Not All Politics Is Local: Connecting the Dots on Abortion Initiatives

Advocates and politicians who oppose legal abortion often claim they only want to "send the issue of abortion back to the states," and the current round of state ballot initiatives reinforces the impression that this is the case. But this position is a bait-and-switch tactic that should not be trusted.

Abortion opponents' unabashed goal is to ban abortion throughout the country. Their initiatives at the state level are just one part of that plan. In fact, two of the three measures voters will decide this Election Day are intended to provide a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and open the door for a national ban on abortion.

South Dakota's Measure 11 would ban abortion except in narrow circumstances, and Colorado's Amendment 48 would define a fertilized egg as a person, which would severely restrict access to abortion, contraception, fertility treatments, and scientific research. In contrast, California's Proposition 4 attempts to limit but not ban abortion by requiring parental notification for minors.

On the surface, these initiatives seem quite different. But while they represent different strategies--an absolutist versus an incrementalist approach--they are all linked by a common agenda: to end legal abortion across America.

California Proposition 4 is endorsed by Americans United for Life, among others. This is an organization that has worked to slowly erode women's access to abortion care with bills that limit available abortion methods after 12 to 13 weeks of pregnancy; require waiting periods, biased counseling, and ultrasound viewings prior to an abortion; create burdensome and medically unnecessary regulations for abortion clinics; assert that fetuses feel pain during an abortion; and allow health care employees to refuse to counsel, refer, or treat patients for any service to which they object.

In other words, Americans United for Life and its allies favor laws that make it exceptionally hard to get an abortion--through cost, distance, stigma, and delay--but do not explicitly ban abortion. It is largely due to such efforts that Mississippi, North Dakota, and South Dakota now have only one remaining abortion clinic each, that 87 percent of U.S. counties do not have an abortion provider, and that approximately one-third of low-income women who want an abortion find themselves forced to carry their pregnancies to term.

Proponents of Colorado Amendment 48 and South Dakota Measure 11, in contrast, hope that if one of these measures passes, it will be immediately challenged in court. Their calculation is that by the time the case reaches the Supreme Court, there will be a majority of justices willing to overturn Roe.

With the current balance on the Court, that is a somewhat risky strategy, but nevertheless a real threat. Four justices are firmly against Roe, but it is not clear if they are all willing to expressly undo the settled precedent. Four justices are firmly in support of Roe, but some of them may retire soon, and whether their successors agree or differ with them will largely depend on who the next president is.

The ninth vote--Justice Anthony Kennedy--currently represents the ideological center of the Court, and it is not easy to predict how he would rule. Based on the decision he authored in the 2007 case Gonzalez v. Carhart, it is clear that he harbors significant misgivings about abortion rights. On the other hand, he did concur in the landmark Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, a case that both sides thought would mark the end of Roe but instead strongly reaffirmed its core principles.

For these reasons, not all abortion-rights opponents are on board with the absolutist plan. Many fear it is too soon for the all-or-nothing approach. They are concerned that if the gamble does not pay off, the result will be another precedent that affirms the central holding of Roe, which might make it harder to eventually overturn.

What voters should understand is that, regardless of their various strategic determinations, the leaders behind these initiatives are all working with the common goal of undermining Roe in the short term and reversing it in the long term. They have already achieved too much of this plan and we should not allow them to go any farther.

Do not be deceived by the promise that the abortion debate will finally quiet down with Roe's demise. Rather than turning attention, for instance, to providing families with the supports they need to raise healthy children, the antiabortion movement would launch a 50-state referendum on abortion coupled with a national campaign to ban it in the U.S. Constitution or with federal legislation.

The leaders of the movement to outlaw abortion are fully dedicated to the idea that the right to life--or, more accurately, the right to birth--is a fundamental right that should be the law of the land, not just the law in some of the land.

Passing one state initiative will most certainly pave the way for other rollbacks in the states and eventually nationwide. Unless voters in South Dakota, Colorado, and California defeat these measures this Election Day, an abortion ban may be coming soon to a place near you.

Jessica Arons is the Director of the Women's Health & Rights Program at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Comments

[EvanRavitz]

Democracy is messy. As W said: "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator,"

Ballot initiatives can be annoying, and sometimes threatenin­g.. But they are educational because: they empower people and thus give them an incentive to educate themselves and discuss things. As long as others ("representatives') make all decisions, we are like kids, not responsible for the world we live in.

I used to be a bit homophobic, but didn't know why, since when I was raised in the '50s and '60s I never knew a single person I knew was gay.

