Executive Branch
In 2010, President Obama signed Executive Order 13535: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s Consistency …show more content…
Planned Parenthood (1992) was a large step backwards in terms of making abortion accessible to all women. The provisions being looked at by the Supreme Court were spousal notification, parental consent for minors, 24 hour waiting periods, and information disclosure. At the Supreme Court level, it was ruled that all of the provisions except spousal notification were constitutional. Additionally, this case brought the idea of “undue burdern.” Regulations are only considered an “undue burden” if the woman’s right to an abortion is limited before the fetus is viable. This means that it is up to the States to decide what qualifies as an undue burden; this had led to an unfair amount of restrictions put on women (Markels, …show more content…
Carthart, Congress passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003. A partial-birth abortion is an abortion done via the vaginal canal. Under the act, any medical doctor that performs the partial-birth procedure and kills a fetus will be fined and/or put in prison for two years. The only exception is to save the life of the mother, but the fetus must be putting the mother’s life in danger. The reason this act was able to be labelled as constitutional is because it was deemed to be not medically necessary. This was countered by American College of Obstetricians and the American Medical Women’s Association who said that the procedure allows for a quicker grieving process, fewer sharp instruments, and a lesser chance of uterine perforations and cervical lacerations. However, the ban was still passed and is upheld today (Gordon,