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Fast Facts
Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP)
What are TRAP laws, and how do they impede women's access to health care services? |
The anti-choice movement has undertaken a campaign to systematically impose unnecessary and burdensome regulations on abortion providers—but not other medical professionals—in an obvious attempt to drive doctors out of practice and make abortion care more expensive and difficult to obtain. Such proposals are known as TRAP laws: Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers. Common TRAP regulations include those that restrict where abortion care may be provided. Regulations limiting abortion services to hospitals or other specialized facilities, rather than physician's offices, require doctors to obtain medically unnecessary additional licenses, needlessly convert their practices into mini-hospitals at a great expense, or provide abortion services only at hospitals, an impossibility in many parts of the country. |
CURRENT STATE LAWS44 states and the District of Columbia have laws subjecting abortion providers to burdensome restrictions not applied to other medical professionals: AL, AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MS, MO, NE, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI, WY.
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All of these states prohibit certain qualified health care professionals from performing abortions.
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25 of these states restrict the provision of abortion care—often even in the early stages of pregnancy—to hospitals or other specialized facilities: AK, AR, CT, GA, ID, IN, MA, MN, MS, MO, NV, NJ, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, UT, VA, WI.
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15 of these laws are at least partially unenforceable: AK, AZ, ID, IL, MA, MS, MO, NY, ND, OH, OK, PA, TN, UT, WI. |
2008 STATE LEGISLATION16 states considered 33 measures that would subject abortion providers to burdensome restrictions not applied to other medical professionals: AK, FL, HI, IL, IN, IA, MN, MS, MO, NH, NJ, NY, OK, TN, VA, WV.
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2008 FEDERAL LEGISLATIONAnti-choice Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) introduced the Pregnant Women Health and Safety Act. Despite its title, the bill would gravely endanger women’s reproductive health by imposing TRAP requirements on doctors in an attempt to drive them out of practice and to make it extremely difficult for women to obtain safe, legal abortion care. The first federal TRAP bill in recent memory, this bill would require doctors who provide abortion services to have admitting privileges at a hospital located within one hour of the provider’s facility, with no requirement that hospitals grant such privileges and no exception for rural providers. | |
