When it comes to reproductive rights, 2015 has been a roller coaster of a year. In some ways, the threats to women’s health care seemed to be coming from all sides this year — from smear campaigns to legislative blocks to actual physical violence. Whether it was conservative lawmakers’ fundamental misunderstandings about the way women’s bodies work, or the reality of what it looks like when women lose access to medical care, this year has been deeply disheartening to those who believe in a woman’s right to bodily autonomy.
The past few years have seen an unprecedented rise in restrictions on access to abortion care and reproductive health. According to reproductive-rights research and policy center the Guttmacher Institute, between 2010 and 2014, 231 new restrictions on abortion have been passed on the state level. Sadly, the trends continued in 2015. This year saw pushes from legislators in multiple states to drastically limit the availability of reproductive health services. On the federal level, women’s health care itself seemed to be called on to justify its very existence.
Of course, not everything is dark. For every politician seeking to limit a woman’s options, there are activists ready to stand up and defend women’s access to health care. But even with that silver lining, it’s an ongoing battle. As the year rolls to an end, we've collected the biggest stories you need to know about what happened regarding reproductive rights in 2015, and what to expect to see come January.
Fourteen states have enacted restrictions on abortion this year.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, as of November, 14 states have enacted new restrictions on abortion this year: Kansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Arkansas, Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Idaho, Texas, and Iowa. And these are only the states that have actually passed laws — many more states have tried. In 2015, there were more than 200 laws introduced in state legislatures to restrict access to abortion.
Arkansas takes the gold star for 2015, with 13 separate new restrictions. As of April, Arkansas now prohibits use of telemedicine, has a multi-day waiting period for women seeking abortion, forces doctors to provide medically inaccurate information to patients, and requires admitting privileges for doctors providing medication abortions (a medically unnecessary requirement).
What To Look For In 2016:
As barriers such as waiting periods and onerous requirements for providers become routine, states are turning their attention to the healthcare markets. Many states are passing restrictions or bans on health-insurance coverage of abortion services, keeping the cost of services out of reach for many women. “We have states that essentially ban abortion coverage in health plans,” Elizabeth Nash, the senior state issues associate for the Guttmacher Institute, told Refinery29. “That is a huge barrier, once you learn that an abortion costs about $500. If your health plan doesn’t cover an abortion, you might not be able to access the service.”
The implementation of the Affordable Care Act has meant that women are more likely to have health insurance, but states are doing their best to limit the ability of that insurance to cover abortion. Ten states prohibit private insurance coverage of abortion except in cases where the mother’s life would be in danger, and 21 limit or prohibit insurance coverage of abortion for state employees.
A man walks past the former site of a clinic that offered abortions in El Paso, TX.
SCOTUS Has Agreed To Hear Its First Abortion-Rights Case In Over 20 Years
In November, the Supreme Court of the United States agreed to hear a challenge to the ultra-restrictive Texas law House Bill 2. The 2013 bill, one of a myriad of TRAP laws aimed at regulating abortion clinics out of existence, was challenged in court by a clinic called Whole Women’s Health, and will see its time in court sometime next year. In question are whether two requirements of the bill constitute an “undue burden” on patients seeking services, something forbidden by the 1992 SCOTUS case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The decision is the first time in over 20 years that the Supreme Court will rule on an abortion case, and reproductive-rights activists are hopeful that the Court will strike down the TRAP laws that multiple states have enacted to limit abortion access.
“Women should not have to go to court year after year after year, and win so many cases. We have sued the state of Oklahoma repeatedly, and won repeatedly over the years,” Nancy Northup, the legal counsel for Whole Women’s Health, told Refinery29 at the time. “That is no way to ensure strong constitutional protections. Women shouldn’t have to go to court every time there’s a new legislative session when [lawmakers] try some new flavor of denying women their constitutional rights.”
Amy Hagstrom Miller, the president of Texas clinic and lawsuit plaintiff Whole Women's Health.
What To Look For In 2016:
The Supreme Court case will likely be heard in March, with a decision coming months later. It will take at least a few months for the court to make an official ruling in the case, which means that we’re unlikely to have resolution on the issue until at least June. The good news is that the Court has ordered a stay on HB2 until it passes a ruling, meaning that the worst restrictions of the bill can’t go into effect in Texas.
