2013 is shaping up to be another banner year for those seeking to limit the bodily autonomy of women, with state lawmakers passing 106 provisions during the first six months of the year to limit reproductive freedom.
In the first six months of this year, state legislatures have already enacted 106 provisions related to reproductive health and rights, according to a new report from the Guttmacher Institute. That includes 43 provisions restricting abortion access — as many as were enacted during the entire year in 2012.
2011 was a record-breaking year for new abortion restrictions, with a staggering 80 different anti-abortion provisions enacted in the first six months. At this midway point, 2013 has seen the second-highest number of abortion restrictions signed into law
It’s not a coincidence that fewer abortion laws were implemented in 2012 than in 2011 and 2013.
It may not seem like it at times, but abortion is not a winning issue for Republicans as far as elections go, and I suspect 2014 will be similar to 2012 in that there may be fewer abortion laws passed by state legislatures than during the previous and proceeding year.
Conservative lawmakers, both at the state and federal level, rely on the relative inattentiveness seen during years in which there are no major elections to pass laws that are controversial.
“Now if the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars then every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, so then we’d have a problem with caterpillars. I mean, the fact of the matter is it’s a fiction.” -RNC Chairman Reince Priebus on the War on Women