Abortion In Washington

Abortion in Washington is legal. 60% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Washington currently has nineteen abortion clinics. The number of clinics has declined over the years, with 95 in 1982, 65 in 1992 and 33 in 2014.  There were 17,710 legal abortions performed in the state in 2014, and 17,098 in 2015.

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.

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 1950, the state legislature passed a law 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.

Abortion was made legal in 1970. Prior to that, it was illegal in the state with a therapeutic exception if the life of the mother was at risk. In 1971, the state repealed its statute that said inducing an abortion was a criminal offense. Hawaii, New York, Alaska and Washington were the first states to repeal their abortion laws in the pre-Roe v. Wade era. Still, state law in 1971 required that any woman getting a legal abortion in the state needed to be a resident for some specific period between 30 and 90 days.

As of 2017, Washington State, New Mexico, Illinois, Alaska, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey allow qualified non-physicians to prescribe drugs for medical abortions only. In August 2018, the state had a law to protect the right to have an abortion. In February 2019, the Washington State Attorney General issued an opinion that the physician-only clause of Washington State abortion law (I-120) was unenforceable, and that aspiration and medication abortion prior to viability was within the scope of nurse practitioners and physician assistants. As of May 14, 2019, the state prohibited abortions after the fetus was viable, generally some point between week 24 and 28. This period uses a standard defined by the US Supreme Court in 1973 with the Roe v. Wade ruling.

Ballot box history

In 1970, Washington held a referendum on legalizing early pregnancy abortions, becoming the first state to legalize abortion through a vote of the people. When Washington made abortion legal by referendum, it was the first state in the country to do so. In 1991, a ballot box measure passed that made abortion legal up to the point where a fetus was viable.

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. The 1989 US Supreme Court case Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services was about Missouri State's law that said  "life begins at conception".  A provision of the law said public facilities could not be used to perform abortions.  This provision was ruled unconstitutional, but for the first time since 1973, the US Supreme Court did not cite reaffirm Roe v. Wade in their decision.

Clinic history

Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state declined by thirty, going from 95 in 1982 to 65 in 1992. In 2014, there were 33 abortion clinics in the state. In 2014, 64% of the counties in the state did not have an abortion clinic. That year, 15% of women in the state aged 15 – 44 lived in a county without an abortion clinic. In March 2016, there were 35 Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. In 2017, there were 34 Planned Parenthood clinics in a state with a population of 1,645,293 women aged 15 – 49 of which 26 offered abortion services.

Statistics

In 1990, 606,000 women in the state faced the risk of an unintended pregnancy. In 2014, 60% 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 3.9 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Illegal abortion deaths

Between 1945 and 1969, there were thirteen reported deaths of women in the Seattle area by the Seattle Times as a result of botched illegal abortions. In the period between 1972 and 1974, there was zero recorded illegal abortion deaths in the state.

Martha Alit died from a botched illegal abortion in 1954, leaving behind 9 children. Beatrice Fisher died in 1945 after a botched abortion performed by surgeon Dr. Frank C. Hart.  He was sentenced to 20 years in prison as a consequence of her death. Mary Johnson, Beulah LeClair, Patricia Dickinson, Patricia Parrish, Bettye Porter and Irene Timmons all died as a result of botched illegal abortions between 1945 and 1969 in the Seattle area.

Claudette Sayles died on July 30, 1960, from a botched abortion.  Murder charges were brought against the person who performed it. Sharon Hoag died on February 1, 1963, from a botched illegal abortion. Lee Blue performed the abortion that resulted in her death; he had already been sent to prison twice before for providing abortions and the third conviction resulted in a life sentence. 24-year-old Raisa Trytiak was found dead on February 8, 1967 after having an illegal abortion when she was six months pregnant.  Her official cause of death was listed as embolism from a botched abortion. 61-year-old Jack Blight was tried for manslaughter in her death, found guilty and given 20 years of probation. Newlywed 22-year-old Elizabeth Zack Staley from Olympia died from an illegal abortion in March 1967 that was performed by her husband, Ronald Jae Staley, and a 19-year-old female friend.  Staley was sentenced to 15 years in prison after being found guilty of abortion and manslaughter.

Abortion financing

State Medicaid coverage of medically necessary abortion services. Navy blue: Medicaid covers medically necessary abortion for low-income women through legislation. Royal blue: Medicaid covers medically necessary abortions for low-income women under court order. Gray: Medicaid denies abortion coverage for low-income women except for cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment.

17 states including Washington use their own funds to cover all or most "medically necessary" abortions sought by low-income women under Medicaid, 13 of which are required by State court orders to do so. In 2010, the state had 14,236 publicly funded abortions, of which were zero federally funded and 14,236 were state funded.

Abortion rights views and activities

2018--Indivisible demonstration in Olympia regarding Brett Kavanaugh.

Protests

Women from the state participated in marches supporting abortion rights as part of a #StoptheBans movement in May 2019.

Views

Women in Film Executive Director Kirsten Schaffer said of Georgia and other states similar restrictive abortion bans passed in early 2019, "A woman's right to make choices about her own body is fundamental to her personal and professional well-being. [...] We support people who make the choice not to take their production to Georgia or take a job in Georgia because of the draconian anti-choice law. To that end, we've compiled a list of pro-choice states that offer meaningful tax rebates and production incentives, and encourage everyone to explore these alternatives: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Washington."

Anti-abortion views and activities

Seattle Women's March 2019

Violence

Two documented arson attacks on abortion clinics took place in 1983 including one in Washington. Between this attack and one in Virginia, over US$500,000 in damage was done to the two clinics. On June 11, 2001, an unsolved bombing took place at a clinic in Tacoma, Washington, destroyed a wall, resulting in $6,000 in damages. On September 4, 2015, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Pullman, Washington was intentionally set on fire. No injuries were reported due to the time of day, but the FBI was involved because of a history of domestic terrorism against the clinic. The crime was never solved. The clinic reopened six months later.

Footnotes