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New Abortion Laws What’s Going On? know more about them. If a state chooses to require that a woman seeking an abortion give informed consent, she will be shown graphic pic tures of fetuses, dramatizations of ac tual abortions and re quired to wait 24-72 hours before having the procedure. Pro-choicers ar gue that the dramati zations use fetuses, older than 24 weeks. * Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproduc tive Health - (Paren tal Consent) A state may require minors to Non-white abortions are double the number of white abortions. White Non-white PO o bo b min Under 20 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40/older Source: The Alan Guttmacher Institute Abortion percentage by age. by Tayari A. Jones It is now 16 years Roe v. Wade, the historic decision which legalized a woman’s right to have an abortion. This ruling was based upon the right of privacy founded in the Constitution. This right of privacy protects the woman from interference by the law if she chooses to have an abortion during the early portion of her pregnancy. However, the court decided that the state could regulate decisions concerning the pregnancy, after the fetus had developed enough to survive outside the woman’s body. That was in 1973. In 1989, the U.S. Su preme Court made a landmark decision which drove a crack into the very foundation of Roe. On April 26, Missouri Attorney General Wil liam L. Webster went before the Supreme Court to argue the constitutionality of a cer tain Missouri law. This law declares that “human life begins at conception”, requires that fetuses over 20 weeks old be tested for “viability”, prohibits abortions in public fa cilities; and bars public employees from “en couraging” a woman to have an abortion. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court has deemed this law to be constitutional, it has not overturned Roe. Instead, it has decided to allow each state to make its own abortion laws. This decision has major implications. Legally, the court's decision simply upheld Missouri statutes and therefore, that state will follow the aforementioned rules. With the Webster decision, the court cut back on a right it had granted. How this decision affects each individ ual depends largely upon the state residence. Some proposed laws and their possible impli cations. * Webster v. Reproductive Services - (Fetal VialbilityTesting) If a fetus is viable, it is able to live outside of its mother’s body. A state may choose to require a doctor to per form a viablity test before performing the abortion. If the fetus is found to be viable, the doctor is prohibited from perfoming the abor tion. The test for viablity increases the aver age price of an abortion from $220 to $750 depending on the type of test. Pro-choice advocates argue that this is an anti-abortionist ploy to make abortions hard to get. They say this because most doctors agree that a fetus is not viable before 24 weeks, and 99% of women have abortions before the 21 st week. Anti-abortionists argue that this law insures that viable babies are not aborted. * Webster Decision - (Tough Limits on Public Funding) With the Webster decision, states have the right to limit public funding for abortions which will ultimately send women who can afford it to private doctors. * Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists - (Informed Consent) Anti-abortionists support the theory that fewer women will have abortions if they have their parents’ con sent before receiving an abortion. Pro-choice advocates feel that this deci sion would force young women to turn to “back alley” methods of enduring a preg nancy rather than telling their parents. Anti abortionists feel that this law would discour age those who are not absolutely sure about their abortion decision. * Turnock v. Ragsdale - If passed, it will require private abortion clinics to meet stan dards similiar to those mandated for operating rooms in hospitals. Pro-choice advocates question this because abortions only require local anesthetic and a small amount of equip ment. Anti-abortionists say they are helping women to protect themselves from unsafe and unsanitary health conditions. These are examples of the turmoil caused when the Supreme Court cuts back on a right it has granted. One cannot wonder what will be next. African-American Women to Suffer from New Laws Number of abortions in our community complicates issues. by Jocelyn R. Coleman The abortion cases before the U.S. Su preme Court now could bring about many re strictive laws that would make legal abortions almost unobtainable and very expensive. It is predicted that African-American women would be the hardest hit along with the poor, teenagers and otherwise disadvantaged. Non-white women have more than twice the number of abortions attributed to white women. African-American women have the highest rate of pregnancy in the Western world and make up a disproportionate num ber of the poor women in America. If Roe v. Wade is curtailed, the only legal and govern ment-funded reproductive service left will be complete sterilization. These issues make the abortion debate more complicated for Afri can-American women. On September 13, 1989, a coalition of African-American women spoke to congress about abortion and implemented a campaign to inform others about their reproductive rights. Supporters included: Jewell Jackson- McCabe, president