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Abortion Legislation in New York State: What Really Happened, and What Can Be Learned From It by James Clapp

The basic human right to limit one's own reproduction includes the right to all forms of birth control: to contraception, including sterili zation, and to abortion.

We therefore oppose all legislation and practices that restrict access to any of these means of birth control.

Statement adopted by National Organization for Women (March 22, 1970); Zero Population Growth (Board of Directors; September 30, 1969); National Association for Repeal of Abortion Laws (Board of Directors; September 27, 1969); New Yorkers for Abortion Law Repeal (September 24, 1969). Emphasis supplied. The recent change in New York state's abortion laws has met with widespread, but largely unwarranted, praise. The enactment of "the nation's most liberal abortion law" is certainly a pleasing indication of the speed at which public and legislative opinion is progressing. The fact that the New York abortion bill was not compromised any more than it was may be a tribute to the militance of some proponents of abortion law repeal, who fought as hard as they could to prevent compromise. But the fact that a compromise bill was passed, rather than a repeal bill, is the result of divisions and misunderstandings within the abortion movement, from which campaigners for repeal in other states may be able to learn some valuable lessons.

The complete story behind the amendment of New York's abortion laws will probably never be told. Certainly it would fill a book, and would make dramatic reading. It would include the tragic fates of legislators like George Michaels and Clinton Dominick, who lost their seats because of their well-meaning but misguided support for reform. Enough of the story can be told within the space limitations of this article, however, to show that these men lost their seats in vain-that what actually happened in New York was a setback for the cause of abortion law repeal.

What the Amended Law Says

As everyone knows, to repeal a law means simply to remove it from the books. To repeal abortion laws, then, means to remove from penal codes, medical codes, codes of criminal procedure, and so on, all provisions that make abortion subject to special restrictions, penalties, or procedures beyond those that apply generally to all medical practice. The amended New York law, which has been described over and over as "repeal" (by people who evidently do not remember what the word means), contains no less than sixxteen separate sections making such special provisions for abortion. There is no space here for even a rough outline of these provisions; only the two most talked-about will be described.

One key restriction is that only licensed physicians may perform abortions. This comes at a time when paraprofessionals are being trained in increasing numbers to take over simple medical tasks from our overworked doctors. It also comes at a time when abortion technology has advanced to such a point that even Alan Guttmacher, MD, President of Planned ParenthoodWorld Population and hardly a radical on the subject of abortion, has been quoted by The New York Times as saying, "The operation really isn't that complicated. In fact, it doesn't usually require a physician." By ruling out the possibility of efficient, low-cost clinics, staffed by paramedical specialists supervised by physicians and using modern techniques (like the aspirator), this restriction keeps the availability of abortion down and the cost up-with the obvious result that large numbers of women will continue to bear unwanted children.

Copyright 1970 by James Clapp. All rights reserved.

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Another restriction is a gestational time limit on abortion. Although relatively few women will seek late abortions when early abortions are available, their cases tend to be particularly serious, both personally and for society at large. Sometimes it is discovered late in pregnancy that the fetus is seriously deformed, or will be mentally defective. Mongolism, for example, can frequently be detected during advanced pregnancy. Sometimes the thought of having a child is so disturbing to a woman that she refuses to admit-even to herself-that she is pregnant, until the pregnancy is so far advanced that she can no longer keep the fact from her conscious mind. In either case, the effect on society of forcing the wornan to bear the unwanted child is likely to be far greater than usual, because of the high probability that society will have to care for either the woman or the child indefinitely. Obviously, in any situation serious enough for a woman to decide on abortion in an advanced stage of pregnancy, it is in society's interest, as well as tie woman's, to allow her to exercise that right. (England's abortion law, incidentally, does not contain a time limit, yet the English do not seem to have lost their regard for human life, as those who favor time limits always predict.)

Legislation and Litigation

All the while the legislature was considering the abortion issue, lawyers were establishing standing in federal court for class-action challenges to New York's old "necessary to preserve life" abortion law, which was similar to the laws of about 35 other states. In mid-April, as a result, the Federal District Court in New York was scheduled to hear four carefully-devised cases which together constituted the most thorough, the most sweeping, the most sophisticated, and the most likely-to-succeed challenge to abortion laws ever mounted in the courts.

