Where The Abortions Are

Earlier I wanted to see where abortions are legal and illegal in the world, so I Googled up the following map:

Worldabortionmap

What do these colors mean?

Key:
Green Abortion never legal, or legal only when necessary to save the life of the mother or protect her physical health
Yellow Abortion legal in "hard cases", such as rape, incest, and/or deformed child.
Red    Abortion legal for social reasons (e.g. mother says she can’t afford a child), or to protect the mother’s "mental health" (definitions and requirements vary).
Purple Abortion legal at any time during pregnancy for any reason.

As you can see, some place in the world are really hurting, while others are suprisingly pro-life.

Much more info

AT THE SOURCE.

 

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

59 thoughts on “Where The Abortions Are”

  1. Russia and Saudi Arabia are both red?
    I figured Saudi Arabia would be green and Russia would be purple.

  2. Notice that Ireland is green.
    Also, a good chunk of the Islamic Nations are as well.
    Almost all of “Christendom” allows abortion on demand except Poland and Ireland……How sad.

  4. Dr. Eric,
    Almost all of “Christendom” allows abortion on demand except Poland and Ireland……How sad.
    Look over at Latin America…many of those countries, historically Catholic nations, are green.

  9. An abortion advocacy site claims:

    The 1977 New Zealand law allowed abortion only under very particular conditions: rape, extreme stress for the woman or danger to the woman’s life. The restrictions imposed by this statute were somewhat relaxed in 1978. The law is so strictly interpreted that only a few centres offer abortion services.

    A pro-life site claims:

    Abortion is legal, when performed by a doctor, if:
    * your life, or mental or physical health is in serious danger from carrying on the pregnancy
    * there is a great risk that the baby would be severely physically or mentally handicapped
    * your pregnancy is the result of incest
    * you are under the legal care or protection of the man who fathered your child
    *you are severely mentally handicapped
    Your age, or whether the pregnancy is the result of rape, can also be considered if your life, or mental or physical health is in serious danger from continuing the pregnancy.
    This overview was taken froma New Zealand Department of Health fact-sheet on abortion.

  10. The *only* reason Ireland is green is because they amended their constitution back in the ’70s to ban abortion. This was actually a sign of the increasing weakness in the Church: previously, no one would have even thought of proposing the legalization of abortion in Ireland.
    The ban sadly doesn’t matter: pregnant Irish women who want to abort just pop over to England. Ireland, the land of saints and scholars, has one of the highest effective abortion rates per capita in Europe.

  11. I was wrong, the definition of Chrirstendom is all of the Christian peoples not just those in Historically Christian Europe. I meant European Kingdoms and Empires as they were before the modern age.

  12. Australia’s laws are on a state by state basis with “ordinary” abortions generally available but controversy remains especially about late-term abortions.
    In Victoria and New South Wales abortion is in fact illegal except a doctor may mount a defence against any charge of abortion if he believes that it was in the best interests of the mother – primarily for psychological reasons. What that means of course is abortion for any reason.
    And to top it off we the taxpayers pay for it.

  15. Israel and the US have the highest total legal abortion rates, ranging form 1 abortion to more than 5 abortions per woman of childbearing age during the reproductive years. How sad.

  18. Plan B pills now available by prescription will make it impossible to determine abortion rates in the near future. At least, these pills should put abortionists out of business. Put “Plan B pills” in Google and see how Plan B availability has spread.
    I believe 1.6 million Plan B prescriptions were given last year in the USA alone. To say the least sexual activity is out of control.
    There are pills to increase libido, prevent pregancies and to kill babies. Since this is all about biology, there should be no reason that an anti-libido pill could not be developed. Eliminate the desire, eliminate the problem!!
    Since the pharmaceutical companies are not about to do this, the major religions should join forces and do it. I apologize for being blunt, but considering the number of over-sexed, celibate clergy we have (as do others), these pills would also solve another problem.

  19. Jimmy,
    Great site with great topics!!
    I should have added to my previous post that the Plan B pills will soon make the “abortion” globe completely purple if it hasn’t already.