The bad news is that Texas isn’t the only state with these sort of extreme regulations. Arkansas, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee have all enacted TRAP laws that put burdens on abortion providers that make it hard to stay open. Arizona, Arkansas, and Ohio have all enacted laws requiring abortion providers to have hospital privileges or transfer agreements with a hospital, one of the requirements of HB2 that will be judged in March.
In the meantime, you can donate directly to Whole Women’s Health, the clinic taking the fight to the Supreme Court. Every donation goes directly toward supporting the cost for low-income women to access abortion services while the legal fight rages on.
Pro-choice protestors demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court.
A handful of states have begun increasing access to and availability of contraception.
Several states began easing restrictions on access to birth control in 2015. California passed legislation this year that finally allows women to buy hormonal birth control over-the-counter, and Washington, DC, passed legislation to allow women to purchase a full year’s supply of hormonal birth control pills at once, rather than rationing them out for a single month or three months. Oregon, the champion, did both.
Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute says that she’s seen progress in the way states treat contraception. “At the state level, there have been many, many efforts to ensure access to contraception,” she said, “from expanding Medicaid, to providing funding for family planning services, to providing new laws that make it easier to get your contraceptives when you need them.”
Science backs up the benefits of easy access to contraception. Medical organizations including the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists support access to a year’s supply of hormonal birth control and easy over-the-counter access. The CDC recommends that women be given access to a full year’s supply of pills, as “the more pill packs given up to 13 cycles, the higher the continuation rates,” and limiting the distribution can mean that a woman is more likely to miss doses and end up pregnant.
What To Look For In 2016:
“I think contraception is a fairly positive story if we don’t include the refusal issue,” Nash told Refinery29. Currently, eight states allow healthcare providers to refuse to administer contraceptive services, and six states explicitly allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraception. Six more states have refusal clauses that are broad enough to apply to pharmacists. So while it may be easier for a woman to ask for her birth control without talking to a doctor, in many areas it doesn’t mean she’ll be able to get it. Also in question is whether insurance would continue to cover birth control as an over-the-counter medication.
Thankfully, there are dedicated advocates working on ensuring access to contraception. In June, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) introduced the Affordability is Access Act, which would aim to keep birth control available, particularly for low-income women. The bill would ensure insurance coverage of over-the-counter contraception, as well as forbid retailers from interfering "with a consumer’s access to or purchase of such contraception." When she introduced the bill, Sen. Murray said, “I believe strongly that women should be able to get the comprehensive health care they need, when they need it — without being charged extra, without asking permission, and without politicians interfering."
Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), who advocates for easier access to birth control, speaks at a press conference in 2013.
Three people were killed in a shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood.
On November 27, an armed man walked into a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, CO, and opened fire, killing three people and wounding nine more. Police quickly arrested a suspect, 59-year-old Robert Lewis Dear. Dear made a number of confused and disconnected statements during his arrest, including “No more baby parts,” and during a court appearance on December 9, he said that he was a “warrior for the babies.”
Both abortion-rights advocates and anti-abortion politicians have found common ground in calling the attack domestic terrorism. A statement from Vicki Saporta of the National Abortion Federation said that "although anti-abortion groups may condemn this type of violence when it happens, the way that they target and demonize providers contributes to a culture where some feel it is justifiable to murder doctors simply because they provide women with the abortion care they need." Though the Colorado Springs attack was the most deadly, it was not the only violence against abortion clinics this year. The National Abortion Federation has documented four cases of arson against clinics in 2015.
A sign outside the Planned Parenthood shows community support in the aftermath of the fatal shooting.
What To Look For In 2016:
Harassment at abortion clinics will likely continue to be a problem, even if most anti-abortion advocates remain nonviolent. Those who are on the front lines have come to see anti-abortion attacks as routine, and they have reason to.
After the attack in Colorado Springs, a former Planned Parenthood employee went viral with a series of tweets in which she detailed attacks that she had personally witnessed, including arson attacks, small bombs, gunshots, and anonymous calls threatening to kill the “murdering whores” who worked at the clinic. A study published last year showed an increasing trend of violence and intimidation against abortion providers in the United States, a trend that continued in 2015 and likely will not stop in 2016.