There was every reason to expect that these cases would result in a declaration that New York's old abortion law was unconstitutional, and in an excellent decision to take to the Supreme Court for a ruling that would affect most of the other states in the union. In addition, a decision throwing out the old abortion law might very well have been handed down before July 1-the date on which the new law passed by the legislature finally went into effect.

But this was not to be. Just five days before these cases were to be heard, the state Senate passed the final amended form of the abortion law, and thus rendered moot the constitutional challenges to the previous law.

And the legislature knew very well what it was doing. One of the bill's chief sponsors, Assemblyman Franz Leichter, had warned his colleagues when the bill was first debated in the Assembly:

If we don't act, the courts will.... The cases in court will succeed, and then there will be no restrictions at all in New York, and that will be a state of legal anarchy! And during final Assembly debate on the bill he pounded the message home:

Are we going to establish a sensible, rational, humane
system or are we going to have anarchy, social chaos,
because a federal court completely eliminates our laws
on abortion?

Ironically, this man is viewed as something of a hero, for his sponsorship of this bill, by many people who supported the concept of repeal and who would have been delighted to see a federal court "completely eliminate our laws on abortion," so that abortion could be treated just like any other medical procedure. Their view of him might be somewhat different if they recognized the relationship between legislation and litigation, and the way in which Mr Leichter exploited this relationship to gain

Abortion Legislation in New York State: page 2

support for his bill-which killed the court cases and ruined New York's chances for achieving repeal this year.

Although these particularly promising cases are now dead, this fall the Supreme Court will almost certainly hear similar cases from other states, perhaps along with such cases as the Vuitch case (Washington, DC) and the Babbitz case (Wisconsin). The latter cases, unlike the major New York cases, both arose from criminal prosecutions, and therefore are somewhat narrow in their scope, attacking only those portions of the law that were violated. Furthermore, while lower-court decisions in both of these cases have held parts of abortion laws unconstitutional, they have both upheld the concept that the state may impose restrictions that do not apply to other procedures (such as the licensed-physician requirement), and they have both implied that a gestation limit might be justifiable. Therefore, unless the Burger Court goes beyond the lower-court rulings, these cases will not result in such sweeping decisions as we might hope. Nevertheless, there is considerable reason for optimism that the Supreme Court will, at least, uphold the lower-court rulings, with the result that the abortion laws of all those states lucky enough not to have "reformed" their laws will be declared. unconstitutional.

The task of repealers in those states will then be simply to prevent the passage of any new abortion bill short of total repeal, since a bill with any restriction whatsoever would be a step backward. Meanwhile, those of us in states with "liberalized" laws will be stuck with our laws, and will be having an extremely hard time trying to get them repealed.

(Note: The District of Columbia law being challenged in the Vuitch case is already more liberal than New York's law is, in one respect. Rather than requiring that abortions be performed by licensed physicians, it requires only that they be performed "under the direction" of licensed physicians. Of course, this would still restrict the use of non-prescriptive abortifacients, when they are developed, just as the Massachusetts law requiring prescriptions for contraceptives-recently declared unconstitutional-restricted the use of contraceptive foam.) Lesson: Since a state that passes any abortion bill short of total repeal is virtually certain to be left behind when the Supreme Court acts, a position opposing all legislation with any restrictions on abortion is clearly just a common-sense policy, even though it sounds radical and idealistic. While efforts to achieve genuine and total repeal of abortion laws should obviously be continued and intensified, every move to pass any bill short of repeal should be firmly opposed.

Politicians and Pressure Groups

A basic principle of representative government is that it should respond to, rather than dictate to, the citizens. The function of a political pressure group in such a system is to convince legislators to work for the goals desired by the members of the group. These are simple concepts, but somehow they got lost in New York State.

In 1969, at the instigation of the National Organization for Women (NOW), a repeal bill was introduced in the New York State Assembly. This was the first, and is possibly still the only, genuine abortion law repeal bill ever introduced in any state. Although the legislature and the media that year generally ignored the repeal bill and devoted their attention to a traditional "reform" bill (which was finally defeated), the existence of a repeal bill made it easier to publicize the difference between reform and repeal, and to build wide support for repeal. Before the 1970 legislative session even began, the sponsors of the 1969 repeal bill, not realizing the extent to which public and legislative opinion had moved forward in one year, began to consider compromising the bill. Rather than consulting the groups that had been working hard-and successfully-to rally support for their repeal bill, they consulted other politicians,

who naturally encouraged them to water down their bill. This-they did by adding a subtly-worded clause that restricted the performance of abortion to licensed physicians.