  20. Regarding the map key, it has always been my understanding that Red and Purple are the same. (their descriptions–not the actual colors themselves).
    🙂
    I think Roe v. Wade says something like “no abortions except in cases of … health of the mother”. It’s just that health has come to mean anything at all. If you include psychological health, then the fact that she wants the abortion means that not giving her one puts her psychological health in danger.
    Anyway, I didn’t have time to look up the actual text of Roe but I remember learning that.
    P.S. Realist: did you know that the “Pill” does reduce libido? Funny…
    But I don’t think the answer to the problem is to further deform our bodies. We need to gain more self-control (for starters).

  21. ~45mil abortions per year in the world.
    1.3mil from the US. Roughly similar in Europe from what I remember reading somewhere once (however accurate that statement was.)
    I was looking for a %/country type of map and found this
    Ashton Vas: Don’t you hate it when that happens. Especially more than once?

  24. Two comments.
    First, the map is wrong. It claims that in the US abortion is “legal at any time during pregnancy for any reason.”
    That is not the law.
    That arguably wasn’t the law after Roe v. Wade and it certainly isn’t the law after Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
    For example, in just about every state the law prohibits a pregnant woman from waddling into a clinic for an abortion, on a whim, in the middle of her third trimester. The current standard is that the government may not impose an “undue burden” on the right to abortion, a determination that turns in large part on the point of fetal viability.
    Second, the map tells us nothing about the effect, if any, of legal abortion restrictions on actual abortion rates. A previous poster has asserted that the actual abortion rate in Ireland is quite high because women travel out of the country for the procedure. I don’t know if that’s true, but it is consistent with my understanding of the high actual abortion rates in certain South American countries with very restrictive abortion laws on the books. I understand that Belgium, on the other hand, has liberal abortion laws but a low actual abortion rate.
    All of this raises interesting questions, especially for those Catholics who support Republican political candidates–and those Church leaders who implicitly urge their flock to do so–in the hope that this will eventually lead to the re-criminalization of abortion.
    Would you prefer to have liberal abortion laws and very few abortions, or restrictive abortion laws and a higher (actual) abortion rate? Is it really intellectually honest to say that all Catholic moral issues can’t be given equal weight if there is evidence that, in fact, what drives abortion rates is not whether it is legal but economic and social factors, such as the strength of the social safety net for women and families?

  25. Snowball – I think you raise a good point. You can change laws overnight, but changing a culture, and people’s hearts and minds, takes much longer. Even if abortion were banned across the board tomorrow, I doubt the abortion rate would go down in the US. They would just go underground.
    The problem isn’t the law. The law is a symptom of a society that despises children and families.

  27. snowball, never mind what the courts said about “undue burdens” in the abstract.
    What burdens have they said, in the concrete, are not undue? What restriction are there in actual place?

  28. And the law can affect abortion rates. The abortion rate among teenaged girls in Minnesota went down substantially when their parental consent law was in place — and we can tell that it was the abortion rate, not substituting illegal for legal abortions, because the birth rate also declined. The teenagers were, in fact, not getting pregnant.

  29. Also, there is no such thing as the choice “liberal abortion laws and very few abortions, or restrictive abortion laws and a higher (actual) abortion rate.”
    Liberal laws do not guarantee lower abortion rates and restrictive laws do not lead to more abortions. To indulge in such reasoning would be to infer universal truths from anecdotal evidence.
    The fact of the matter is that if it were illegal on planet Earth to get an abortion, then the rate would in fact drop dramatically.
    You are right in saying this battle takes place in political as well as personally spiritual spheres. But wrong in saying involvement in one sphere necessarily precludes any sort of involvement in the other. Your reasoning lacks a universal perspective. We should all be involved to our utmost in all spheres which this issue touches because it is an abominable holocaust that future generations will scold us for supporting.
    So sometimes because this is not a perfect world we have to make compromises to fight the most important battle and stop the thousands of needless deaths that occur in America each day.
    We don’t like these compromises and sometimes these compromises like to thumb their noses at us by nominating their secretary for the Supreme Court.
    That’s when we raise a big holy stink and let these stupid compromises know exactly why we voted for them despite the fact we really don’t like them at all and how they better get their stupid act together or we will leave them without any support whatsoever in the face of numerous other political and economic scandals.
    I hope was able to have a real-world impact here. Sometimes I worry that I might be so too hypothetical and people will not understand what I am talking about.

