Abortion In Indiana
Abortion in Indiana is legal. 43% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. By 1950, the state legislature had tried to pass a law criminalizing women seeking or having abortions. By the early 2000s, the state had passed a law banning abortions after 22 weeks because they alleged that the fetus can feel pain. In 2007, the state had a customary informed consent provision for abortions in place. In 2018, the state legislature tried and failed to make abortion illegal in almost all cases.
The number of abortion clinics in the state has been declining in recent years, going from thirty in 1982 to nineteen in 1992 to nine in 2014. There were 9,765 legal abortions in 2014 and 9,546 in 2015. At least one protest as part of #StopTheBans took place in the state in May 2019. Indiana has also seen violence as a result of anti-abortion rights activities.
Terminology
The abortion debate most commonly relates to the "induced abortion" of an embryo or fetus at some point in a pregnancy, which is also how the term is used in a legal sense. Some also use the term "elective abortion", which is used in relation to a claim to an unrestricted right of a woman to an abortion, whether or not she chooses to have one. The term elective abortion or voluntary abortion describes the interruption of pregnancy before viability at the request of the woman, but not for medical reasons.
Anti-abortion advocates tend to use terms such as "unborn baby", "unborn child", or "pre-born child", and see the medical terms "embryo", "zygote", and "fetus" as dehumanizing. Both "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are examples of terms labeled as political framing: they are terms which purposely try to define their philosophies in the best possible light, while by definition attempting to describe their opposition in the worst possible light. "Pro-choice" implies that the alternative viewpoint is "anti-choice", while "pro-life" implies the alternative viewpoint is "pro-death" or "anti-life". The Associated Press encourages journalists to use the terms "abortion rights" and "anti-abortion".
Context
Free birth control correlates to teenage girls having a fewer pregnancies and fewer abortions. A 2014 New England Journal of Medicine study found such a link. At the same time, a 2011 study by Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health also found that states with more abortion restrictions have higher rates of maternal death, higher rates of uninsured pregnant women, higher rates of infant and child deaths, higher rates of teen drug and alcohol abuse, and lower rates of cancer screening. The study singled out Oklahoma, Mississippi and Kansas as being the most restrictive states that year, followed by Arkansas and Indiana for second in terms of abortion restrictions, and Florida, Arizona and Alabama in third for most restrictive state abortion requirements.
According to a 2017 report from the Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health, states that tried to pass additional constraints on a women's ability to access legal abortions had fewer policies supporting women's health, maternal health and children's health. These states also tended to resist expanding Medicaid, family leave, medical leave, and sex education in public schools. According to Megan Donovan, a senior policy manager at the Guttmacher Institute, states have legislation seeking to protect a woman's right to access abortion services have the lowest rates of infant mortality in the United States.
Poor women in the United States had problems paying for menstrual pads and tampons in 2018 and 2019. Almost two-thirds of American women could not pay for them. These were not available through the federal Women, Infants, and Children Program (WIC). Lack of menstrual supplies has an economic impact on poor women. A study in St. Louis found that 36% had to miss days of work because they lacked adequate menstrual hygiene supplies during their period. This was on top of the fact that many had other menstrual issues including bleeding, cramps and other menstrual induced health issues. This state was one of a majority that taxed essential hygiene products like tampons and menstrual pads as of November 2018.
History
Legislative history
By the end of the 1800s, all states in the Union except Louisiana had therapeutic exceptions in their legislative bans on abortions. In the 19th century, bans by state legislatures on abortion were about protecting the life of the mother given the number of deaths caused by abortions; state governments saw themselves as looking out for the lives of their citizens. By 1950, the state legislature would pass a law that stating that a woman who had an abortion or actively sought to have an abortion regardless of whether she went through with it were guilty of a criminal offense.
The state passed a law in the 2000s banning abortions after 22 weeks based on the theory (unaccepted by mainstream medical organizations) that this is the point in development after which the fetus can feel pain. The state was one of ten states in 2007 to have a customary informed consent provision for abortions. In 2011, the state was one of six where the legislature introduced a bill that would have banned abortion in almost all cases. It did not pass. In 2013, state Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) had provisions related to admitting privileges and licensing. They required clinics have hospital privileges or some similar agreement.
The state legislature passed the "Sex Selective and Disability Abortion Ban" in 2016. The bill banned abortions based solely on the fetus' gender, race, ethnicity or detected disability, holding the doctors that perform them liable, and requiring women undergoing abortions to be notified of this 18 hours before the operation. The bill also demanded that aborted fetus be treated as deceased humans, requiring clinics to bury or incinerate the bodies if the woman did not take control of this. The bill was set to go into effect in July 2016, but courts have enjoined a permanent injunction against the bill's provisions on the basis these violation the right to an abortion established by Roe v. Wade. The challenge to the injunctions reached the Supreme Court of the United States by May 2019, where the Court's per curiam decision in Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc. reversed the injunction on the fetal disposal aspect, stating that had no impact on a woman's right to an abortion. The Supreme Court did not rule on any merits of the non-discriminator clauses, leaving the permanent injunction in place.
In 2018, the state was one of eleven where the legislature introduced a bill that would have banned abortion in almost all cases but were unsuccessful in passing it. Nationally, 2019 was one of the most active years for state legislatures in terms of trying to pass abortion rights restrictions. State governments with Republican majorities started to push these bills after Brett M. Kavanaugh was confirmed as a US Supreme Court judge, replacing the more liberal Anthony M. Kennedy. These state governments generally saw this as a positive sign that new moves to restrict abortion rights would less likely face resistance by the courts. The Indiana Legislature passed a ban of the most common type of second-trimester abortion procedure in the state in April 2019. As of mid-May 2019, state law banned abortion after week 22.