It was some time before the chief sponsors of this newlycompromised abortion bill deigned to let their supporters-and even some of their co-sponsors-know that the bill had been changed, and even then they expected everyone to go right on working for their bill, just as enthusiastically as if it were repeal. The function of pressure groups, in their view, seems to be to rally to the support of any bill that legislators choose to offer them. (One wonders why pressure groups are necessary at all, if their function is simply to support bills that legislators already approve of anyway!)

When the state repeal group (New Yorkers for Abortion Law Repeal), and a large northeastern regional coalition of women and women's groups (the Congress to Unite Women), along with the board of directors of the New York Chapter of NOW, declared their opposition to the compromise bill, its sponsors seemed hurt and surprised that these groups would only support the legislation their members wanted, and would not support legislation that would destroy the court cases that might result in repeal.

The bill's sponsors tried to convince us that we should not "confuse" the public by publicizing the contents of the bill, which they insisted was a "repeal" bill despite the new clause. Assemblywoman Constance Cook, the bill's leading sponsor, personally assured us not only that the new clause did not constitute a compromise, but also that it was positively the last compromise she would allow in her bill.

As it turned out, the bill was rewritten-with Mrs Cook's blessing-twice more after that, and both times significant compromises were added to it. In fact, on the floor of the Assembly a member of the Codes Committee (through which the bill had passed) announced-to Mrs Cook's manifest consternation and embarrassment-that she had actually gone to that committee and submitted proposed amendments, including the gestation limitation, with a promise to support them. And this had happened after the state Senate had already passed a version of the bill without such a time limit! (Mrs Cook evidently was led to believe that such compromises were "necessary to get the bill out of committee," and was more interested in getting a compromise bill passed than in standing up for repeal and in preserving the court cases that would probably have led to repeal.)

And yet this series of compromises had many supporters, not only among the opponents of repeal, but among people who had advocated repeal. Some of these "repealers" simply were not really that eager to repeal abortion laws, and were just as happy with reform. Many, however, were citizens who were playing at politics. These would-be politicians were anxious to prove that they Know When To Compromise-which seems to be whenever a politician wants them to do so.

In reality, of course, one never gets what one wants from politi cians, in such a sensitive area as abortion, except by refusing to compromise. A politician will always compromise on abortion just as much as supporters of abortion change allow. In the case of New York state, if national and local citizens' groups interested in abortion, including such groups as the State Council of Churches and the Civil Liberties Union, had presented a united, uncompromising front, and had insisted that they would countenance nothing less than repeal, repeal is exactly what we would have in New York.

The state repeal group, realizing that repeal was the only legislation that the entire abortion movement could ever unite behind, strove quietly for months to encourage unity among pressure groups, before at last announcing publicly its opposition to the bill. But too many self-styled politicians in other pressure groups decided only to "pressure" for what the legislators were willing to give them at every stage of the game, and vi

supported all four successively watered-down versions of the abortion bill without so much as a suggestion that people would prefer repeal-whether through the legislature or through the courts-to these compromises. Meanwhile, since Mrs Cook refused to change her bill back to repeal (with many groups supporting her compromises, there was no political advantage to be gained from doing so), an effort was made to induce other legislators to introduce a complete birth-control repeal bill-one that would repeal not only abortion laws but also New York's anti-contraception law. This effort very nearly succeeded, but the sponsors of compromise finally managed to dissuade those legislators who had agreed to sponsor the real repeal bill.

Perhaps if there had been a public fuss about the compromises immediately, instead of attempts to work diplomatically behind the scenes, the effort to stave them off would have been more successful.

Part of the problem with some pressure groups is that, rather than leading politicians, they are led by politicians. One national association, theoretically committed to repeal, has as its president a politician with close political ties to many of the sponsors of the reform bill, and one suspects that it was partly because of this that the association in question was so quick to assure Mrs Cook that they would support her compromise bill. It is obviously dangerous for any group that intends to exert political pressure on a non-partisan issue (which abortion obviously is) to have partisan politicians among its policymakers. And it is virtually impossible for such a group to exert any real pressure, or even to stand by its position, when its leaders have a clear political self-interest in compromising that position, in order to stay on good terms with fellow politicians. Lessons: Remember that the function of a pressure group is to tell politicians what to do. (Politicians will try to convince you that it is their function to tell you what to support.) Remember that the nicest and most sympathetic politician will compromise on abortion if given a chance, and only united and firm support for repeal and nothing less will keep a politician on the track. (Politicians tend to take polls which show, for example, that "65% of my constituents want repeal, but 85% want reform. So I'll support reform." Such a poll really means that 65% prefer repeal to reform, while only 20% prefer reform to repeal. But since most of those who prefer repeal indicate that they will settle for reform, the politician has no reason to support repeal.)

