Women's rights

An Overview of Abortion Laws by Guttmacher Institute

Giuliana Gerbino

“An Overview of Abortion Laws.” Guttmacher Institute, 1 Feb. 2023

The Guttmacher Institute is a leading research and policy organization. It monitors and analyzes state policy developments in the United States including legislative, judicial and executive actions, on a broad range of issues related to sexual and reproductive health rights. This source is very useful as it helped me understand what some of the restrictions placed on abortion are as of February 2023. “12 states restrict coverage of abortion in private insurance plans, most often limiting coverage only to when the patient’s life would be endangered if the pregnancy were carried to term. Most states allow purchase of additional abortion coverage at the additional cost” The facts in this article help me to better understand all the restrictions still placed on abortion. In June 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned abortion rights and the information provided in this article has relevant facts  and important details to incorporate in my research paper. 

  1. “36 states require some type of parental involvement in a minor’s decision to have an abortion. 27 states require one or both parents to consent to the procedure, while 9 require that one or both parents be notified”
  2. “12 states restrict coverage of abortion in private insurance plans, most often limiting coverage only to when the patient’s life would be endangered if the pregnancy were to be carries to term. Most states allow purchase of additional abortion coverage at the additional cost.”

 Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Right by Katha Pollitt

Giuliana Gerbino

Pollitt, Katha. Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Right. New York: Picador, 2015. Print. 

Katha Pollitt is a known feminist and has been covering gender equality and female reproductive rights for decades. In this book, she talks about women and their rights on abortion, debates about sex and how life begins at conception. She brings out abortion as part of a women’s reproductive life and that it should not be viewed as a moral right. In the book, she takes the first person position and tries to argue out how abortion is beneficial to families, women, and society. She concludes that by accepting and legalizing abortion, the lives of pregnant women can be reclaimed. I believe this book is important to incorporate in my paper. Ultimately, Pollitt is arguing not just for reproductive rights but for reproductive justice and gives a powerful argument for abortion as a moral right and a social good.

  1. “Instead of shaming women for ending a pregnancy, we should acknowledge their realism and self-knowledge. We should accept that it’s a good for everyone if women have only the children they want and can raise well. Society benefits when women can commit to education and work and dream without having at the back of their mind a concern that maybe it’s all provisional, because at any moment an accidental pregnancy could derail them for life.
  2. “In the end, abortion is an issue of fundamental human rights. To force women to undergo pregnancy and childbirth against their will to deprive them of the right to make basic decisions about their lives and well-being, and to give that power to the state.”

Before (and After) Roe V. Wade: New Questions about Backlash by Linda Greenhouse and Reva B. Siegal

Giuliana Gerbino

Greenhouse, Linda, Reva B. Siegal. “Before (and After) Roe V. Wade: New Questions about Backlash.” The Yale Law Journal. 120.8 (2011): 2028-2087. Print. 

Linda Greenhouse is a Clinical Lecturer in Law, Knight Distinguished journalist, and a senior research scholar in Law at Yale Law School and Reva B. Siegal is the Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law at Yale Law School. In this article, the authors talk about the Supreme Court ruling in 1973 on abortion and how things took shape after the ruling. The decision made it possible for pregnant women to get legal abortions from medical practitioners and led to a decrease in pregnancy-related deaths and injury. The authors take the time to view how things were before the court ruling got decided. They consider abortion stands of politicians, catholics, and feminists. They suggest that due to party realignment, the conflict over supreme court ruling got shaped in the following decades. This article is gonna be used mainly as a factual source. The court decision took place, and the reaction of different people were used to write this article. 

  1. “Doctors establishing the American Medical Association (AMA) led a campaign to criminalize abortion, except when necessary to save a pregnant woman’s life.”
  2. “Just as nineteenth-century advocates for criminalizing access to abortion has appealed to medical authority, so, too, did twentieth-century advocates for liberalizing access to abortion.

Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective: Cases and Controversies by Joanna N. Erdman, Rebecca J. Cook, et al.

Giuliana Gerbino

Erdman, Joanna N, Rebecca J. Cook, et al. Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective: Cases and Controversies. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. Print. 

