National Abortion Federation Blog: Saporta Reporter

The Education and Health Committee of the Virginia Senate rejected a handful of anti-choice measures today. Several of the bills were examples of Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws, which single out abortion providers for medically unnecessary, politically motivated regulations. Opponents said the bills would make abortions more expensive and less accessible.

These defeats come just one day after the Virginia Senate voted to stop state funding for Planned Parenthood of Virginia because it offers abortion care. After the vote, Senate Majority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax) warned that the Senate was setting a bad precedent of singling out organizations because of ideological differences, according to The Washington Post.

>Learn more about TRAP laws.

The Order of Canada, the highest civilian honour, was established to recognize outstanding lifetime achievement and service. Please sign this petition to the Advisory Council of the Order of Canada, which has repeatedly overlooked Dr. Morgentaler for this distinguished award.

Take Action Now: http://www.nafresources.org/petition_can.html

About Dr. Morgentaler:Dr. Morgentaler, a survivor of the Holocaust, has made a positive lasting impact on the lives and health of Canadian women for more than 40 years as a physician and advocate. He came forward publicly in 1967 and testified that women should have access to safe and legal abortion care at a time when abortion was illegal and countless women were sacrificing their lives and health to end an unplanned pregnancy. For his beliefs and actions to ensure safe abortion care, he was imprisoned. In 1988, Dr. Morgentaler won a significant victory for Canadian women in the Supreme Court of Canada in R v. Morgentaler, the ruling that decriminalized abortion in Canada. This landmark decision, that changed the legal landscape in Canada, was named one of the most important and influential Charter cases of the last 25 years.
Dr. Morgentaler’s determination and tireless efforts on behalf of women have never ceased. Now in his eighties, he continues to provide leadership in current struggles to ensure that women have access to funded abortion care.

He has received several awards in his lifetime, but Canada’s highest award has never been bestowed upon him. This is a significant omission.

Today we issued the following statement concerning proposed legislation in Canada:

The National Abortion Federation (NAF) opposes C-484. On its face, this bill creates a new crime of causing injury to or the death of a foetus. The dangerous reality of the bill, however, is that it could elevate the legal status of the foetus to that of an adult human being. This is unprecedented in Canadian law. The involuntary loss of a pregnancy is a tragedy, but solutions should be real, not political. Bill C-484 is not the right solution.

This bill elevates the foetus – even an embryo only weeks old – to a status equal with that of the adult woman who suffers the primary injury to her body, along with the additional harm of losing or damaging her pregnancy.

By recognizing a developing foetus as a victim of a crime, this legislation could erode Canadian women’s right to a safe and legal abortion by treading closer to the line of recognizing fetal personhood, a concept clearly at odds with existing Canadian law. Such a law could create tension with numerous Supreme Court rulings finding that a person must be born to have legal status in Canada.

The sponsor of this legislation claims that this bill is not about abortion because it exempts legal abortions, some medical treatment, and the conduct of women. But, it is impossible to separate this proposed legislation from its sponsor, a known opponent of legal abortion.

Nowhere in the bill is the harm to the woman resulting from an involuntary termination of her pregnancy mentioned. Violence against women continues to be a significant problem in Canada, and violence often increases when a woman is pregnant. Instead of focusing on real solutions to violence against women, the bill deliberately shifts the focus away from the women who are truly the victims of these heinous crimes.

NAF fully supports a woman’s right to choose to carry a pregnancy to term. Because this bill does nothing to protect women and because its possible consequences include casting doubt over well-established Canadian law, NAF opposes C-484. We believe that the Canadian government should adopt a more reasoned approach that would protect women from violence and offer concrete solutions to the problem of violence against women.

Therefore, NAF calls on the Federal Government to increase funding to programs for the prevention of violence against women. We further ask the Government to eliminate the restrictions they have put in place on research and advocacy groups requesting funding for issues relating to violence against women.

This week Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley spoke out in support of a recently passed law, which expanded the buffer zone around reproductive health care facilities to 35 feet. Coakley filed a brief in federal court responding to a lawsuit brought forth last month by anti-abortion protesters challenging the law.

The "act does not ban any expressive activity, but instead 'merely regulates the places where communications may occur' during clinic business hours," Coakley wrote in the brief.

Coakley, along with Boston Police Captain Bill Evans, testified in support of this act before the Legislature last year.

>Learn more about buffer zone legislation.

Yesterday the New Hampshire Senate heard a controversial counseling bill, which would require minors to receive pre-abortion counseling from a doctor, nurse, or licensed professional.

The Concord Monitor initially supported the legislation, but published a staff editorial yesterday rejecting the bill.

“The bill appears to be trying to solve a problem that does not exist. New Hampshire
consistently has among the lowest rates of teen pregnancy in the nation, and no one has provided evidence that New Hampshire teenagers are being bamboozled into abortions that they don't want or don't understand. No one has impugned the training, technique or diligence of New Hampshire counselors, doctors and nurses who have been performing abortions for years.”

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on anti-choice Richard Honaker’s nomination for a lifetime appointment as a federal district judge to the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming.

Throughout his career, Richard Honaker has worked to undermine a woman’s right to access abortion care. While in the Wyoming Legislature, Honaker introduced two bills that would have created a near total-ban on abortion in the state. When the bills failed, Honaker then served as counsel to an organization formed to place the abortion ban on the 1994 Wyoming state-wide ballot. Wyoming voters overwhelmingly rejected the measure.

Honaker has repeatedly stated his view that legal abortion is the equivalent of murder, and has criticized Supreme Court decisions establishing the legal right to an abortion. His statements and writings on the role of religion in the law also raise concerns about whether he would follow established precedent if the resulting decision would be inconsistent with his personal beliefs. Given his extensive history of anti-abortion activism and his extremist legal philosophy, Honaker is clearly an inappropriate judicial candidate and his confirmation to the court would threaten the reproductive rights of women in Wyoming.

Read NAF’s statement opposing Richard Honaker’s nomination.

Today, South Africa's Parliament passed a bill to increase abortion access. The proposed law would allow for increased hours at abortion facilities, remove the requirement of mandating pre-approval to obtain abortion care, and permit nurses to provide abortion services.

The legislation will now be referred to President Thabo Mbeki to sign into law.

>Learn more about reproductive rights in South Africa.

Last week, the New Mexico House of Representatives passed a unanimous resolution commending federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies on their collaboration, investigation, and quick response in arresting two suspects in connection with arsons and vandalism at abortion and reproductive health clinics in Albuquerque in December 2007. An identical resolution has also been introduced in the state Senate.

We commend the New Mexico legislature for recognizing law enforcement's swift and successful investigation into the arsons and vandalism and apprehending and arresting the suspects. Law enforcement's response should send a clear message that violence against abortion providers and clinics will not be tolerated and that perpetrators of such crimes will be apprehended and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Today I am featured as a guest blogger on RH Reality Check. View my post on the 20th Anniversary of the R v. Morgentaler decision and our recent symposium in Canada.

>Learn more about abortion access in Canada.