The first new abortion ban passed by a state legislature since the overthrow of Roe v. Wade this summer will take effect Thursday in Indiana.
Indiana
lawmakers passed a law banning most abortions in a special session in early August. The law prohibits abortion in Indiana, with some limited exceptions.The Indiana Legislature passed SB 1, a law that will prohibit abortion, putting the health and safety of Hoosiers residents at risk. Learn more about the fight for access to abortion. Indiana, like other states with restrictions on abortion, allows nearly all health care providers to choose not to provide care for aborted patients. The Washington Post reported that obstetricians-gynecologists are refusing job offers in states with restrictive abortion laws.
But the Indiana Supreme Court later upheld a law requiring an 18-hour waiting period before a woman could have an abortion, although it did not decide whether the state constitution included the right to privacy or to abortion. Tian grew up and went to school in Chicago and decided to come to Indiana to reside because the program has a strong focus on family planning.
Indiana University
Health, the state's largest hospital system, has established counseling teams that include a lawyer to check if patients meet the legal requirements for abortions. Now, since many nearby states, including Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia, are also pushing for an abortion ban, patients may have to travel hundreds of miles in some cases to receive care, said Elizabeth Nash, policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights.Indiana University law professor Daniel Conkle said that filing the lawsuits so soon before the ban took effect made it difficult to obtain a court order that would block it, but that its entry into force will not end the judicial fight. The ban that West Virginia lawmakers approved on Tuesday is similar to that in Indiana and is now addressed to the Republican governor. In addition to the near total ban on abortion, Republicans in Indiana passed legislation that they said was intended to support pregnant women and mothers, but critics noted that much of the money was intended to support crisis pregnancy centers run by anti-abortion groups. Meg Sterchi is the executive director of Adoptions of Indiana, a non-profit organization that provides a variety of educational and support services for biological parents and adoptive families.
Shannon Schumacher is the president and CEO of Villages of Indiana, the state's largest non-profit child and family services agency. Indiana's ban includes exceptions that allow abortions in cases of rape and incest before the tenth week of pregnancy and to protect the mother's life and physical health. The statement was the first comment that Eli Lilly, who employs more than 10,400 people in Indianapolis, made about the legislation. The case drew global attention when an Indianapolis doctor said the girl arrived in Indiana because of the Ohio ban on abortions once fetal heart activity can be detected, which usually occurs around the sixth week of pregnancy and often before the mother knows she is pregnant.
Unlike many smaller Indiana companies, both Cummins and Eli Lilly were publicly silent until the decision was passed. Meanwhile, activists began discussing plans to raise funds and provide transportation to those seeking access to abortion once the ban goes into effect, said Carol McCord, a former Planned Parenthood employee. .