of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women; Mayor Carrie Saxon Perry of Hartford, Connecticut; Faye Wattle- ton President of Planned Parenthood; former Congresswoman Shirley Chisolm; and Pat Tyson of the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights. Byllye Avery, president of the National Black Women’s Health Project (NBWHP), another supporter, stated that “historically, our bodies have been used as a battleground for the United States to fight its racist, sexist and classist war. ...As slaves we were forced to breed for slave masters; in our more recent history, we’ve been subjected to unnecessary hysterectomies and sterilizations without our permission. Many of us on low incomes have already loss our right to decide whether or not to have an abortion. Our country has confused its priorities and African-American women must speak out.” The Webster decision has brought the is sue of viability into the forefront. The debate concerns whether a fetus can live and survive at 20 weeks. Even though medical and scien tific experts say that the earliest fetal survival age is 24 weeks, the Court backed a 1986 Mis souri law that requires expensive viability testing on 20 week-old fetuses. As far as the advanced technology needed to support fe tuses under 24 weeks, Dr. K.N. Siva Subrama- nian, director of the division of neonatology at Georgetown University Medical Center was quoted as saying that it “is not even in sight at this point.” The ultrasonography raises the price of an abortion about $250. Amniocentesis, an other testing procedure, costs sbout $450 more. Since some doctors conclude that a aminocentesis is useless until the 28th week, the delay could triple the cost even before the abortion is actually performed. The option of out-of-state abortions is also closed to many African-American and poor women because of travel expenses and lost wages. Janet McCallum, director of Ad ministration Services at the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta, says that “certainly in Atlanta there are a lot of women of color who use Grady Hospital. If Grady were not able to provide that service, there would be a lot of women trying unsafe methods. It would also limit access of doctors to low-income women by taking a training facility away from Emory and Morehouse School of Medi cine that would delete people who can per form abortions." Loretta Ross, national program director of the NBWHP, feels that statistics do not tell the whole story. “I think that the teenage pregnancy rate between black women and white women is the same. It’s just that white <15 women can afford to get abortions...and so many of our kids end up having the baby so that they can keep the man.” Since the 1986 Missouri law declares that “human life begins at conception” many complicated cases have been brought up. Some include a pending case concerning whether or not a fetus carried by a female inmate is wrongfully imprisoned and the case of a 20 year-old man claim ing that he was actually 21 at the time of his drunk driving arrest, since life begins at conception." ” This means that more and more black women are going to be impris oned for what is legally defined as fetal abuse,” says Ross. “One woman’s doctor didn’t want her to fly while pregnant and he got a court order.” Ross says, that this law, “will affect the women who can least afford expen sive lawyers. What if you fell down and had a miscarriage...does that become accidental homicide?” According to McCallum, the greatest danger in Georgia is parental consent. “It is an attempt to limit access to abortion to young women. There are some young women who cannot tell their parents. The Webster deci sion gave the states a lot more power. It is very important right now to tell legislators that you are a pro-choice voter.” Turnock and Ragsdale, a case to be heard by the Supreme Court, requires clinics to have the same standards as hospital operation rooms. If the court upholds this Illinois law, the abortion clinics in the affected state will start to disappear if they don’t have the funds to meet hospital regulations. The clinics that do stay in business would probably raise the price of abortions. The clinics that charge the least may be forced out of business. Since pri vate facilities are not readily available,the teenagers and the poor would be affected the most. Most of the women having abortions are under 24. Source; National Abortion Federation Even with all of the issues specifically af fecting African-American women, our pres ence in the pro-choice movement is sparse. In a Boston Globe article, Wattleton of said that noninvolvement is a “reflection of a larger condition of minorities in this country in general. The people who get involved in causes tend not to be the poor people. The driving force of mass movements has always tended to be middle class." In response to the low number of Afri can-Americans in the forefront, Ross says “we have not been full participants in the pro- choice movement and they are making the decisions for us. Their racism alienates Black women. They often want us as tokens, but not in full leadership.” Wattleton believes that African-Ameri cans should become more active and states that it will not happen until “Blacks are freed to become more involved in these kinds of is sues. The disparity that you see in people becoming activists is a creature of class and economics.”