Start pressuring all those legislators who say they are sympathetic to repeal actually to introduce repeal bills; if these politicians realize that we intend to demand repeal, and that we are not interested in their pseudo-repeal bills, they will begin to respond to us.

Abortion Legislation in New York State: page 3

On the federal level, urge Senator Robert Packwood to improve his 1970 abortion bill, which at present states only that "Any physician is authorized to perform. an abortion." Finally. be wary of a pressure group in which politicians hold key positions-even if it is your own group! (We need politicians, and we value their advice, but we must guard against their proclivity for compromise.)

The Media

The news media in New York seemed intent upon seeing abortion simply as a two-sided issue: either you were for the "reform" bill (or the "repeal" bill-the terms were used interchangeably) or you were against it. It took constant emphasis-news conferences, letters, massive demonstrations-to make even the most receptive news media aware of the distinction between reform and repeal, and the fact that many people were against the former but for the latter.

The New York Times, however, was hopeless. As the newspaper of record, The Times can afford to be sloppy in its reporting whatever gets printed in The Times is history, whether it happened or not. (For an analysis of how the media create history, see historian Daniel Boorstin's The Image. See also George Orwell's 1984.) The cavalier attitude of The Times is best summed up by an interchange with one Times reporter, to whom it was suggested that the issue of paraprofessionals in abortion was news worth covering, since it was something that had not yet received much coverage but that more and more people would be talking about. She replied testily, "The reporters and the editors of The Times will decide what is news. and if you think you know better than they do why don't you just try to get one of those jobs?"

Lessons: Keep plugging away at the media, through letters, delegations to editorial offices, news conferences, and demonstrations, to make them understand that, in view of the activity in the courts and the nature of politicians, it is self-defeating to support even the most liberal legislative "reform", and that you support only repeal. Set an example in your own newsletters, leaflets, and speeches, never referring to a bill as repeal unless it really would remove all special abortion restrictions from the books. Always make it clear that what happened in New York, or Alaska, or Hawaii, is not what you want in your state. "Implementation"

It is ironic to talk about "implementing" a set of legal restrictions, but many people and agencies in New York that never took the remotest interest in working for abortion law repeal

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Abortion Legislation in New York State: page 4

are now suddenly concerned about "implementation" of the new law.

Very briefly, the story is this: New York City municipal hospitals apparently are genuinely trying to provide abortion services as efficiently as possible within the limits of the law, although they do not pretend that they will be able to meet more than a fraction of the demand. Private hospitals in the New York City area, except for those that are tooling up specifically to make a financial killing in the new flesh market, are not trying so hard. Women typically report that their doctor wants $350, and the hospital wants anywhere from $250 on up-cash in advance. Doctors and hospitals in the rest of the state seem often to be acting as if the abortion law has not changed at all.

Citywide abortion referral services have been set up, in an attempt to coordinate requests for abortions. The services are swamped. Profit-making referral services are springing up to arrange abortions in profit-making hospitals, at simply appalling cost to the patient. ($600 to $900 is the typical price.) The State Medical Society, appointed state and city medical bureaucrats, and the hospitals themselves are busily imposing more special restrictions on abortion through formal and informal codes over which the people, and even the vast majority of doctors, have no control whatsoever. These include requirements that abortions be done only in hospitals or in clinics with artificially high "standards" that only profiteers could meet, requirements for committee approval of abortions, and

so on.

The immediate situation might not be dramatically different if we had repeal. But the door would be open to efficient service for all women who need abortions, through the training and use of paramedical specialists, and through the provision of late abortions when necessary. Repeal is certainly only a first step to making abortion available, but it is an essential first step. The opponents of abortion know this, and they have so far been successful in forestalling repeal by rallying support for compromises and "reforms." The spectacle of repealers joining with their enemies, to pass bills that prevent repeal, must end! And it can end, and it will end, when repealers realize that their strength lies in uniting, not with opponents of repeal, but with each other, and not to support compromises, but to fight them.

