Cumulative Number of Pro-Choice Measures Enacted Since 2004
NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation supports a wide range of pro-choice policies that help protect every woman’s right to make reproductive choices, including preventing unintended pregnancy, bearing healthy children, and choosing safe, legal abortion.
In recent years, our nationwide Prevention First initiative has helped enact new laws that prevent unintended pregnancy and thereby reduce the need for abortion. The Prevention First policy agenda includes laws that guarantee women's access to birth control, ensure age-appropriate and medically accurate sex education in schools, and expand low-income women's access to family-planning services. These commonsense policies can be supported by all fair-minded lawmakers - regardless of their views on legal abortion.
NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation also advocates for public policies that support women who choose to become parents, and 2011 saw continued state legislative activity in this area. Such measures include expanded coverage for Medicaid-funded services for low-income pregnant women and programs for engaging at-risk pregnant women, as well as pregnant legal immigrants. Additionally, at the federal level, as part of its implementation of the new health-care-reform law, which requires health plans to cover - at no cost - certain preventive-health services that are specific to women, the Department of Health and Human Services accepted the recommendation of an expert medical panel to include family-planning services as preventive care. This historic decision marks arguably the greatest improvement to women's access to reproductive-health services in a generation.
As a result of the 2010 elections, there were very few pro-choice state governments in 2011. Thus, few pro-choice measures were enacted. In 2012, anti-choice advocates surely will continue to attack reproductive rights and try to impose new restrictions on abortion that could test the constitutional right to choose. When that happens, NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, our affiliates, and our allies will work to defeat them. We will also continue to demonstrate that we have the commonsense position not only on abortion, but a whole range of other issues - including preventing unintended pregnancies and expanding access to reproductive-health care for all women.
Total pro-choice measures enacted in 2011: 1
- 6 states enacted 10 pro-choice measures in 2011.
- California enacted the most pro-choice legislation in 2011, with four measures.
- 2011 marks the seventh year in a row that Colorado has enacted a pro-choice measure.
Key pro-choice victories in 2011:
- California, Colorado, Idaho, and Oregon enacted laws that promote healthy childbearing.
- Colorado enacted a law that improves sex education for young people.
- California enacted a law to protect the confidentiality of reproductive-health professionals and patients.
- Maryland and Washington improved low-income women's access to reproductive-health services by expanding eligibility for their state Medicaid family-planning programs.
States that Enacted Pro-Choice Measures in 2011
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1 This report uses the term "measures enacted" to refer to statutes and resolutions adopted by the legislature or enacted by ballot measure. "Laws" refers to constitutional provisions, statutes, regulations, court decisions, approved ballot initiatives, opinions of state attorneys general, and implementing policies.
