A Playbook for Abortion Rights: A guide for state and local policymakers

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

FORWARD: Talking About Abortion

A. EXPAND ACCESS TO ABORTION

Qualified Providers of Abortion Act—Allows advanced practice clinicians (APCs) – nurse practitioners, certified nurse-midwives and physician assistants – to perform aspiration abortions.

Access to Medication Abortion Act—Allows advanced practice clinicians (APCs) – nurse practitioners, certified nurse-midwives and physician assistants – to prescribe and supervise medication abortions.

Abortion Coverage Equity Act—Ensures that women, regardless of their economic status, are able to obtain insurance coverage for abortion care.

Respect Women’s Decisions Act—Codifies the fundamental right to abortion in state law.

Whole Woman’s Health Act—Codifies in state law the fundamental right to abortion using the constitutional standards affirmed by the Supreme Court in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt.

B. GUARANTEE MEDICALLY ACCURATE ABORTION CARE

Truth in Medicine Act—Requires that no government healthcare agency, or any organization that receives government healthcare or counseling funding, shall endorse any of five specific lies about abortion: that it raises the risk of developing breast cancer, that it raises the risk of infertility, that it raises the risk of negative emotional or mental health problems, that most women regret having an abortion, or that abortion is more dangerous than the average medical procedure.

Pregnancy Center Disclosure Act—Requires that unlicensed facilities which provide pregnancy-related services, such as Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs), disclose that they are not licensed medical providers.

Crisis Pregnancy Center Fraud Prevention Act—Creates a mechanism for a government authority to notify a limited services pregnancy center about apparent false or fraudulent advertising, and penalties would accrue if a fraud is both proven and continues after this notification.

Protect Physician Integrity from Political Interference Act—Enables physicians to refuse state-dictated procedures and mandated lectures that violate accepted medical standards and the ethics of their profession.

Patients’ Right to Abortion Information Act—Prevents any health care facility from limiting a physician’s or other health care provider’s ability to provide medically accurate and comprehensive information to a patient, limiting the ability to make referrals, or denying services when that could put a patient’s life or health in danger.

Stop Discrimination Against Abortion Providers Act—Prohibits hospitals and other healthcare facilities from discriminating against or punishing healthcare professionals who perform or approve of abortions.

C. STOP ANTI-ABORTION HARASSMENT AND TERRORISM

Prevent Anti-Abortion Terrorism Act—Utilizes five clinic protection strategies – FACE, Safe at Home, safety zones, civil lawsuits, and hate crime penalties – to protect facilities, providers, employees, volunteers, and patients from anti-abortion violence and harassment.

Accountability for Clinic Violence Act—Allows reproductive health care providers and facilities the ability to sue individuals for interfering in the delivery of health care.

Accountability for Harassment of Women Act—Allows reproductive health patients the ability to sue an individual for coercion, threats or violence intended to interfere with their reproductive health care.

Clinic Safety Zone Act—Protects patients and staff who are trying to enter or exit a reproductive health care facility by prohibiting protesters from obstructing access and stopping them from approaching closer than eight feet to individuals trying to access the clinic.

Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act—Supplements both criminal and civil law to protect facilities, providers, employees, volunteers and patients from anti-abortion violence and harassment.

Keep Bosses Out of the Bedroom Act—Guarantees that employers cannot take an adverse action against an employee based on the employee’s reproductive health decisions.

Abortion with Dignity Act—Provides a reproductive healthcare patient the right to sign a waiver to eliminate waiting periods, the requirement to hear medical misinformation, or other requirements that are not part of true informed consent.

Pregnant Women’s Dignity Act—Protects women who suffer a pregnancy loss from investigation by law enforcement, judicial or administrative authorities.

D. PROVIDE FULL ACCESS TO BIRTH CONTROL

Women’s Right to the Pill Act—Requires that all pharmacies must fill lawful contraceptive prescriptions and stock emergency contraceptives for purchase over-the-counter.