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Abortion Ruling: Some Good News ... and Some Bad News

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The first wave of excitement and relief that the US Supreme Court had finally come up with a pro-abortion ruling has led to some of the greatest celebrations since the Equal Rights Amendment passed Congress. It was clear that women all over the country would now have a legal basis to get abortions more readily, more safely, and closer to home than ever before; the benefits of this are too obvious to need enumeration for the thousandth time. It was also clear that the new feminist movement had played a major role in creating the the climate of opinion that made this decision possible. But as many abortion activists began to dismantle their organizational apparatus with astonishing haste, others began to peer behind the media's confused early reports and look closely at the decision itself, at the concepts underlying it, and at the opposition's reaction to it. What

can be found there should give us both ehcouragement and pause, as we consider what it all portends for the politics of reproductive self-determination. Justice Blackmun summarized the court's view of women's right to abortion by saying, "appellants and some amici

argue that the women's right is absolute and that she is entitled to terminate her pregnancy at whatever time, in whatever way, and for whatever reason she alone chooses. With this we do not agree... the privacy right involved... cannot be said to be absolute." Chief Justice Burger put it even more bluntly when he concluded:

"Plainly, the Court today rejects any claim that the Constitution requires abort. ion on demand." While the concept of no requirement does indicate that it would be permissible to have no special abortion laws, the lack

of a positive mandate warns us that the campaign for true freedom of choice can hardly be considered a total success; the decision has blazed a pathway but has set up many hurdles as well. In what ways did the court reject 'abortion on demand?" WHAT THE COURT SAID

In establishing a right of privacy in

abortion matters, the court immediately limits that right to such a degree that states may still make it much less private than other medical decisions. The court asserts a 'compelling" state interest in protecting" (1) women's health and (2) potential life". Never do they explain just what compels these special interests to take precedence over a woman's right to decide whether to abort or deliver. But they do announce in stentorian tones that laws may impose these "interests" more and more heavily as pregnancy progresses. In the first trimester of pregnancy (about 12 weeks-though never capable of precise definition because conception cannot be pinpointed), the court finds that, because statistically the safety of abortion is greater than that of continuing to delivery, the state may at the most. require that a physician perform the abortion. This means that in the many states where self-abortion is legal under certain conditions, and in the 31 states where no special ban on paramedics is on the books laws may be enacted to force a physicians' monopoly on this particular procedure. Thus, the court allows a state to ignore the rapidly developing technologies for non-MD methods and even for selfabortion; prices can remain artificially, high and the personnel supply artificially low. At least, however, the state may not go beyond this key restriction. In the second trimester, when relative risks begin to draw even with those of childbirth, the state may also step in and require that all procedures be done in licensed facilities. Surely most mid-pregnancy abortions will be done in hospitals for some time to come; but again, the potential of improved technologies can be quashed by state rules. And other "health preserving qualifications might also be fixed into law, again on this procedure as on no other.

But still later in pregnancy, the state may begin to say there can be no abortions unless one's life or health are endangered by continuing to term. (Although media reports have called this stage the "last 10 weeks", the court says that it "may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks."

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It is at this also-indeterminable time that the state may most strongly assert an in'protecting 'potential life" (as though sperm, ovum and 1-week embryo are not "life," as indeed is the back of your knee, if cloning research proceeds in the direction it has been going). Even New York's abortion law is not broad enough at this stage, since it now considers the only "justifiable" abortion af

ter 24 weeks to be a procedure meant to save the woman's life. The court's interpretation of "health" in this decision and in an earlier one does at least encompass both mental and physical health.

Besides this, the state cannot impose residency requirements or the need for special hospital abortion committees. As to the requirements under some "reform" laws that married women must have their husband's consent, by implication this might be forbidden at least in the first trimester. But the court side-stepped a ruling on this important issue by saying, in effect, that nobody asked them to rule on it, since neither the Texas nor the Georgia law requires it. (The question of parental consent for minors was not deal with either, since the problem of minors' right to consent to all kinds of medical care is in a state of flux, with states having many different laws on the subject.)