  30. Steve, according to the map of abortion rates Ireland still has a lower abortion rate than much of Europe. Of course, according to the English abortion clinics Ireland has a huge abortion rate…but I’m uncertain whether those figures are trustworthy.
    Ireland still has a certainly pro-life majority…I was at a pro-life street session in Galway and we got an overwhelmingly positive response, especially from most of the teen girls who saw our booth.

  32. This is the actual text of Roe v Wade:
    “(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman’s attending physician.
    (b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.
    (c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life [410 U.S. 113, 165] may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.”
    Roe v Wade, 410 U.S. 113, at pp 164-165.
    In 1992, in Planned Parenthood v Casey, the court rejected the strict trimester standard, but otherwise endorsed Roe v Wade:
    “We conclude the line should be drawn at viability, so that, before that time, the woman has a right to choose to terminate her pregnancy.” (Planned Parenthood v Casey, 505 U.S. 833, at page 870.)
    So technically. at least in principle it is possible for states to enact laws that go so far as to proscribe abortion after viability — but not in practice — because the exception for the life and health of the mother accomodates both emotional and mental health (There is a classic quote from Justice Blackmun on that issue — but I can’t locate it — and in Eastern Time it’s getting late). So the map is acurate.
    As to snowball’s argument that making abortion illegal would not cut down on the number of abortions — and that countries where abortion is illegal have high rates of abortion — I would want to see some real statistics on that. I don’t buy it.

  33. Trish – the map shows the Philippines as green. It’s true, abortion is illegal there, but underground abortion is very frequent, and women are received at hospitals to be treated for complications resulting from underground abortion. For anecdotal evidence, practically any Filipino knows someone who’s had an abortion. For statistical evidence, googling may help.
    The colors may mean little beyond legalese, and Jimmy’s title for the post is perhap a bit inaccurate (“Where abortions are legal” may be more accurate)
    Murder is illegal in the US (I believe), but it doesn’t follow that murder is unknown there.

  34. I’m not suggesting that abortion will go away if it is made illegal, but I do believe that making it illegal will have a significant impact on the numbers.
    Admittedly, illegal abortions will continue — there were illegal abortions before Roe. But, Francis, imagine what the murder rate would be if murder were legal — there is some deterent effect in the law — Thank God.

  35. Liberal laws do not guarantee lower abortion rates and restrictive laws do not lead to more abortions.
    StubbleSspark: I didn’t intend to suggest that there was such a cause-and-effect-relationship. I intended to suggest something completely different–that there may be a lot more to reducing abortions than simply supporting recriminalization.
    Perhaps, as Tope commented, the problem is not the law. I’m not trying to settle the question now and for all time. But it frustrates me that the question gets so little attention by so many who fixate on overturning Roe and re-criminalizing abortion. I should note, by the way, that Feminists for Life–the group in which Chief Justice Roberts’s wife has been active–appears to understand that the issue is more complicated.
    Mary:
    As for whether anything has every been held to be an “undue burden,” the Supreme Court’s Casey decision itself affirmed several restrictions on abortion under that standard.
    The Court allowed Pennsylvania to impose the following restrictions: (1) an “informed consent” law requiring abortion providers to give women information about the risks of abortion and about abortion alternatives; and (2) a 24 hour waiting period between the time that information is given and the abortion is performed. The Court struck down only one portion of the Pennsylvania law: the requirement that a pregnant woman must notify her husband before having an abortion.
    Trish:
    You’re mixing apples and oranges. You’re referring to the pre-Casey idea that the exception for the “health” of the mother includes anything and everything. But the Court in Casey rejected that idea. In fact, the Pennsylvania statue at issue in that case prohibted post-viability abortions except when necessary to prevent the mother’s death or “serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.” That’s more than an occasional headache and varicose veins.

  37. Sorry, snowball, you said,
    in just about every state the law prohibits a pregnant woman from waddling into a clinic for an abortion, on a whim, in the middle of her third trimester.
    but those two restrictions you cite do not prevent a third trimester abortion on a whim — a desire that can be preserved for twenty-four hours is not, therefore, not a whim.