Rape Survivor Information Act—Requires hospital emergency rooms, as well as police agencies and colleges that receive reports of sexual assault, to follow a protocol to assist sexual assault survivors which includes providing survivors with medically accurate information about emergency contraception, and when medically appropriate, abortion.

Long-Acting Birth Control Information Act—Creates a health department program to make long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) more accessible.

E. REVEAL THE DECEPTION OF THE ANTI-ABORTION MOVEMENT

From Day One Act—Offers a range of vital programs – universal Pre-K, Medical Assistance, paid family and medical leave – that directly and indirectly provide essential support for young children during their first five years of life.

Prevent Political Interference from Delaying Abortion Act—Removes restrictions that delay access to early abortion care, such as waiting periods and TRAP laws, expands access to abortion providers, and guarantees public and private insurance coverage for abortion.

Keep Abortion Clinics Open Act—Ensures that no clinic could be shut down under TRAP laws without a due process administrative proceeding that proves it is a bona fide threat to public health.

Prevent Double Standards in Abortion Regulation Act—Prohibits the implementation of laws that single out abortion facilities or personnel for requirements that are more burdensome than those imposed on facilities that provide medically comparable procedures.

Resolution Opposing “Sex-Selective Abortion Bans” that Perpetuate Racial Stereotypes—Declares opposition to “sex-selective abortion bans,” which serve the purpose of exploiting racial stereotypes and anti-immigrant sentiment in order to undermine the power women of color have to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions.

F. PRESENT A BROAD VISION FOR ABORTION RIGHTS IN AMERICA

Women’s Economic Security Act—Provides economic and workplace equity for women and families by guaranteeing abortion insurance coverage equity, fair pay, earned paid sick time, paid family and medical leave, dependent tax care credit, pregnant workers fairness protection, repeal of TRAP laws, and repeal of waiting periods and mandatory biased counseling.

Women’s Equality, Dignity and Fairness Act—Guarantees a broad abortion rights vision, including the right of women to abortion coverage in both public and private insurance, the right of clinics to operate in safety and as medically appropriate, the right of patients to receive the truth about reproductive medicine, and the right of qualified medical professionals to deliver abortion services.

Support for All Pregnancy Options Act—Supports a range of common sense solutions to reduce unintended pregnancy, to make abortion safe, accessible and affordable to all, and to support women who bring their pregnancies to term.

Abortion Is Health Care Resolution—Demonstrates the jurisdiction’s commitment to quality health care for all residents, including abortion care as a vital component of any health care system.

Index of Resources

MEDICAL EQUITY NOW, a supplement to the Playbook

This booklet provides seven more model bills revealing the hypocrisy of abortion restrictions

Medical Equity Now (MEN) Act

This bill would direct that as long as the State maintains a particular restriction on abortion (such as insurance bans, waiting periods or mandatory counseling) then in the name of equity the same restriction will apply to men’s reproductive health care.

Protect Men in Reproductive Health Act

This bill would ensure that men who seek medication for erectile dysfunction must wait before starting treatment to think about the risks and document a legitimate moral need.

Men’s Helpers Right to Know Act

This bill would impose a series of restrictions on providing “men’s helpers,” defined as any prescription, treatment or device to address erectile dysfunction.

Protect Men Who Seek a Vasectomy Act

This bill would direct that only a physician may perform a vasectomy, only in a hospital or a licensed ambulatory surgical center, and only to avert death, serious irreversible impairment, or a mental or emotional condition that would lead to death.

Targeted Regulation of Men’s Reproductive Health Surgery Act

This bill would create TRAP-type “safety” regulations—ambulatory surgical center building requirements and admitting privileges—for health facilities that provide male sterilization.

Sperm Donation Right to Know Act

This bill would require the Department of Health to create and distribute a “right to know” book about sperm donation, the potential risks, the psychological impact of having unknown children, and the repercussions of future paternity tests.

Every Sperm is Sacred Act

This bill would fine and imprison a man who ejaculates or deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina and such actions would be construed as an action against an unborn child.