In 1992, Colorado voters passed Amendment 2, which prohibited Gay Rights laws like Boulder, Denver and Aspen had. (All courts ruled it unconstitu­tional.) This made gay rights a huge topic here. Because of that I remembered why I avoided gay people. The first gays I met had picked me up hitch-hiking at 18 around San Francisco and had their hands all over me! Now I remembered where I got my prejudice, and overcame it easily, as I knew lots of kind gays here.

Let's not forget how "our" representatives are doing! Do torture, perpetual war and debt, the bailout, warrantless spying, the Drug War, ad nauseum, represent you or the majority? Hardly. Do they respect minorities? No way!

Checks and balances are good. So most people want direct AND representative democracy. Except politicians, the people who buy them, and the lobbyists between.

[rjmiller]

The "state's rights" argument is a sham. It has been used for over a hundred years by people trying to limit civil rights, and its continued misuse is a blemish on our countries political landscape.

Also, there is no way to logically support the idea that a single-celled embryo is a protected life. Amoebas are single-celled organisms also, but they have no rights. The "potential for life" argument doesn't hold up either because it is conditional. A single-cell embryo has the potential to grow into a person under the conditions that it is allowed to grow and be born. By the same token, my single-cell sperm has the potential to grow into a person under the conditions that it is able to fertilize an egg, grow and be born. Does that mean my sperm should be protected by law? Of course not.

You could make the argument that once a fetus has reached viability for life outside the mother that it should be protected, but certainly not at the single cell stage.

[Badbone]

Your sperm is not a single cell. But that aside, it's a specious argument. Viability is a subjective condition. You or I wouldn't be viable, if dropped naked into the desert with no supplies. Does that mean we shouldn't be protected?

[Querent]

Republicans believe everyone should take care of themselves. If you are dropped into the desert, naked or not, with no supplies, don't look to them from protection.

[sdskelton03]

I hope the abortion rights opponents prevail.

We all know what goes on during an abortion, and as a society we should no more allow those actions to be done to an unborn fetus than to one that has been born.

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

Yeah, it's too bad people like you STOP caring about the "fetus" after it's born. After it squeezes out of the vagina, it's on its own.

[mpgarr]

Well- for the "anti-abortion forces"-----the goal is not to just get rid of abortion---but to stop access to effective contraceptives of all types as well----may it come to pass that Barak does win the presidency and that the Dems also gain more seats in the US House and a filibuster proof majority in the US Senate----then over the course of a Barak Obama presidency------he gets to replace not only the "liberal" members of the SCOTUS---but some of the "conservative" ones as well----al­so-----the­y make many appointments to the federal appeallate courts as well-----we need to put the issue of reproductive rights at rest---to such a degree that they are safe and unassailable by those atavistic forces that would seek to bring us back to the dark ages on this issue------I hope this is the way the situation on this issue plays out.

[mercury613]

Oh, I think it goes even beyond trying to stop access to contraceptives; I think they want to prevent people from just plain enjoying sex.

[JohnnyCanuck21]

People need to keep their politics/religion out of other peoples bodies. These decisions are difficult enough without the state getting in the way. No one WANTS abortions - but decision making over a woman's body must be left to the woman.

[sdskelton03]

Why does no one "want" abortion?

What is the problem with it?

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

Oh there it is! Your narrow mind.

[GoldStarMom]

Colorado Amendment 48 is the one that bothers me the most. A fertilized egg is NOT a human being, it's a POTENTIAL human being. After the 22nd week of gestation - 51/2 months - a fetus MAY be viable, sometimes and with heroic lifesaving efforts. However, prior to that there is NO chance of the fetus surviving on it's own outside the mother's body.

If a fertilized egg is deemed a "human" with all the associated rights, then ALL abortion would become illegal. Also, some forms of birth control work by preventing an egg from implanting in a woman's uterus. If this passes, then those forms of birth control will become illegal. How long after that will it be before all forms of birth control, invetro fertilization, and stem cell research are banned?

The other propositions are also intrusive. While I myself don't think I'd have ever had an abortion, except in extreme cases, such as rape - I'm now past the age I would have to even consider it - I still don't believe that I have the right to tell another woman what's right for her. That's between her & her religious beliefs, if any.

Banning 3rd trimester abortions, except when the mother's life is endangered, is the only instance I'd find acceptable to legally prohibit abortion.

[Badbone]

How long would a *newborn* baby survive outside the mother's body? It would starve to death in a matter of days. I'm not sure the survivability test is all that telling.