Abortion opponents focusing legislative efforts on the fetus

NPR explores a recent flurry of state legislative efforts to restrict abortions and the new strategy by groups opposed to the procedure. "More than a dozen states passed new laws aimed at limiting abortion this year. Elizabeth Nash is a public policy associate for the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights group that tracks state laws. She says that those who oppose abortion want to reframe the debate. 'What we're seeing now is more of an effort to take the woman out of the considerations of the law and really focus on the fetus,' Nash says." Among the new requirements are that women have ultrasounds before undergoing an abortion or that doctors describe the fetus to the mother (Lohr, 7/1).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.