But, as President Obama said on Planned Parenthood’s Day of Solidarity, “too often these terrible acts seek to generate fear. That’s why today is so important — it’s an affirmation that we’re not afraid.” Supporters of reproductive rights can make a difference just by standing in solidarity with Planned Parenthood and its patients and volunteering as a clinic escort or attending a rally. Or there’s always what this woman did.
Clinic escorts stand as a barrier between anti-abortion protestors and a clinic entrance in Washington, DC.
California has begun regulating deceptive crisis pregnancy centers.
In October, California passed legislation requiring that crisis pregnancy centers be clear about what services they do or don’t provide. Clinics that don’t provide abortion services will have to display signs that notify women that California has public programs that provide contraception, family planning, and abortion services, including information about how to obtain access to those programs. If the clinic is not medically licensed, it would be required to advertise that fact. The law would require no changes to the way the clinics operate.
Crisis pregnancy centers have drawn fire from reproductive health advocates for being intentionally misleading about what services they offer pregnant women. Many clinics offer free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, but do not provide abortion services or refer women to abortion providers. They can also often be factually misleading about the side effects of aborting a pregnancy. A report by NARAL Pro-Choice California found that 46% of crisis pregnancy centers offered false information connecting abortion to breast cancer, and 34% connected abortion with later infertility. A full 72% warned women of the risk of a mythical “post-abortion stress.”
Two different clinics quickly filed suit against the bill, saying it violated the First Amendment. The president of the Pacific Justice Institute said in a statement that “forcing a religious pro-life charity to proclaim a pro-abortion declaration is on its face an egregious violation of both the free speech and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution.”
What To Look For In 2016:
New York is following California’s lead in trying to protect women from misinformation. The state has a bill in the works to attempt to force CPCs to disclose the services they do and do not provide. The bill was originally introduced in 2011, and has been stalled by challenges from clinics. Some cities, like New York City and Austin, TX, have managed to pass regulations on the municipal level, but even some of those have been overturned.
Certain states, such as Missouri and Texas, actively support anti-abortion CPCs. According to NARAL Pro-Choice America, 11 states fund crisis pregnancy centers directly. Whole Women’s Health, the plaintiff in the abortion-rights case that will go before the Supreme Court next year, has mapped more than 100 CPCs in Texas, a number that is in stark contrast to the 18 abortion clinics left in the state.
The director of a Planned Parenthood in the Bronx, NY, sits with her back to the view of a crisis pregnancy center visible from her window.
Anti-Abortion activists released a "sting" video attempting to discredit Planned Parenthood.
This summer, an anti-abortion group called The Center for Medical Progress released a series of heavily edited “sting” videos that claimed to prove that Planned Parenthood was making a profit on the remains of aborted fetuses. The “shocking” videos showed discussions between Planned Parenthood executives and individuals posing as representatives of biotechnology firms, in which Planned Parenthood representatives appeared to negotiate prices for aborted fetal tissue. Planned Parenthood immediately responded that the videos were doctored, and later investigation showed that the videos had been edited and “[did] not present a complete or accurate record of the events they purport[ed] to depict.”
But despite being discredited, the videos served their purpose — they vilified Planned Parenthood and fixed the group in the public eye. Conservative politicians immediately began calling to defund Planned Parenthood, and in September of this year the Republican-controlled House of Representatives held a hearing to investigate the accusations made by the videos. Despite the hearing finding no evidence of wrongdoing, the myths perpetuated by the videos have persisted. Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has repeatedly referred to the videos to bolster her credibility with conservative voters, despite evidence pointing to the video referenced being, at best, misleading and, at worst, simply nonexistent.
A still from a video released by the CMP shows a Planned Parenthood employee.
What To Look For In 2016:
The National Abortion Federation quickly slapped The Center for Medical Progress with a lawsuit, including a judge’s order blocking the CMP from releasing any more defamatory videos. The NAF is also seriously concerned over breach of privacy because of safety risks to abortion providers, whose information may have been leaked.
The lawsuit accuses CMP of civil conspiracy, fraud, racketeering, and breach of contract. Since the CMP is digging its heels in at every step, it will likely take quite some time for the case to actually come to trial. We’ll definitely be seeing news about the suit through the better part of 2016.
