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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – State legislatures across the United States regularly made headlines in 2021 by enacting laws, including a record number of abortion restrictions, that limited human and civil rights.
In their return to near-regular activity after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic abbreviated many sessions in 2020, conservative-led legislatures focused on restricting voting access, enacting discriminatory policies against LGBTQ individuals—transgender youth in particular—and limiting abortion, particularly through bans early in pregnancy and restrictions on medication abortion.
Buoyed by the Supreme Court’s 6–3 anti-abortion majority, state legislators raced to enact abortion restrictions. As of December 1, 106 abortion restrictions had been enacted in 19 states. This is the highest total in any year since abortion rights were affirmed by the US Supreme Court in 1973.
At the same time, some state legislatures expanded access to reproductive health services. More than half of the states increased access to pregnancy and postpartum care; many of these new provisions were designed to reduce racial disparities in maternal mortality. Several states now allow pharmacists to prescribe contraceptives or medication that help prevent HIV. And a few states expanded access to abortion services, primarily by repealing restrictions.
Counts of state legislation in 2021 (as of December 1):
Reproductive Health and Rights Overall
- 1,989 provisions introduced in state legislatures on all reproductive health and rights topics
- 312 provisions enacted
- 1,011 provisions introduced that would protect reproductive rights or expand access to reproductive health
- 130 provisions enacted
- 957 provisions introduced that would restrict access to reproductive health or curtail rights
- 142 provisions enacted
Abortion
- 218 provisions introduced that would protect or expand access to abortion care
- 10 provisions enacted
- 663 provisions introduced that would restrict access to abortion care
- 106 provisions enacted
- Since the beginning of 2011, 589 provisions restricting access to abortion care have been enacted
Contraception
- 199 provisions introduced that would protect or expand access to contraceptive services
- 16 provisions enacted
Maternal Health
- 325 provisions introduced that would expand access to or improve the quality of maternal health care
- 81 provisions enacted
Read the full analysis at Guttmacher.org.