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jenk ([personal profile] jenk) wrote2006-01-31 03:07 pm
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Abortion - local and US. Oh, and CHOCOLATE!

"Is there any subject before the American public today more overworked than abortion?" - Frazier to Mandy in Venus Envy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is something I tend not to want to talk about but today I seem to have a bug up my butt about it. So here's some things you might (or might not) have known.

First up: CHOCOLATE!
Don't miss NARAL Pro-Choice Washington's 15th Annual Chocolate for Choice, Wednesday, March 8th 2006 from 6:00-8:00pm in the Ellis Pavilion at Safeco Field. Get your ticket now for an evening of unlimited access to tasty chocolates from donors like Café Juanita, The Essential Baking Company, and Earth & Ocean and fun!
Second: Yes, abortion in much of the US as a whole may be on life support. Washington State is a different matter. Here it's legal by law, not Roe v Wade. Better, it's been on the ballot 3 times in the last 35 years, and been upheld each time. I think the state income tax is the only measure with a similar record - it's been voted down 2 or 3 times. Dem Gary Locke didn't support a state income tax because "the people have spoken"; prolife Catholic Republican John Carlson didn't support banning abortion because "the people have spoken".

Does that mean it absolutely could not be banned? No. But a simple overturn of Roe v Wade won't do it. From HistoryLink:
The Washington Territorial Legislature adopted its first abortion-related statute in 1854. [...] The law was revised slightly in 1869, 1873, and 1881, but the stipulation about quickening was not removed until 1909. In that year, a new law made it a crime for anyone, including the prospective mother, to terminate any pregnancy unless necessary to save the life of the mother (Chap. 249, Session Laws, 1909).
"Quickening" refers to when the woman can feel the fetus moving, or about 4 months along. So early abortions were legal in Washington until 1909.
Women as well as doctors played a prominent role in the movement to decriminalize abortion in Washington in the late 1960s. However, the impetus and initial direction came from medical providers, seeking simply to enlarge the legal space in which physicians could perform abortions. [I]n the early years, the focus was on the rights of doctors to practice medicine without interference.
One would think free-market Republicans could get behind that sentiment :P Since then there have been at least 3 statewide votes on abortion:
  1. Referendum 20, passed in 1970, which legalized abortion in the early months of pregnancy. Note this was superceded by...
  2. Initiative 120, aka The Reproductive Rights Act, passed in 1989, which legalized a woman's right to choose an abortion "prior to viability of the fetus, or to protect her life or health."
  3. Initiative 694 in 1998 failed; it would have removed the question of viability from certain abortions. Specifically, "partial birth" abortions would have only be allowed to save the life of the mother (note if the fetus if viable this is already illegal under Initiative 120).
Yes, the US is bigger than WA, and I don't mean "we've got ours so no worries". But the local issues and strategies will be different than in, oh, the rural South.

Third is a few more interesting links I stumbled across: And yes, Virginia, I was old enough to vote for 120 & against 694.