Here in my state of Texas, there is appropriate pro-life satisfaction as we hear of a 60% reduction in abortions since last year's passage of the heartbeat law, which curtails the procedure once fetal cardiac activity is detected.
This was precisely the plan. With the window for terminating pregnancies narrowed to roughly six weeks, the measure has the effect of limiting abortion availability while stopping short of an outright ban that would run counter to the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court precedent.
The probable extinction of Roe later this Supreme Court term has energized some states to expand protections for the unborn. But as we wait for the Court to hand down a decisive ruling, those states should not kid themselves. Two things are sure to happen in any state that constrains abortion—fewer abortions within that state, and more women gassing up the car and heading to clinics in a neighboring state.
The monthly abortion total in Texas dropped from about 5,400 last August to about 2,200 last September. Does anyone believe that 3,200 women simply decided to choose life? Nothing would please me more, but evidence points to another outcome: Abortion providers in various nearby states are seeing an influx of Texas visitors.
Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri all report a surge in Texas abortion clients, as women unable to exercise that option at home simply pursue it in more lenient environments. A Guttmacher Institute study found some Texas women seeking abortion clinics in 12 states that do not even border Texas. Many women in the Lone Star State may well have chosen adoption, or to raise their babies after all, but no one should underestimate the energies at least some women will expend to pursue a goal of abortion. READ MORE...
Thousands of people marched though Madrid on Sunday to protest against abortion, as Spain's leftist government prepares a law to guarantee access to the procedure at public hospitals.
Carrying signs that read "Abortion is not right" and chanting "More respect for life", demonstrators walked through the centre of the Spanish capital to Cibeles square in central Madrid where a manifesto was read aloud.
"There are other alternatives. After an abortion there is always trauma but that is not talked about," said Yolanda Torosio, a 44-year-old secretary who attended the protest with her daughter.
The protest was organised by the "Yes to Life" platform which estimated that some 20,000 people took part. The central government's representative in Madrid put the number of marchers at about 9,000.
The crowd included parents pushing strollers, retired couples and groups of youths, some carrying Spanish flags.
While Spain decriminalised abortion in 1985, women in the predominantly Catholic country still face obstacles when choosing to terminate a pregnancy since many doctors refuse to care out the procedure.
According to the OMC Spanish doctors' association, "most" obstetrician-gynaecologists who work in the public sector consider themselves "conscientious objectors" and refuse to carry out abortions.
As a result women in some regions must travel hundreds of kilometres for an abortion because there is no private clinic nearby and the local hospital will not perform them.
Socialist Prime Pedro Sanchez's government is preparing a law to ensure that all public hospitals perform abortions, and wants to ban protests outside of abortion clinics as "harassment".
IT also wants to modify the law so minors of 16 and 17 can terminate a pregnancy without their parents' consent, as is the case in Britain and France.
Polls show a majority of Spaniards are in favour of keeping the country's existing abortion laws, which allow the procedure on demand in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.
