The Anti-Abortion Bill: Hr's Controversial Law

Abortion rights have been a contentious issue in the United States for decades, with a recent Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, removing nationwide protections for abortion rights. This has resulted in a patchwork of varying abortion laws across the country, with some states criminalizing abortion entirely while others have strengthened protections.

In this context, several pieces of legislation have been introduced at both the state and federal levels, aiming to restrict or protect access to abortion services. At the federal level, notable bills include the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (H.R. 3), introduced in 2011, which sought to prohibit the use of federal funds for abortions. The Women's Health Protection Act of 2021 (H.R. 3755) aimed to protect individuals' ability to determine whether to continue or end a pregnancy and safeguard healthcare providers' ability to offer abortion services. The Ensuring Access to Abortion Act of 2022 (H.R. 8297) sought to prohibit state interference with individuals' access to out-of-state abortion services.

At the state level, heartbeat bills have been introduced in various forms, aiming to ban abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, when a fetal heartbeat can allegedly be detected. These bills have been passed in several states, with varying levels of success in terms of legal challenges and enforcement.

The topic of abortion legislation remains highly divisive, with ongoing debates and legal battles surrounding the issue.

The Women's Health Protection Act of 2021

The WHPA establishes a statutory right for healthcare professionals to provide abortion care and the right for their patients to receive care, free from bans and medically unnecessary restrictions that single out abortion care. It passed the House in September 2021 and again in July 2022 but did not achieve the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster in the Senate.

The WHPA is a response to the US Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which repealed Roe v. Wade, stripping access to abortion care for millions of Americans and denying individuals the freedom to make their own healthcare decisions. Since the Dobbs decision, 14 states have implemented near-total abortion bans, leaving one in three American women without access to safe, legal abortion care. State legislatures have also introduced hundreds of bills to include medically unnecessary restrictions that limit access to abortion care.

The WHPA would prohibit states from imposing restrictions that jeopardize access to abortion earlier in pregnancy, including many of the state-level restrictions in place prior to Dobbs, such as arbitrary waiting periods and medically unnecessary mandatory ultrasounds. It would also ensure that later in pregnancy, states cannot limit access to abortion if it would jeopardize the life or health of the mother.

The WHPA is supported by many US senators, including Tammy Baldwin, Richard Blumenthal, and Chuck Schumer, who have emphasized the need to protect Americans' constitutional right to choose and restore the right to comprehensive reproductive healthcare.

The Ensuring Access to Abortion Act of 2022

The bill specifically prohibits any person acting under state law from preventing, restricting, impeding, or retaliating against several groups of people. These include health care providers who offer legal abortion services to out-of-state residents and those who assist these health care providers. It also includes those who travel to another state to obtain such services and those who help them make this journey. Finally, the bill prohibits interference with the movement in interstate commerce of drugs approved to terminate pregnancies.

The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act

The bill would render permanent the restrictions on federal funding of abortions in the US laid out in the Hyde Amendment. It prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions or for health coverage that includes abortions. Such restrictions extend to the use of funds in the budget of the District of Columbia. Additionally, abortions may not be provided in a federal health care facility or by a federal employee. The bill's restrictions regarding the use of federal funds do not apply in cases of rape, incest, or where a physical disorder, injury, or illness endangers a woman's life unless an abortion is performed.

The bill passed the House of Representatives on May 4, 2011, by a vote of 251-175. The House of Representatives passed similar legislation in 2014, 2015, and 2017.

The Heartbeat Bill

The bill prohibits abortions if a fetal heartbeat is detectable and allows private citizens to sue abortion providers or anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion. Proponents of the bill argue that a heartbeat is "the universally recognized indicator of life" and that the bill is necessary to protect the most vulnerable. However, medical and reproductive health experts, including the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, say that the reference to a fetal heartbeat at six weeks is medically inaccurate and misleading. They assert that a conceptus is not called a fetus until eight weeks after fertilization and that at four weeks after fertilization, the embryo has no heart, only a group of cells that will become a heart.

The bill has faced legal challenges, with critics arguing that it violates a constitutionally inferred right to privacy and contradicts Supreme Court precedent, which established that states must allow abortion until the point of viability, generally between 24 and 28 weeks into a pregnancy. In some states, such as Ohio, South Carolina, and Tennessee, judges have lifted injunctions against the bill, while in other states, the bill's effect has been minimized by more stringent total abortion bans. The bill's enforcement mechanism, which allows private citizens to sue, has made challenging the law difficult.

The Michigan Heartbeat Coalition officially launched its Citizens-Initiated Petition in July 2019, mirroring the language of House Bill 4664, which was introduced with 30 cosponsors in the House. The bill seeks to protect babies with beating hearts and is designed to challenge Roe v. Wade. The Coalition plans to collect nearly 500,000 signatures to ensure that the required threshold of 340,000 valid signatures is met, bypassing the need for the governor's approval.

The Heartbeat Protection Act of 2021 (H.R.705) was introduced in the House of Representatives on February 2, 2021, by Representative Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. The bill seeks to amend title 18 of the United States Code to prohibit abortion in cases where a fetal heartbeat is detectable. It proposes fines and/or imprisonment of up to five years for physicians who perform abortions without determining or informing the mother of a detectable fetal heartbeat. However, the bill includes exceptions for abortions necessary to save the life of the mother due to physical disorders, illnesses, or injuries caused by or arising from the pregnancy.

The Women's Health Protection Act of 2022

The bill aims to protect a person's ability to determine whether to continue or end a pregnancy and to protect a health care provider's ability to provide abortion services. It prohibits governments from limiting a provider's ability to prescribe certain drugs, offer abortion services via telemedicine, or immediately provide abortion services when the provider determines a delay risks the patient's health. The bill also prevents governments from requiring providers to perform unnecessary medical procedures, provide medically inaccurate information, or comply with credentialing or other conditions that do not apply to providers of medically comparable services.

The bill also prohibits other governmental measures that are similar to the specified restrictions or that impede access to abortion services. It allows the Department of Justice, individuals, or providers to bring a lawsuit to enforce the bill, and states are not immune from suits for violations. The bill applies to restrictions imposed both before and after its enactment.

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