Sham Laws -- they're not about women's health
Sham Law:
An underhanded way for extremist politicians to limit a woman's right to end a pregnancy - while falsely claiming to protect her health.
Anti-choice lawmakers who pass sham laws will do anything to prevent women from making their own decisions about abortion. Even if it means lying.
They claim their dangerous, unconstitutional restrictions protect women's health - when in reality, they do the exact opposite.
Here's what politicians are really saying each time they pass a sham law: "You and your health are not my priority. My agenda is - and I'll tell you anything to pass it."
Sham laws will keep coming as long as anti-choice politicians think we aren't paying attention. So get the facts - and stop the sham.
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Sham laws requiring abortion providers to obtain hospital admitting privileges have nothing to do with protecting women's health. They are designed to be impossible to satisfyand to shut down clinics.
Hospitals in states where these laws have passedlike Texas and Louisiana, for examplehave been refusing to even consider the applications of doctors with stellar records of safe, compassionate, high-quality care. These regulations are medically unnecessaryand the American Medical Association opposes them.
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Abortion is one of the safest medical proceduresless than a quarter of 1 percent of women experience complications that would require additional care in a hospital. You are a staggering 40 times more likely to die from a colonoscopyyet the doctors who perform colonoscopies outside a hospital arent singled out for the same regulations as abortion providers.
ASC requirements serve no medical purpose. Instead, they force abortion clinics to make extensive renovations, such as widening hallways or adding closet spacechanges that are extremely expensive, and ultimately, force clinics to shut down.
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Despite what anti-choice politicians claim, each year approximately 25,000 women in the United States become pregnant as a result of rape. Of the 14 states that have banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, only one includes an exception for cases of rape or incest.
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Center for Reproductive Rights