In my last article, I wagged a finger at Mother Jones and The Washington Post for what I considered to be shoddy and disingenuous coverage of a fetal personhood bill currently moving through the South Dakota State legislature. Today, I want to talk about propaganda stemming from the anti-abortion side.
First with Roe v. Wade (1973), and then Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), the United States Supreme Court prohibited states from completely banning abortions, and also curtailed their ability to restrict access.
Consequently, during the last twenty years anti-abortion activists have had to find creative ways to impede women’s access to abortions. At the federal level, this has primarily taken the shape of withholding federal funds for abortions, both at home and abroad. So for example, shortly after taking office, President Obama reversed President Bush’s policy of not granting any federal money to international organizations that perform abortions or even offer information about them.
Domestically, the 1976 Hyde Amendment bars Medicaid from funding abortions for its indigent patients. The details of that bill have fluctuated over the years, but its current form makes exceptions for rape, incest, or if the pregnancy endangers a woman’s life. During the 1980s, subsequent bills banned federal funding of abortions for women receiving healthcare from a variety of federal institutions including the Indian Health Service, federal penitentiaries, the military, the Peace Corps, disabled women on Medicare, and all federal employees.
Given the limits laid down by Roe and Casey, anti-abortion activists have accomplished most of what they can reasonably achieve at the federal level. As a result, many have long since turned their attention toward friendly state governments, particularly in the South and Midwest. By working in statehouses, instead of in Congress, they hope to make it as difficult as possible for women to get abortions. And they have been highly successful.
One of the most successful has been South Dakota. For example, it is the one state in the union that goes beyond the restrictions laid out in the Hyde Amendment, paying 
only for abortions that threaten a mother’s life; South Dakota refuses to fund an abortion for a woman who becomes pregnant because of violent rape, familial incest, or both. But South Dakota is hardly alone in finding ways to pass restrictive policies and measures.
Four states have laws triggering a complete ban on abortions if Roe is ever overturned. Another thirteen still have old, statewide bans that are currently unenforceable but ready to go if Roe is repealed. Seven states have official policies restricting abortion rights to the maximum extent allowed by federal law.
In practical terms, onerous regulations and restrictions in many states have crippled healthcare providers who would normally offer abortions. Such obstacles are highly 
effective. As I mentioned in my prior post, the entire state of South Dakota has only one facility providing abortions. Mississippi has just two.
Limiting funding is of course perfectly legal, as are various regulatory impediments, so long as they don’t become so Byzantine that they serve as de facto prohibitions (that’s actually what Casey was about). But beyond the issues of money and regulating health providers lies the rather dubious practice of regulating women directly.
In a number of states, women seeking abortions are subjected to what can fairly be called propaganda. Women must endure mandatory consultations, the primary purpose of which is to guilt and shame them into not having an abortion. These consultations often take place at unlicensed, unregulated, privately run Crisis Pregnancy Centers (more on them tomorrow) that are frequently staffed by anti-abortion activists who push misleading or even false information.
One of the most dubious pieces of disinformation is being pedaled in Texas, Alaska, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and West Virginia. At mandatory consultations in those states, patients are told that having an abortion may increase their risk of breast 
cancer. This is, simply put, a lie.
With two decades of research, the medical community has found absolutely no evidence to support a link between abortions (or miscarriages) and breast cancer.
Furthermore, as findings like this 1997 study in The New England Journal of Medicine have made clear, there is not even a correlation, much less a causal relationship. The National Cancer Institute, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, is adamant about this: there is no connection whatsoever between breast cancer and miscarriages or abortions.
So on what grounds do five states feed women falsehoods, scaring them so as to sway their medical choices?
Prior to the mid-1990s, there were several studies investigating a possible link because of legitimate concerns about hormonal changes that occur during pregnancy. But as the National Cancer Institute notes, most of those studies were quite flawed because of factors like small sample sizes, self-reporting (instead of accessing medical records), and only collecting data from women who had already been diagnosed with cancer.
Nevertheless, some women who seek an abortion are being lied to, and told that their choice increases their risk for breast cancer. And, in what might be seen as a 
form of collateral damage, women who have who have never had an abortion but who have miscarried are also subject to the stress born of these lies; after all, the medical studies in question have investigated the effects of early pregnancy terminations regardless of cause, including miscarriage.
I have always supported a woman’s right to choose. Unequivocally. But I do not live in a cocoon.
There are people I love and respect, friends and family, who oppose abortion. I won’t belittle their faith or feelings, even though I fundamentally disagree with them. Abortion isn’t like monetary policy or subsidies for highway construction. It’s a deeply personal and serious issue for all involved. And because of that, we deserve to have honest, mature discussions, free of misleading propaganda from either side.
Tomorrow, one person’s testimonial.