2006 saw Women's Choice issues hold steady in the face of continued onslaught. Although I am grateful that bills such as the one banning clinics from using taxpayers money, or the bill to give pharmacists the right to refuse to provide birth control or emergency contraception never made it into law, I'm looking to 2007 as a time to roll back some of Governor Pawlenty's more onerous anti-choice legislation from his first term.
The first law that needs to be revisited is the 24-hour waiting period for women who have chosen to terminate their pregnancies. Hitched onto a circus bill by Republican Marty Seifert in 2003, the period requires women who have already spent a great deal of agonizing over their choice before coming to a decision to wait another 24 hours after visiting a doctor. Seifert may be knowledgeable about how to run a circus, as can be assumed by his quick rise through the MNGOP, but did not consider the effects that the bill would have on working or low income women seeking an abortion.
Working women and women without access to local clinics are forced to make the procedure a two-day ordeal. For women who are choosing to terminate a pregnancy due to not being able to care for a child financially Minnesota government is adding the expense of being away from home or missing time from work, adding yet another burden on lower income women who are meant to be protected by having abortion legal and accessible in the first place.
I hope that the new legislation will have a chance to reconsider the waiting period and look for information to see if the period is, in fact, having a positive effect on abortion in this state, or is more often adding extra burden an punishment to women choosing to seek out this alternative.