State laws and the provision of family planning and abortion services in 1985.

Sixty-five laws related to fertility were enacted by the 49 state legislatures that held sessions in 1985. (*) This was the largest number enacted since 1973, and the second largest total since The Alan Guttmacher Institute began tracking state legislation in 1972. This article summarizes the new provisions that deal with family planning services (including sterilization), abortion and minors' access to contraceptive and abortion services. (+)

Abortion-Related Laws

Between 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a woman's constitutional right to abortion, and 1983, fertility-related legislation was dominated by the abortion issue. This balance has changed in recent years, however, in part because the courts have struck down numerous state acts that were designed to circumvent the 1973 decision, and in part because other fertility-related topics, particularly maternal and infant health, have become more salient.

The 1985 abortion-related laws are as remarkable for what they do not do as for what they deal with. No waiting periods, no new, burdensome informed-consent provisions and no hospitalization requirements for second-trimester abortions were enacted, probably because the Supreme Court held in 1983 that these kinds of restrictions are unconstitutional. (1)

Public awareness of the "war" being waged against abortion providers heightened in 1984, as a result of the fact that 24 clinics were bombed or set afire, and hundreds of others were targets of bomb threats, vandalism, invasions and harassment. (2) Thus, in 1985, several state legislatures enacted laws imposing stiff penalties on the perpetrators of illegal activities against abortion providers. In addition, several nonbinding resolutions condemned the violent acts and urged the investigation of such incidents and the prosecution of the people involved.

The most important action was taken by Washington State, where the legislature enacted the Anti-Harassment Act of 1985. Although the law never mentions abortion specifically, it clearly is intended to put an end to the death threats, intimidation, blockades of entrances, and pushing and shoving that have become common tactics of antiabortion demonstrators at clinics around the country. Declaring that "the prevention of serious, personal harassment is an important government objective," the statute makes unlawful "the repeated invasions of a person's privacy by acts and threats which show a pattern of harassment designed to coerce, intimidate or humiliate the victim," (3) The law defines harassment to include threats of bodily injury or property damage, subjection of a person to physical confinement or restraint, and acting maliciously in a way that either is intended to harm someone or "by words or conduct places the person threatened in a reasonable fear that the threat will be carried out." These offenses are misdemeanors, unless the perpetrator has been convicted of an earlier incident of harassment of the same victim or his or her family, even in another state, in which case the offense will be considered a felony. The law recognizes the "likelihood of repeated harassment directed at those who have been victims of harassment in the past," and gives a court the authority to order a defendant who is free pending trial to "refrain from contacting, intimidating, threatening or otherwise interfering with the victim" or his or her family, and to stay away from the victim's home, school, business or place of employment.

The Massachusetts legislature raised the maximum sentence for those convicted of the illegal use of a bomb from five years to 25 years. A new clinic violence law enacted in California specifically classifies as a felony the act of exploding, igniting or attempting to explode any device, or of committing arson, near health facilities or places where organizations counsel for or against abortion. A Wisconsin omnibus "pregnancy options" law, aimed primarily at preventing teenage pregnancy, makes trespassing an abortion facility a misdemeanor punishable by a $1,000 fine.