abortion bans apply throughout pregnancy and yet contain no health exception whatsoever and a dangerously inadequate life exception. The government may never prohibit abortions that are necessary to preserve women’s lives or health. A court in Illinois said the law would impermissibly require a women “to remain pregnant eve in the face of serious health concerns” (ACLU).Anti-choice legislators are also introducing bans on abortion procedures. Like the federal bill, most of the state measures are so vague and so broad that they cover a wide range of abortion methods. In all, twenty-seven states have banned partial birth abortions. These states are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin (Abortion Law Homepage). In nineteen states, medical providers have challenged the partial birth abortion ban on the grounds that they endanger women’s health, jeopardize safe medical practice, and violate the constitutional rights of patients and doctors. In seventeen of these states, the bans are now enjoined, and in an eighteenth, the ban’s effect is severely limited. While there are many people apposed to the ban, there are many people for the ban. Some of the complications in their arguments are breast cancer, acute grief reaction, emotional disturbances, pelvic inflammatory disease, and uterine perforation. Recent studies have pointed out that there is a relationship between the rate of abortion and the rising incidence of breast cancer (American Life League). Post-abortion grief has been identified in numerous studies as a serious complication of induced abortion. Three in four women experience acute grief reactions if the abortion is for genetic reasons. One in two women...
