Perform an Abortion, Go to Jail : Frightening New Louisiana Law Will Hurt Poor Women More Than Anyone

Louisiana’s Legislature has been trying for more than 15 years to reinstate the kind of rigorous limits on abortion that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in 1973.

Each time, those measures have been stayed by the courts or held to be unconstitutional under the Roe vs. Wade decision. But last July the Supreme Court gave states greater latitude to limit a woman’s access to abortion, and Louisiana has moved to take advantage of that shift in opinion with a vengeance. Its House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed what is now the nation’s most restrictive anti-abortion bill. The measure next goes to the state Senate, which is expected to approve it.

Under the bill, any doctor convicted of performing an abortion could be sentenced to up 10 years in prison at hard labor and fined up to $100,000. No penalty would be imposed on a woman who had an abortion. The single exception to the abortion ban would be if doctors determined that a woman’s life was in danger.

The effect of this Draconian measure would be to halt nearly all abortions performed in Louisiana, though not all abortions performed on Louisiana women. As before, women seeking an abortion who could afford to go outside the state for the procedure would be free to do so. As before, poor women who might be no less interested in terminating a pregnancy would be left little option but to bear a child they did not want. Thus in Louisiana, access to that essential right to privacy that governs decisions on abortions would again become a matter of economics, not of constitutional guarantee.

Gov. Buddy Roemer has threatened repeatedly to veto any legislation that failed to permit abortion for a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest. This week, though, he hinted that his position may be softening. In any case the legislation may be veto-proof; the bill seems headed for certain passage--and almost immediate judicial scrutiny.

If the Louisiana law were to be upheld by the Supreme Court, there seems little question that other state legislatures, many of which are strongly influenced by foes of abortion, would rush to enact similar or identical restrictions. The Idaho Legislature earlier this year in fact tried to do so, though its bill was vetoed by Gov. Cecil D. Andrus. Almost certainly, Louisiana is preparing to take a giant step backward in the area of basic rights. It would be a tragedy for millions of women if this regression were permitted by the courts to become a model for other parts of the country.