they told me over and over again that they love women. That’s what they said: ‘We love women.’ That their mothers were women, that they’re married to women, their sisters are women. But if you watch what they do, they don’t like women very much, they don’t respect women very much and they’re not looking out for us very much.

According to Fluke, “that’s not the America we should be.”

We’ve also seen another future we could choose. First of all, we’d have the right to choose. It’s an America in which no one can charge us more than men for the exact same health insurance; in which no one can deny us affordable access to the cancer screenings that could save our lives; in which we decide when to start our families. An America in which our president, when he hears a young woman has been verbally attacked, thinks of his daughters—not his delegates or donors—and stands with all women.

Again, the crowd – male and female – went wild.

Election Day is November 6. Click here to learn how you can register to vote.

Images: Jessica Marati

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A weekly look at sex and culture, by the numbers.

Our sex lives are governed by a host of factors— some are external and beyond our control, while others are products of our own choices. This week’s edition of Sex by Numbers takes a look some of the influencers of our sexual selves.

37%: Percentage of births in the U.S. that are a result of unplanned pregnancies. According to the CDC, the number—which has been rising since the mid-1990s—is owed to a number of diverse factors.

3 vs 6: When male participants in study were asked to judge if 3 months and 6 months seemed “very short” or “very long” distances from the present, they were more impatient after being shown sexual imagery, proving that sexual arousal heightens not just our immediate desire, but our overall perception of time as well.

3,518: Number of commenters on user-generated site Reddit that responded to a pleading thread entitled “Ladies, please help us male Redditors out: What is the best way to approach you in public if we’re interested in you?”

7: Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, seven categories of preventative medical services for women—including mammograms, screenings for cervical cancer, prenatal care, and birth control—will no longer require a co-pay and will be fully covered by insurance.

500mg: Amount of caffeine contained in some energy drinks (the equivalent to 6 cups of coffee), which researchers have found makes individuals more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior when consumed in combination with alcohol.

$3: Cost of a pregnancy test for sale in the bathroom of a Minnesota bar, which is intended to prevent fetal alcohol syndrome by reminding women they could, in fact, be pregnant while drinking the beer they just ordered.

1 Touch: San Francisco based organization One Touch is trying, er, single-handedly to rectify the masculinity crisis by reviving the art of the female orgasm. Their goal is to influence men to “learn orgasmic meditation and everything that goes with it” so they can be of better service to females.

57%: Percentage of 12 to 14 year old adolescents for whom movies and media serve as their main source of sexual information. A study published in Psychological Science found that exposure to sexually explicit content through film was a driver in early adolescent sexual activity.

Image: Lotus Carroll

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