It is fascinating, though, that on the question of husband's consent the court suddenly reserved judgment: no one had asked them about whether abortion could be limited to doctors or restricted at certain stages of pregnancy. Texas law speaks not of a physician but of a "medical advisor", and while Georgia does require physicians, no one was challenging that particular requirement. And the laws of neither state make any distinction among the various stages of pregnancy; in fact, Georgia has allowed abortion at any stage not only for life and health but in cases of rape and threatened fetal deformity, and so could be made even more restrictive under the court's ruling. So could a new Texas law limit abortions to doctors only.

What do these "compelling" state interests in protecting us and in protecting potential life imply for closely-related health issues? First, if the reason the abortion environment can be restricted after the first trimester is that these abortions currently appear to be as dangerous as childbirth, the growing interest in midwifery, self-help, and at-home delivery could be cut short by a ludicrous but legally proper requirement that no one can plan to have a baby anywhere but in a medical facility or without a physician to deliver it. (Obviously, women who suddenly deliver in the proverbial taxicab could not be subject to arrest, provided the driver's intended destination was a hospital) Beyond this, it means that we must work against all advances in obstetrical safety, for fear that our relatively unrestricted "right" to early abortion would be chipped away if having a baby becomes safer than an early termination.

Since the current state of technology is a shifting foundation for allowing women to have abortions, we have every reason to be, like Chief Justice Burger, "troubled that the Court has taken notice of various scientific and medical data in reaching its conclusion." And, of course, the Court accepts and reinforces in its ruling the dubious the ory that the original English and US laws against abortion were enacted to protect women. Unfortunately, even those challenging the laws. use this argument. (For a fuller examination of these questions, see pp. 271-4 in Sisterhood is Powerful.)

It will also be necessary to oppose the advances in fetology and pediatrics. but who cannot now go to term: as both that would help women who want a child

welcome and unwelcome fetuses are able to be kept alive outside the uterus earlier and earlier by more and more sophisticated technology, possible legal challenges to the court's fuzzy, timebound definition of "viability' as the "point" at which "potential life" may take precedence over our needs would become more and more likely to succeed. The court defines "viable" to mean potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid.") And who can say how quickly, "artificial aid" may push "viability" back so far as to coincide with conception itself? 'PROTECTION' FOR WHOM? If people are to be protected against taking courses of action that may be

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more dangerous to themselves than other courses of action, surely we cannot really expect a spate of crank legislation to forbid skiing, driving a car, or -especially for women- leaving home after sundown? People could be forced to seek. medical care for every ailment not simply compelled to be vaccmated, quarantined, or otherwise cooperate in stopping contagious ailments. These absurd extensions lead to an examination of who is being "protected" in this ruling - and. why:

(1) If this decision had been made about some area of law that dealt with men as well as women, the notion that the state could simply decide to "protect" a person would surely not have been so blandly asserted. The idea that women should be protected is so ingrained in a sexist culture that only a very feeble rationale for it was found necessary in this ruling. Long observation teaches us that this special protection is almost invariably based not on a real concern for our well-being as autonomous persons but on a desire to exert control over our behavior. Rather than leaving us to take responsibility for our own decisions, making sure that we can find out about the possible consequences of various decisions, and acting to make various courses of action less fraught with risk, the state instead has preferred to forbid us to act, even when we have a reason for doing something "dangerous" that makes sense

to us.

Thus, for instance, the problem of rape will not be solved by telling women to refrain from moving about in the world, or by forcing us to protect" ourselves with special weapons; but rather by disclosing where and when rapists tend to operate now and by trying to curtail the behavior of those who do the raping (fighting the rape mentality, putting rape under the general laws of assault, enforcing these laws, and so on).

In the same way, should the state not make it possible for us to know the consequences of various decisions we may make about our pregnancies and then

leave us free to take whatever course of action we find most suitable, while working with us as health consumers to make all such courses as harmless to us as possible? We are already free not to seek prenatal care nor other medical care for noncontagious diseases, as noted above; in many states we are even legally free to attempt suicide. Clearly, the state would seem to have a logical interest in "protecting" our health and restricting our medical decisions only where we may otherwise inflict harm on someone else. And in this distinction lies the real meaning of why we are still being "protected" out of our full rights in the abortion area:

(2) The state's real interest here in protecting our health is actually an extension of its other "compelling interest": protecting potential life - not in keeping us from harm, since the existing body of general medical laws and practices can be relied upon to safeguard us (or at least can be challenged by us without special attention to one procedure). We are subjects of special control not because of our own value as individuals but because we harbor fetuses In other words, 'some one else" is involved in our deci

sion-making and the state may force us

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