Missouri’s abortion report for 2018 was released in December 2019, showing a significant drop in abortions from the previous year. Changes in Missouri Abortions, 2017-2018 Information on Planned Parenthood’s Missouri market share is not publicly available. Abortion Totals and Trends A record low 2,910 abortions were reported as occurring in Missouri in […]
Note: This paper was updated in August 2021 and can be found at: https://lozierinstitute.org/legislative-and-litigation-overview-of-20-week-abortion-laws/ The entire paper may be viewed as a pdf here: On-Point-34_Legislative-and-Litigation-Overview-of-Five-Month-Abortion-Laws-Enacted-Before-and-After-2010_Final This paper sets out legislative and litigation information involving state laws that prohibit abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy, roughly five months or more than halfway through pregnancy. […]
The following is a compilation of public stories shared by families who were affected by a prenatal diagnosis of a lethal or non-lethal fetal anomaly or very premature birth.
The following are papers published by the Charlotte Lozier Institute in the On Point or American Reports Series on issues involving 20-week or five-month abortion laws.
Missouri HB 908 would prohibit abortions after the point at which unborn children are capable of feeling pain. Kristi Burton Brown, J.D., submitted the following written testimony in support of HB 908.
On May 12, 2015, David A. Prentice, Ph.D., Vice President and Research Director of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, was invited to speak on the science of fetal pain on Points of View radio talk show. On May 13, 2015 the United States House of Representatives passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.
The full transcript is here.
Professor Randy Beck is the Justice Thomas O. Marshall Chair of Constitutional Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. He has authored a new article discussing the constitutionality of five-month abortion laws. The article is not yet published in a journal but has been posted on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) with a date of March 2, 2015.
The article is titled “Fetal Viability and Twenty-Week Abortion Statutes.” According to the abstract, the article “advances four arguments for the constitutionality of a 20-week statute, including three based on current case law or minor modifications to current case law.”
The subject of fetal pain is and has been both a controversial and compelling aspect of the debate surrounding abortion. Whether a child in the womb can feel pain and at what stage raises many ethical issues and, for many, introduces another source of uncertainty into personal views on the matter of abortion. With advances in modern science and ongoing research, it is becoming more apparent that the unborn child can feel pain by 20 weeks, i.e., five months, or even earlier in the pregnancy.
This January, an extensively researched document on the science of fetal pain was published by the Family Research Council (FRC). The report cites more than 30 scientific studies, testimonies, medical evidence, and real-life experiences in its exposition of the science of fetal pain as the weeks advance post-fertilization.
The issue of late-term abortion is among the most agonizing and controversial areas within the larger, contentious debate on the morality and legality of abortion. To begin with, by the 20th week or fifth month of pregnancy, the fetus is clearly recognizable as a neonate and she is routinely described on professional medical websites in terms that stress her individuality and humanity; in addition, the methods used to terminate fetal life after five months are particularly grim and are often cited by abortion practitioners themselves in ways that indicate their ethical or aesthetic revulsion.
Of interest to the medical, moral, sociological, and political issues surrounding late-term abortion is the question of why women seek abortion after twenty weeks gestation. Any data considered to answer this question must be examined carefully for limitations. However, a greater understanding of the reasons why women choose these late-term procedures is valuable to those who seek to offer alternative, compassionate options.
Five-month abortion laws restrict abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy—when an unborn child can feel pain from abortion. Opponents of five-month abortion laws argue they violate the “viability rule” created by the U.S. Supreme Court. The viability rule provides that government “may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability.” In most cases viability will occur after 20 weeks of pregnancy. However, the viability rule is unworkable, arbitrary, unjust, poorly reasoned, inadequate, and extreme. The viability rule cannot be justified, especially as applied to five-month laws. In a challenge to a five-month law it is reasonable to conclude that the Court might abandon the viability rule altogether or not apply it to five-month laws.
This groundbreaking report finds that the United States is one of only seven countries in the world to permit elective abortion beyond 20 weeks gestation. It examines international abortion policies and finds U.S. laws to be among the most permissive in the world – allowing abortion more than halfway through pregnancy and past the point at which research shows the unborn child can feel pain.
This paper examines how laws limiting abortion after twenty weeks can have the effect of prohibiting disability discrimination in the womb.
Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an order that allows a recently enacted Texas abortion regulation to take effect. The case is called Planned Parenthood v. Abbott and it was filed by several Planned Parenthood entities and similar organizations. Here are three things you need to know about the case.
The Lozier Institute filed a comment on a West Virginia law, urging for a gestational age limit to abortions and implementation of health and safety standards for abortion facilities.
(Click here for a chart detailing all state abortion limitations: Abortion Funding Limits) In the last three years, an increasing number of states have debated and/or passed statutes limiting abortions beyond a certain point in pregnancy. Most recently, Texas legislators voted to ban abortions after five months of pregnancy and to increase the health and safety […]
This chart lists each state’s abortion restriction statutes based on gestational age, whether a viability standard applies, and whether there is any pending legal action.
A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the enforcement of Arizona’s House Bill 2036, which was intended to go into effect today after much contentious debate. The new law bans abortions after 20 weeks gestation – four weeks earlier than previously permitted in the state – and it does so on the grounds that abortions done at that stage […]
The Subcommittee on the Constitution of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing on legislation that would ban abortions in the District of Columbia after 20 weeks fetal gestation, based on the ability of the fetus to experience pain at that point and beyond.