Bush To Anti-Abortion Activists: "We Will Prevail"

Speaking Tuesday via telephone from Kansas, President Bush assured protesters of Roe v Wade gathered outside the Capitol in Washington, DC, that "we will prevail" in a cause that insists "that the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence apply to everyone, not just to those considered healthy or wanted or convenient."

Sunday was the 33rd anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v Wade, which made abortion legal in all 50 states, and tomorrow the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the nomination of Samuel Alito to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first female justice.

Supporters of choice gathered in the Capitol on Sunday and have urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject Alito's nomination.

States Restrict Access
In many states, access to abortion is severely limited; for example, in 2000, 98 percent of North Dakota counties had no medical provider with abortion services, including the metropolitan areas of Bismarck and Grand Forks.

The Indiana state legislature is poised to debate House Bill 1096, which would restrict access to abortion to all women unless "continuing the pregnancy would put the woman's life or physical health in danger of ''substantial permanent impairment'." At least three states have similar bills pending: Georgia, Ohio and Tennessee.

Republican Represenative Troy Woodruff, serving his first term in the Legislature, wrote House Bill 1096 knowing that it would conflict with Roe v. Wade. That was precisely his point: He wants his ban appealed to the Supreme Court, in hopes that the justices will overturn Roe and give states the power to make abortion a crime. ''On an issue that's this personal, it should be decided as local as possible," Woodruff said. ''We either want these procedures, or we don't. . . . And I don't."

And Missouri has extended parental notification for minors to abortions obtained in another state. Illinois does not require parental notification, so teens from Missouri could visit a clinic across the state line in order to get an abortion without telling parents. "But the new Missouri law that makes it possible to sue anyone who provides an abortion to a Missouri resident under age 18 without written consent of a parent has [the clinic] demanding proof of age of all prospective patients."

Where Are The Doctors?
A second-year medical student at the University of Washington writes for the Seattle PI, noting the irony about required education in contraception versus Viagra:

The majority of Americans support a woman's legal right to choose. However, most Americans are unaware that one of the greatest obstacles is simply finding a doctor. There is a shortage of providers: 87 percent of U.S. counties and 98 percent of rural counties do not have a single abortion provider. Nearly a quarter of women wanting abortions have to travel 50 miles or more for the service. The difficulty in affording, finding or receiving abortion services delays almost half the women who have abortions beyond 15 weeks gestation...

Two-thirds of all U.S. medical students spend less than 30 minutes of class time on all aspects of abortion. Ironically, infertility and Viagra receive more required class time, on average, than contraception or abortion. Clinical training also suffers exclusion. Fewer than 27 percent of U.S. Ob/Gyn residency programs require first-trimester abortion training. Further, 74 percent of all family practice chief residents receive no training in first-trimester abortion.

As a member of Medical Students for Choice, I am working to change those statistics. I believe abortion is an important public health issue and a medical service that should be taught as a standard part of medical education.

Thoughtful Commentary
One of the most thoughtful commentaries I've read on the issue was penned by Nancy Gibbs for Time:

It's not just that abortion is already unavailable in the vast majority of communities across the country, and would remain available in some states even if Roe were overturned. It's the personal changes that stand out as I talk to women of the post-Roe generation, those of us who came of age with the assumption that the abortion question was, for our purposes, settled...

Many women who once defended the right to life or the right to choose as automatic and unfreighted have matured through their own experiences and those of their friends. It is increasingly common for Democratic candidates who would once have allowed not the least ethical elasticity into their positions to embrace the careful Clinton Construct: that abortion should be safe, legal and rare. When extremists on the right suggest that liberals view abortion as not just a right but practically a sport, or extremists on the left suggest that there is nothing deeply personal at stake here, only political, they are operating outside the region where I think the rest of us have landed. We have conducted, over the course of 33 years, a long and often painful tutorial that works every moral muscle. I don't know if demonstrations ever really change people minds. But life's lessons very often do.

Gibbs articulates the ambiguity surrounding abortion in America. Time reports poll data that validates her point:

In a survey by the Pew Research Center last July, for instance, 65% of those polled said they oppose the idea of overturning Roe v. Wade, but nearly an identical percentage said they would like to see more legal restrictions. Among the most popular: mandatory waiting periods, parental- and spousal-notification requirements and a ban on all late-term abortions... [yet]

In a Pew poll last October, a majority of Americans said they supported legal abortion only in the case of rape, when the mother's life or health is endangered or when there is a strong chance of serious birth defect.

Public Financing
Some news stories suggest that Medicaid (a state-federal medical plan for people with limited income) is used widely to fund abortions. However, since 1977, federal money has been prohibited (pdf) from being used for any abortions except in the case of life endangerment, rape or incest. States must pay for abortions that meet these federal exceptions.

Seventeen states go beyond the federal requirements. The four states that fund most or all abortions for Medicaid recipients, voluntarily, are Hawaii, Maryland, New York and Washington. The 13 states that do so under court order are Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont and West Virginia.

There are about 40 million American receiving Medicaid assistance. Most are children, but 70 percent of the adults are women. "Most Medicaid beneficiaries have incomes below the poverty line ($16,090 for a family of three in 2005)."

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