Judicial history
The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester.
Clinic history
Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state decreased by eleven, going from 30 in 1982 to 19 in 1992. In 2014, there were nine abortion clinics in the state. In 2014, 95% of the counties in the state did not have an abortion clinic. That year, 66% of women in the state aged 15 – 44 lived in a county without an abortion clinic. In March 2016, there were 23 Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. In 2017, there were seventeen Planned Parenthood clinics in a state with a population of 1,505,980 women aged 15 – 49 of which four offered abortion services.
Statistics
In 1990, 665,000 women in the state faced the risk of an unintended pregnancy. In 2010, the state had zero publicly funded abortions. In 2013, among white women aged 15–19, there were abortions 720, 280 abortions for black women aged 15–19, 90 abortions for Hispanic women aged 15–19, and 70 abortions for women of all other races. In 2014, 43% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. In 2017, the state had an infant mortality rate of 7.3 deaths per 1,000 live births.
| Census division and state | Number | Rate | % change 1992–1996 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 1995 | 1996 | 1992 | 1995 | 1996 | ||
| East North Central | 204,810 | 185,800 | 190,050 | 20.7 | 18.9 | 19.3 | –7 |
| Illinois | 68,420 | 68,160 | 69,390 | 25.4 | 25.6 | 26.1 | 3 |
| Indiana | 15,840 | 14,030 | 14,850 | 12 | 10.6 | 11.2 | –7 |
| Michigan | 55,580 | 49,370 | 48,780 | 25.2 | 22.6 | 22.3 | –11 |
| Ohio | 49,520 | 40,940 | 42,870 | 19.5 | 16.2 | 17 | –13 |
| Wisconsin | 15,450 | 13,300 | 14,160 | 13.6 | 11.6 | 12.3 | –9 |
| Location | Residence | Occurrence | % obtained by out-of-state residents |
Year | Ref | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Rate^ | Ratio^^ | No. | Rate^ | Ratio^^ | ||||
| Indiana | 9,765 | 7.5 | 116 | 8,118 | 6.3 | 97 | 6.1 | 2014 | |
| Indiana | 9,546 | 7.4 | 114 | 7,957 | 6.1 | 95 | 5.9 | 2015 | |
| Indiana | 9,501 | 7.3 | 114 | 7,277 | 5.6 | 88 | 7.0 | 2016 | |
| ^number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44; ^^number of abortions per 1,000 live births | |||||||||
Illegal and unsafe abortion deaths
In the period between 1972 and 1974, there was only one recorded illegal abortion death in the state.
In Indiana, where there are also parental consent laws, a young woman by the name of Becky Bell died from an unsafe abortion rather than discuss her pregnancy and wish for an abortion with her parents. Bell discovered she was pregnant in 1988. She went to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Indiana with her friend Heather Clark, seeking an abortion. There she was told that state law required consent from her parents for the procedure and that most minors in her area simply went to Louisville, less than 100 miles away, to avoid parental disclosure. She also had the option of going before a judge to argue for a waiver of parental consent, but reportedly feared that her parents would find out. Bell was subsequently confused about what to do, according to Clark, alternating between plans to have an abortion in Kentucky, carrying to term and placing the baby for adoption, or running away to California. On a Saturday night in September 1988, Bell left her house, telling her parents that she was going to a party. She came home ill, disheveled, and in tears. Her illness worsened over the next few days but she would not seek medical attention. Her parents ultimately forced her to see their family physician who diagnosed severe pneumonia and had her hospitalized. She died on September 16, 1988.
Bell's autopsy revealed fetal matter and evidence of infection in her genital tract, but no evidence of internal injury or marks on the cervix. The official cause of death was attributed to septic abortion complicated by pneumonia. The county coroner and pathologist both later told the press that the abortion and infection were most likely caused by the use of unsterile instruments during an illegal abortion procedure. After Bell's death, her parents found among Bell's possessions contact information for abortion clinics in nearby Kentucky, which did not have parental consent laws, but there was no record of her visiting a Kentucky clinic. It remains unclear whether Bell obtained an induced abortion or induced the abortion herself. Two years after her death, Clark, the friend who went to Planned Parenthood with Bell, told reporters that she did not believe that Bell had an induced abortion.
Criminal prosecutions of abortion
Purvi Patel was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Indiana in March 2015 for attempting to induce an abortion using medications she had ordered over the internet.
Abortion rights views and activities
Protests
#StopTheBans was created in response to 6 states passing legislation in early 2019 that would almost completely outlaw abortion. Women wanted to protest this activity as other state legislatures started to consider similar bans as part of a move to try to overturn Roe v. Wade. At least one protest as part of #StopTheBans took place in the state.
Anti-abortion views and activities
Violence
On April 11, 2013, Benjamin David Curell, 27, caused extensive damage to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bloomington, Indiana, vandalizing it with an axe. Curell was convicted in state court of felony burglary, and pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. In the federal case, he was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay restitution.
Footnotes
- ^ According to the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade:
Likewise, Black's Law Dictionary defines abortion as "knowing destruction" or "intentional expulsion or removal".(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgement of the pregnant woman's attending physician. (b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health. (c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgement, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.