This Week in Reproductive Rights: Gold Star for Spain, Coal Everywhere Else

Spain gets the gold star for best pro-choice legislation of the week! Under the strict prior legislation, abortion was legal up until 22 weeks if the woman's life was in danger, and in the first trimester in case of rape -- otherwise, the penalty is jail time. Now, the procedure is completely legal until the 14th week, and until the 22nd week if the mother's health is in danger or the fetus is malformed. While the conservative Catholic bishops are throwing temper tantrums, the majority-Catholic public largely disagrees with their controlling-women's-bodies agenda, according to a survey by Catholics for Choice. Perhaps some delicious sangria to celebrate?

Elsewhere in the world, anti-choice forces have more cause to celebrate. In Kenya, a new constitution has been in the works for two decades. It's finally poised to be approved, with an anti-abortion clause that will make it the fourth country in the whole world to constitutionally ban abortion. Kenya already prohibits abortion in all cases except danger to the life of the woman, which leads many women to seek out unsafe, illegal abortions that can land them in the hospital.

Moving into the United States, in Oklahoma, we have a mixed bag. A judge ruled that a law that would have published the private information of women who get abortions online -- leaving out their names, but offering more than enough personal data to identify them -- is unconstitutional because the package it came in violates state requirements that legislation address only one subject. Unfortunately, four brand-new OK bills are headed to the House to separately pass the lump of restrictions that were struck down. If they pass, as seems likely, it could launch a new round of legal battles based on violations of the right to privacy.

In South Carolina, legislators think rape or incest survivors and women whose lives are in danger should pay for their own abortions, voting in committee on a bill to strip abortion coverage from state health insurance in these cases. (It's already not covered in all other circumstances.)

Nebraska, where Dr. LeRoy Carhart has taken up the murdered Dr. George Tiller's mantle in providing late-term abortions, wants to ban all abortions after 20 weeks, except when the life of the woman is in danger, based on the medically dubious assertion that fetuses at this stage are capable of feeling pain. This despite the fact that late-term abortions are already extremely rare, occurring in cases of serious danger to the physical or mental health of the mother, or severe fetal abnormalities that would make giving birth an unnecessary cruelty.

In addition to the above, reproductive rights coverage on the Women's Right blog this week has included Utah's attempt to criminalize miscarriages, Florida's desire to charge abortion providers with first-degree felonies, and draconian anti-abortion laws that could be a young mother's death sentence in Nicaragua -- which doesn't seem to bother so-called "pro-life" organizations. Busy week for anti-choicers indeed!

Photo credit: jonasj