This 16 chapter book written entirely by lawyers, views laws on abortion in all parts of the globe and highlights both the failures and successes of these laws. The chapters investigate issues of access, rights, and justice, as well as social constructions of women, sexuality, and pregnancy, through legal procedures and regimes. They state that,“Although today is exceedingly difficult to encounter any legal treatment of abortion without some comment on the rights involved…Reflecting on historical revolutions led us to think of new transitions in hand and in prospect” (Erdman et. al). The authors write that their aim is to find new approaches in abortion and come up with ideas regarding abortion laws. They suggest that reforms in this legislation and legalization of abortion would help women make good choices about pregnancies. In their conclusion, women stand to benefit the most if restrictive abortion laws get abolished. This book would be a good source to incorporate in my research paper because the authors go in to talk about how legalization of abortion would benefit women.

“Although today is exceedingly difficult to encounter any legal treatment of abortion without some comment on the rights involved…Reflecting on historical revolutions led us to think of new transitions in hand and in prospect”

“Abortion law evolved ‘from placement within criminal or penal codes, to placement within health or public health legislation, and eventually to submergence within laws serving goals of human rights.”

The Abortion Debate: Can this chronic public illness be cured? By Daniel Callahan

Giuliana Gerbino

Callahan, Daniel. “The Abortion Debate: Can this chronic public illness be cured?” Clinical Obstetrics and gynecology 35.4 (Dec.1992): 783-791. 

Daniel Callahan was an American philosopher who played a leading role in developing the field of biomedical ethics as co-founder of The Hastings Center, the world’s first bioethics research institute. The document provides information on how abortion has become one of the most eternal and disturbing issues in American legal and moral struggles. It also gives reasons as to why the issue of abortion should be legalized. Thus, an important document in this paper since it provides information on the issue under discussion. It also provides the need to do everything possible to change the social and economic circumstances leading to abortion, the need for compromise, and the need for meaningful counseling of women who consider abortion.

  1. “The movement to legalize abortion rested on the following: 1) illegal abortions were killing and maiming women; 2) women should have a backup to ineffective contraception; 3) women should have the right to make the abortion decision; 4) everything possible should be done to change the economic and domestic circumstances forcing women into unwanted pregnancies.
  2. “Those who pressed the pro-choice side of the argument had plenty of opposition, but they had the tide of public opinion with them.”

National Laws and Unsafe Abortion: the Parameters of Change by Marge Berer

Giuliana Gerbino

Berer, Marge. “National Laws and Unsafe Abortion: the Parameters of Change.” Reproductive Health Matters. 12.24 (2004): 1-8.

The author of this article Marge Berer has been the Coordinator of the International Campaign for Women’s Right to Safe Abortion since mid-2015. She founded and was the editor of the journal Reproductive Health Matters (1992-2015). Berer believes that unsafe abortion and deaths are avoidable. She states that “In countries where laws allow abortion, a lower number of unsafe abortions and deaths had been reported in comparison to countries with laws that restrict abortion” (Berer). This detail shows how safe abortion is a vital service that should be available to all pregnant women. Even if abortion is prohibited in countries and different states, abortions would still be carried out by unlicensed people causing women to suffer. I believe the author’s argument will help me in my paper when talking about the health risks that come with getting unsafe abortions in places where it isn’t legal.

  1. “Safe abortion is an essential health service for women, as essential for sexual and reproductive health as a safe contraception, and safe pregnancy and delivery care.”
  2. “The data also show that most abortions become safe mainly or only where women’s reasons for abortion, and the legal grounds for abortion coincide.”
“Safe abortion is an essential health service for women, as essential for sexual and reproductive health as a safe contraception, and safe pregnancy and delivery care.”
“The data also show that most abortions become safe mainly or only where women’s reasons for abortion, and the legal grounds for abortion coincide.”

Women Share What Abortion Was Like Before Roe v. Wade: “I Was One of the Lucky Ones, I survived.” By Kaelyn Ford

Giuliana Gerbino

Forde, Kaelyn. “Women Share What Abortion Was Like Before Roe v. Wade: ‘I Was One of the Lucky Ones, I survived’.” ABC News, ABC New Network, 4 Aug. 2018

This source is retrieved from ABC News, a reputable broadcasting company. It is not a primary source, however, it does focus on an interview with Adele Zimmermann, a woman who talks about paying for an illegal abortion before Roe v. Wade. In the article Forde states that “such restrictions are taking abortion access back to the time before Roe when only some states made abortion legal and only in some instances” (Forde). This source provides important information about the restrictions that make getting abortions difficult for women. This can be useful to strengthen my argument about the current day necessity for abortion. 

