50 pro-life measures adopted in 2022 across America

'Many of the laws passed this year are near-total abortion bans'

By WND News Services
Published January 2, 2023 at 10:51am

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Crowds celebrate and wave flags while listening to the band music at the Salute to America event Thursday, July 4, 2019, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. (Official White House photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]

By Carole Novielli
Live Action News

Twelve (12) state ‘abortion bans’ remained in effect as of December 12, 2022, says a new report from the Guttmacher Institute, a former Planned Parenthood “special affiliate” which has funneled at least $100 million to the abortion corporation.

In 2022, 50 pro-life measures were adopted in various states (far less than in 2021), while pro-abortion measures hit an all-time high, the Guttmacher report claimed.

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“Sixteen states have had a near-total abortion ban in effect at some point this year, and bans were in effect in 12 states as of December 12: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. In all of these states except West Virginia, the bans were on the books and ready to implement before the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. Near-total bans in the remaining four states—Arizona, Indiana, Utah and Wyoming—have been temporarily blocked during litigation,” Guttmacher wrote.

“Abortion is currently unavailable in 14 states, and courts have temporarily blocked enforcement of bans in eight others as of December 12, 2022,” the report added. “In addition to the 12 states with new bans in effect as of December 12, abortion care has become unavailable in two more states for other reasons. Although North Dakota’s trigger ban is not in effect as a result of ongoing litigation, the sole abortion clinic that was open in the state has moved to Minnesota. Clinics in Wisconsin have stopped providing abortions because of a lack of clarity over whether the state’s pre-Roe ban went into effect after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. A state court case is pending on the issue.”

Debunking claims that pro-life laws do not allow abortion for the health of the mother, Guttmacher noted that “All 12 of the bans in effect have exceptions in cases where the pregnant person’s life is endangered… Seven of these bans also have an exception for a patient’s severe physical health conditions… Three states’ bans have exceptions for rape; two of these also have exceptions for incest… Three states’ bans have exceptions for lethal fetal anomalies.” (emphasis added)

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50 pro-life measures adopted in 2022

The Guttmacher Institute, which referred to the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade as “disastrous,” claimed that 50 pro-life measures were adopted by states in 2022, far fewer than in 2021.

“This was not a large number compared with 2021, when a record total of 108 restrictions were enacted,” Guttmacher noted. “However, many of the laws passed this year are near-total abortion bans; combined with the implementation of pre-Roe laws and trigger bans that had been enacted in previous years, these laws have restricted abortion access for millions of people.”

According to the report, “641 provisions restricting access to abortion care have been enacted since the beginning of 2011.”

Guttmacher pointed to a flawed study which correlated groups of data without proving actual causation and purported to show that “[s]tates that limit access to abortion are more likely than states with broader access to have weak social safety nets that are unable to meet their residents’ basic health and child care needs, along with high rates of maternal morbidity and mortality.” But according to Dr. Michael New, Research Associate of Political Science and Social Research at The Catholic University of America and an Associate Scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, that study “failed to provide any meaningful evidence that protective pro-life laws lead to worse public health outcomes.”

Guttmacher’s count of state abortion legislation in 2022 (as of December 12) included:

• 369 provisions introduced that would protect or expand access to abortion.
• 77 provisions enacted.
• 563 provisions introduced that would restrict access to abortion.
• 50 provisions enacted.
• 641 provisions restricting access to abortion have been enacted since the beginning of 2011.

Challenges to ‘abortion bans’ (as Guttmacher called them) since the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision removed abortion as a ‘right’ are no longer filed in federal court. “Now that the federal right to abortion has been overturned, nearly all of the cases are being heard in state courts,” Guttmacher wrote.

Highest number of pro-abortion measures ever enacted in a single year

According to Guttmacher, efforts to expand abortion “have resulted in the highest number of abortion protections ever enacted in one year; one-quarter of these were enacted in California.” The former Planned Parenthood “special affiliate” categorized pro-abortion measures as “funding for abortion, safe access to clinics and increased confidentiality for providers, and ‘shield laws‘ that protect both providers and patients from criminal investigations for being involved in an abortion.”

“Seven states passed legislation or issued an executive order committing money to abortion funding. In most of these states, the funds represent a one-time allocation,” the pro-abortion group wrote.

“Fourteen states have adopted protections—some by legislation and others via executive order—to shield abortion providers and patients from investigation by officials in states that ban abortion. These ‘shield laws’ are designed mainly to prevent providers from being extradited to a state that bans abortion to be investigated for providing the procedure to that state’s residents,” the report claimed.

In addition, Guttmacher’s report claimed that “Voters in six states showed their support for abortion rights and access on ballot initiatives in 2022. Most of these initiatives were state constitutional amendments.”

Live Action News previously documented that additional pro-abortion ballot initiatives are being proposed for the 2023 and 2024 election cycles in an effort to thwart pro-life victories gained after the Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Local measures target pro-life pregnancy centers but also protect the preborn.

This year also brought a tremendous attack on pro-life pregnancy centers with acts of pro-abortion terror including bombings, acts of vandalism, and threats seemingly still unsolved by the Biden Department of Justice. In addition, multiple cities and some counties have deprioritized abortion investigations, funded abortion, and targeted pro-life pregnancy help centers.

Mark Lee Dickson, founder of Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn and director at Right to Life of East Texas, told Live Action News that there is much good news to report at the local level.

“This year alone, nineteen cities and one county across the United States have outlawed abortion,” Dickson said. “Ten of those cities are in the Lone Star State.” And while more cities passed Sanctuary City measures in 2021, the total populations of cities protecting the preborn in 2022 (nearly 400K) outpaced 2021 (307,966) by nearly 91,000.

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]