  38. Mary:
    Pennsylvania prohibits later-term abortions outright unless there is serious risk to the life or health of the mother. So, in fact, a women in her third trimester could *not* get an abortion on a whim. The informed consent and 24-hour waiting period restrictions I discussed applied to early-term abortions, which were not prohibited outright.
    More importantly, I think you missed my point. The map Jimmy A. posted states that abortion is unrestricted in the US for any reason at any time during pregnancy. That’s simply wrong. Under current law, states may prohibit late term abortions (unless the life or health of the mother is threatened), and may place significant restrictions on access to earlier-term abortions so long as those restrictions do not place an undue burden on the right to abortion.
    What you–and many others–seem to forget is that Planned Parenthood lost Casey. They fought all the restrictions imposed by Pennsylvania. The Supreme Court approved all of them save one (which the lower court had already struck down, so Planned Parenthood did not appeal that part of the decision, Pennsylvania did). I just wanted to correct a puzzling and recurring misstatement about the liberality of abortion laws in the US.

  39. David’s probably right about Germany being tougher on abortion than the U.S. I don’t think it should be purple, like the U.S., based on what I have learned. This kind of stuff comes up in conversation every once in a while over here.
    In any case, here’s a wiki link where the authors try to figure out what to do with Germany:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abortion_law#Abortion_law_in_US_and_Germany
    How in the world do I make a clickable link in Typepad? I think I’ve tried everything.

  42. The Pennsylvania law challenged by Planned Parenthood in Casey did NOT prohibit late term abortions outright — but only exempted them from notification, and consent requirements in the case of medical emergency.
    Here is some of the text from Planned Parenthood v Casey:
    “Finally, petitioners challenge the medical emergency exception provided for by the Act. The existence of a medical emergency exempts compliance with the Act’s informed consent, parental consent, and spousal notice requirements. See 18 Pa. Cons.Stat. 3205(a), 3206(a), 3209(c) (1990).”
    And, the Court’s opinion:
    “When a woman is faced with any condition that poses a “significant threat to [her] life or health,” she is exempted from the Act’s consent and notice requirements, and may proceed immediately with her abortion.”
    (Both exerpts are from Planned Parenthood v Casey, 505 U.S. 833, at pages 977 and 979).
    Further, the fact that a few of Pennsylvania’s restrictions may have passed Constitutional muster — and therefore technically Planned Parenthood may have lost the appeal on those grounds — doesn’t address the incredible damage done by the court’s analysis of stare decisis and it reiteration of the principal holdings in Roe.

  43. Pennsylvania prohibits later-term abortions outright unless there is serious risk to the life or health of the mother
    And since health must mean anything that affects the mother’s life — it’s abortion on demand.

  44. Although some third world countries may prohibit abortions in most cases, the reality is that the law is rarely enforced and abortions on demand occur quite openly despite the laws on the books.
    ON Tuesday, vote Yes on Prop. 73.

  45. “Trish – the map shows the Philippines as green. It’s true, abortion is illegal there, but underground abortion is very frequent, and women are received at hospitals to be treated for complications resulting from underground abortion.”
    Not as frequent as it would be if abortion were legal. Oh, and abortionists face a lot of jail time when caught. And they are indeed caught. Even a fetus found in a trash can can spark an investigation. (I actually read some news reports on this.) Of course, like in most cases, enforcement of the law is correlated to the amount of zeal in the official.

  46. Trish:
    The “health” exception under Pennsylvania law permitted later term abortions where there was a risk of death or “serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
    That is not abortion on demand. Do you have any citation to a case or other authority suggesting that this exception is meaningless in Pennsylvania?