Also worrisome is the possibility that many states could respond to the video by banning the donation of fetal tissue. Many state legislatures had finished their sessions by the time the first videos were released, but when they reconvene in 2016, they may choose to enact bans on tissue donation, which could have devastating effects on medical research for diseases such as Alzheimers, which rely on the tissue.
David Daleiden, the founder of the Center for Medical Progress, as photographed for The Washington Post.
The Congressional Hearings On Planned Parenthood
In September Congress called the President of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, to testify at an investigative hearing before the House Oversight Committee. The hearing required Richards to defend Planned Parenthood’s acceptance of federal funds, as well as the organization’s service to women and professional ethics in the aftermath of a series of heavily edited videos that made false claims about fetal-tissue donation programs. Richards repeatedly explained the services that Planned Parenthood offers to primarily low-income women, keeping her cool through repeated interruptions and cut-offs from the mostly Republican and male committee.
One of the best moments of the hearing was a standoff between Richards and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), when the latter presented a slide with a graph that showed a simultaneous decline in breast exams and an increase in abortions. Chaffetz claimed that the information on the slide was pulled directly from Planned Parenthood’s own documents.
Richards whispered with an aide, then responded coolly, “The source of [the slide] is actually Americans United for Life, which is an anti-abortion group,” and advised him to check his sources. Indeed, the slide even still had the name of the group at the bottom-right corner.
What To Look For In 2016:
Despite all the politicians who banded together to call for Planned Parenthood’s demise, there are still plenty that support the women’s health organization. During the hearing, Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) shared an instance from her youth when Planned Parenthood provided necessary care that she would otherwise have been unable to get — care that had nothing to do with abortion. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) defended Planned Parenthood and called out the hypocrisy in asking Richards about her salary.
Though the presidential race gets most of the press, the 2016 election will also choose a series of new representatives and senators around the country. After a year of distasteful scrutiny and hounding of health providers, it’s possible that many of the elected officials who’ve led the smear campaigns could see their seats in jeopardy. For those who care deeply about reproductive rights, a representative’s support or demonization of Planned Parenthood could be the single issue they cast their vote on.
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards and Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings shake hands after the hearing on September 29.
States saw the benefits of providing teenage girls with free contraception.
In 2009, Colorado began offering free contraception to teenage girls and young women in an effort to curb the state’s high rate of teen pregnancy. The Colorado Family Planning Initiative used funds from a private donor to provide long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) such as IUDs and implants to low-income women and teens. The program proved to be an astounding success— this summer, news broke that Colorado had seen the rates for both teen birth and teen abortion nearly halved. In just a few years, Colorado moved from having the 29th-lowest teen birth rate to the 19th-lowest rate of teen births. As of 2014, the program had provided more than 30,000 IUDs or contraceptive implants.
The benefits of contraception were proved in Seattle as well. A program implemented there in 2010 made LARCs available to high school students via a program that puts health clinics in schools and allows teens to have access to birth control confidentially. Conservative news sources claimed, running headlines crying that 12-year-olds were now able to get birth control more easily than a can of cola, and without parental consent. But the young women who use the program approve of it.
The programs are saving the states a huge amount of money, as well. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment estimated that for every dollar invested in the initiative, the state saw an average return of $5.85, and estimates that Colorado saved between $49 and $111 million on birth-related costs because of the program.
What To Look For In 2016:
Despite the clear cost-effectiveness, the biggest threat to these programs is lack of funding. The Colorado program is already in danger — the money that funded it has run dry. Private foundations have raised $2 million to finance the program for an additional year, but when that money is gone, it will be hard for the program to secure the money it needs to keep going. There is a contentious debate among lawmakers about whether or not IUDs are abortifacients (they are not). Colorado forbids state funding for abortions.
In Seattle, the school-based health clinics that allow students easy access to birth control and other treatments rely heavily on private donations. The state funds that sponsor the program, which are provided through Medicaid, don’t cover all the costs. Statistics from the Guttmacher Institute estimates that without publicly funded services provided at safety-net health centers, the teen pregnancy rate in Washington state would be 46% higher.
Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
U.S. Military Members Tell Frightened Muslim Girl, "I Will Protect You"
"Happy Birthday Jesus": Amazing Photos Of Christmas In Suburbia
Laugh & Learn From The Best News Bloopers Of 2015