  1. “Nash said that today, while abortion remains relatively easy to access in the Northeast and on the West Coast, there are regions in the South and middle of the country where clinic closures, mandatory waiting periods and other restrictions have made it very difficult for women.
  2. “Marino added. ‘Women were dying, women were trying to create abortions on their own using coat hangers and things like that.”

“An Overview of Abortion Laws.” Guttmacher Institute, 1 Feb. 2023″An Overview of Abortion Laws.”

Giuliana Gerbino

The Guttmacher Institute is a leading research and policy organization. It monitors and analyzes state policy developments in the United States including legislative, judicial and executive actions, on a broad range of issues related to sexual and reproductive health rights. This source is very useful as it helped me understand what some of the restrictions placed on abortion are as of February 2023. “12 states restrict coverage of abortion in private insurance plans, most often limiting coverage only to when the patient’s life would be endangered if the pregnancy were carried to term.” The facts in this article help me to better understand all the restrictions still placed on abortion. In June 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned abortion rights and the information provided in this article has relevant facts  and important details to incorporate in my research paper. 

“Beyond Client Criminalization: Analyzing Collaborative Governance Arrangements for Combatting Prostitution and Trafficking in Sweden.” by Josefina Erikson and Oscar L. Larsson

Isabel Dela Cruz

Erikson, Josefina, and Oscar L. Larsson. “Beyond Client Criminalization: Analyzing Collaborative Governance Arrangements for Combatting

Prostitution and Trafficking in Sweden.” Regulation & Governance, vol. 16, no. 3, 2022, pp. 818–835., https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12259.

With Sweden being one of the first countries to criminalize clients in the sex work sector, this article studies the governance arrangements that have since been implemented to abolish prostitution and points out the problems they introduce. Erikson and Larsson make the point that national policy and legal framework are prioritized over the implementation and evaluation of prostitution policies that are in practice. It also goes into detail on the role of collaborative governance and both its benefits to solving issues in the field of sex work policy as well as its problematic claims with respect to the role of civil society. Though this article focuses on collaborative governance and how effective it is, I will only use the portions of the article that detail Swedish law on client criminalization as opposed to the liberation on behalf of women in sex work. Josefina Erikson has a PhD in political science and her research focuses on prostitution policy and feminist constitutionalism while the other author, Oscar L. Larsson, also maintains a PhD in political science and has done research articles on network governance and collaboration between public and private partners in dealing with trafficking victims. The pair make an intelligent collaboration that is informative and thoughtful regarding the Swedish government’s attempts at combatting prostitution.

  1. “Prostitution is now considered intrinsically linked to trafficking, and there has been a shift from government to governance in the general political debate.”
  2. “On the positive side, our study finds that the inclusion of civil society actors in collaborative networks has succeeded in taking into consideration the victim’s perspective and developing, for instance, programs with their actual needs in mind, such as the NSP.”

Defining Human Trafficking and Identifying Its Victims: A Study on the Impact and Future Challenges of International, European and Finnish Legal Responses to Prostitution-Related Trafficking in Human Beings. by Venla Roth

Isabel Dela Cruz

Roth, Venla. Defining Human Trafficking and Identifying Its Victims: A Study on the Impact and Future Challenges of International,

European and Finnish Legal Responses to Prostitution-Related Trafficking in Human Beings. Brill, 2012, pp. viii-viii. 

Venla Roth, Finlands’s Anti-Trafficking Coordinator for the Ministry of Justice, has a Ph.D. in law and works towards unveiling the best ways to combat human trafficking. She’s not only educated in the human trafficking world, but she has both power and first-hand experience as an anti-trafficking coordinator who works for one of the 12 ministries that comprise the Finnish government. Her book compares the contradicting positions on prostitution and details the modern legal instruments adopted to prevent trafficking and protect its victims. I can use this book as an informative source for detailing the grey areas of sex work and trafficking and recommending solutions to the challenges of Finland’s Anti-Trafficking strategies. The study argues that human trafficking is complex, therefore the laws made to regulate them need to be just as well developed; Roth presents possible alternatives and specific methods that focus on judging trafficking situations through the victim’s perspective rather than an authorities’ viewpoint. This book can be useful for bringing forth proper solutions to dealing with human trafficking and will also have a refreshing perspective on this subject since Finland is, legally, more progressive when it comes to sex work. 

  1. “More attention should be paid to the conditions in which the women sell sex as well as to their vulnerabilities and dependencies which increase their risk of being exploited.”
  2. “The law enforcement agencies, prosecution services and judiciary need more training on human trafficking, as they often lack adequate knowledge of the phenomenon.”