  47. Snowball:
    I agree with your point that there is way more than the “laws” that have to change in regards to abortion. We also (like a previous poster said) have to change minds, hearts and an entire culture that finds it more convenient to kill life it deems “unworthy” or “burdensome” to live. However, changing the law is a STEP and can be a huge one at that to begin the process of changing how Americans view the issue of abortion.
    Also, just wanted to point out that what the law says and what actually happens are two COMPLETELY different things. For instance, when abortions were illegal, there were plenty of wome who were obtaining them. Just as Planned Parenthood v. Casey has outlined all these restrictions you typed up, it does NOT mean that those go into effect. Have you ever been in an abortion clinic where they TRULY practice “informed consent”? That would mean spending quite a bit of time with each woman, ensuring she knows the risks involved (including physical, mental AND emotional). Do you really think these workers are going over signs of Post-Abortion Syndrome with these women? Or informing them of their future increased risk of breast cancer? Not very likely.
    When I had a c-section with my son, the nurse ran through possible risks before I got my epidural. Of course, I didn’t have a choice as I needed something for surgery. But she covered them all in under 1-2 minutes…kind of like an auctioneer. THAT is probably what happens in abortion clinics. Then, they can sign their sheet saying the patient has been “informed”, but there is a ton more that goes into true “informed consent”.
    I do agree with the points you make, I just think it is NOT what is actually happening. In practice, a woman can go into a Planned Parenthood at 7 months pregnant (knowing she will not be getting too many questions about why she wants the abortion nor will she get counseling on other options or educated on what is already happening developmentally with her child), and fill out the paperwork to obtain an abortion. I really can’t see doctors taking the time to go through each patient in that scenario to determine viability, especially if it is what the woman asks for and she’s willing to pay.
    Sorry, lengthier than I intended…

  48. Shannon:
    I agree with you that abortion laws may be circumvented, just as they often were before Roe. I simply wanted to correct the misrepresentation of the current state of abortion law in the US provided by Jimmy A.’s map and echoed by several comments on this thread. We should at least be clear about how permissive abortions laws in this country are (or are not) before comparing the US to other countries.
    I can’t refute your comments on the actual workings of abortion providers, because I’ve never gone to an abortion clinic (and have no wish to do so). However, you haven’t persuaded me with your hypothetical about a woman in the 7 month of her pregnancy. As I understand it, a late-term abortion is a serious and risky procedure that requires real surgical expertise. I doubt that Planned Parenthood–even with its ideological leanings–would be so cavalier in light of the potential malpractice liability from such procedures.
    Finally, I’ll leave you with the example of Portugal –a country with very strict abortion laws. But those laws are routinely circumvented and the government’s attempts to enforce them are very unpopular.
    Again, I ask why pro-lifers make a fetish of Roe v. Wade? Is it better to re-criminalize abortion if (1) the laws will be ignored, or (2) they will be unpopular? Why not search for ways to reduce abortion rates that depend on changing not just “hearts and minds” but social and economic conditions that may encourage women to end their pregnancies. Do you think it is merely happenstance that there was a substantial decrease in the abortion rate in this country during the 1990s–a decade of general economic prosperity, reduced poverty, and government-mandated family and medical leave policies? And do you think it mattered that the President during the bulk of that decade was not in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade?

  49. snowball wrote

    Again, I ask why pro-lifers make a fetish of Roe v. Wade? Is it better to re-criminalize abortion if (1) the laws will be ignored, or (2) they will be unpopular? Why not search for ways to reduce abortion rates that depend on changing not just “hearts and minds” but social and economic conditions that may encourage women to end their pregnancies. [sic]

    As Trish pointed out, why not de-criminalize murder? Judging by the murder rates in this country, plenty of people ignore the laws against murder that are present now, and those laws are obviously unpopular with a certain segment of the population….
    The problem with your argument is that you’re putting the cart before the horse. It’s true that certain conditions may predispose or influence people to make poor moral choices, such as the case that incidences of theft may rise during bad economic times. However, even during an economic depression many people still won’t steal, even the very poor. That’s because they’ve been properly disposed morally so that theft is abhorrent to them (conversely, even the very rich have been known to steal). A well-disposed people won’t steal under even the most trying of circumstances, and it is thus with any issue, including abortion.
    Placing the emphasis on social and economic issues in reducing abortions is like dressing a broken window. History tells us that good economic times and just social orders come and go. It’s easy to make proper decisions when times are good; the true test is to do so when times are tough. We must dispose our society to make the proper decisions at all times, and one way to do this is to state as a society, through our legal system, that abortion is unacceptable.

  50. As has been ably pointed out, where abortions are legal, sort of legal, or rarely legal hardly tells the whole story of where the abortions are.
    While Russia is shown in red, and therefore presumably “better” (or at least less debauched) than the purple US or Canada, this Times Online article points out:
    Little does she know it as she lies next to her mother, Masha, in a Moscow maternity ward, but Lisa is on the front line of a national fight for survival. By Russian standards, she is lucky to have made it even this far: last year, there were 1.6 million registered abortions in Russia and 1.5 million births.
    Abortion, which should opposed of course by all means possible, is definitively a heart and mind problem, all the more so should the day come (please God) that Roe is overturned. For if we live in a land where, as this Washington Post article suggests, 80-90% of children with Downs Syndrome meet the scalpel prior to birth, what power has positive law to change it? Change positive law we must, or at least to try. But we must also recognize that this iceberg extends far below the visible surface, a frozen monolith of the human heart which can only be changed by the warmth of God’s Spirit operating in and through a called apart people living the Gospel of Life.
    Cheers!

  51. From third world country, with restrictive abortion law: Chile. We have no back alley abortion problem. I should know, since I’m a prosecution attorney.
    We have abortions yes, but it is a very rare crime and certainly not a significative source of woman deaths. Every time a fetus is found in a dumpster (1 or 2 times a year), it is big news, so uncommon it is, and I don’t remember any recent news story about woman found dead for abortions.
    Most unwanted pregnancies in Chile are among the poor, but there are many foundations working to help the mother and her child.
    My point is Chile’s experience with a restrictive abortion law demonstrate that poverty and back alley abortions are just excuses, to keep abortion legal.

  52. Thank you Patricio for the interjecting real experience from a country with laws that restrict abortion.
    You are absolutely right — abortion advocates have long exaggerated the numbers of women who would seek and suffer from the effects of “back-alley” abortions if abortion were made illegal again — ignoring those women who have suffered illness and death as a result of legal abortions. We should not allow ourselves to be fooled by those arguments.
    We need to do everything we can to reduce the number of abortions – that includes changing the law, educating the public about abortion (through groups like “Silent No More” women are doing just that), providing emotional and material support to women who might otherwise consider abortion (so that they feel that they have an alternative), and prayer, prayer, and more prayer. The fact that there will always be some abortions should not discourage us from doing these things.

  55. That’s simply wrong. Under current law, states may prohibit late term abortions (unless the life or health of the mother is threatened), and may place significant restrictions on access to earlier-term abortions so long as those restrictions do not place an undue burden on the right to abortion.
    If the only reasons are life/health of the mother, and significant restrictions are allowed for early term, how is it we end up with 1.3 million abortions a year? With all our prenatal programs and high-tech obstetrics, how can it be that one in four pregnancies need to be aborted for health reasons? That is absurd.
    How many prosecutions and convictions have there been for “violation” of any of these “restrictions”?

  56. That’s simply wrong. Under current law, states may prohibit late term abortions (unless the life or health of the mother is threatened), and may place significant restrictions on access to earlier-term abortions so long as those restrictions do not place an undue burden on the right to abortion.
    If the only reasons are life/health of the mother, and significant restrictions are allowed for early term, how is it we end up with 1.3 million abortions a year? With all our prenatal programs and high-tech obstetrics, how can it be that one in four pregnancies need to be aborted for health reasons? That is absurd.
    How many prosecutions and convictions have there been for “violation” of any of these “restrictions”?

  57. That’s simply wrong. Under current law, states may prohibit late term abortions (unless the life or health of the mother is threatened), and may place significant restrictions on access to earlier-term abortions so long as those restrictions do not place an undue burden on the right to abortion.
    If the only reasons are life/health of the mother, and significant restrictions are allowed for early term, how is it we end up with 1.3 million abortions a year? With all our prenatal programs and high-tech obstetrics, how can it be that one in four pregnancies need to be aborted for health reasons? That is absurd.
    How many prosecutions and convictions have there been for “violation” of any of these “restrictions”?

  58. For anyone who still thinks that current US law (after Casey) demands unrestricted abortion on demand at any time during pregnancy, please take a look at this discussion at Amy Wellborn’s site.

  59. Snowball,
    Here’s Constiutional Law prof Mary Ann Glendon:
    “Moreover, when Roe is read with Doe, third-trimester restrictions are effectively ruled out as well—for Roe’s dictum that such restrictions might be permissible if they did not interfere with the mother’s health was negated by Doe’s definition of “health” as “well-being.””
    I wouldn’t be surprised if the Mississippi laws trigger a revisitation of Roe, but considering I can’t even figure out what they are I can’t say for sure. Didn’t they just protest and regulate (with health regulations, and not restrictions proper) the abortion industry out of the state?

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