{"id":30,"date":"2016-04-22T14:13:58","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T14:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/?p=30"},"modified":"2025-12-29T01:19:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T06:19:58","slug":"states-dish-out-funds-to-defend-anti-abortion-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/states-dish-out-funds-to-defend-anti-abortion-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"States Dish Out Funds to Defend Anti-Abortion Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 2011, an Idaho woman named Jennie Linn McCormack had an abortion using the medical abortion pill RU-486 which she had purchased online.&nbsp; Not long after, the police were knocking on her door and pressing felony charges against her.&nbsp; The reason was due to a 1972 law which makes it illegal for a woman to perform her own abortion.&nbsp; The law is archaic in that it predates Roe v. Wade, not to mention the RU-486 drug.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>McCormack challenged the charges in court and won.&nbsp; Now, the state of Idaho is being ordered to pay $376,000 in McCormack\u2019s attorney fees.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This case is just one example of states spending extraordinary sums to defend anti-abortion laws.&nbsp; Idaho has racked up a bill of over $1 billion since 2000 to defend their abortion restrictions.&nbsp; And Idaho is hardly alone in the matter.&nbsp; As <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/economy\/2013\/08\/29\/2552381\/states-spending-thousands-defend-abortion-laws-money\/\">Think Progress<\/a> points out, South Dakota has spent $378,000 since 2012 to defend a 2005 anti-abortion restriction.&nbsp; Kansas spent $769,000 in the period from 2011 to June 2013 \u2013 and the amount is likely to increase.&nbsp; Both North Dakota and Arkansas are preparing to battle their new anti-abortion laws and are allotting funds to do so.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It is angering enough that these states are spending exuberant amounts of taxpayer money to restrict abortion access.&nbsp; It is even more angering when you hear that the states also happen to be suffering from budget shortfalls.&nbsp; They senselessly spend much-needed money while schools face cuts, arts programs are slashed, and social programs like Meals and Wheels are reduced.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There is no excuse for the states spending so much money.&nbsp; Acting under the influence of political pressure and not in the interest of their constituents, they pass anti-abortion laws which they know are unconstitutional.&nbsp; Then they spend money defending laws which should never have been passed in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This goes to show that the negative effect of anti-abortion laws is much more far-reaching than we thought.&nbsp; It isn\u2019t just the women who are being denied access who get harmed.&nbsp; Nor is it just the families of these women who are harmed.&nbsp; We are being denied social services and education for our children because we have to pick up the tab for governors who are adamant about trampling constitutionally-guaranteed reproductive health rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2011, an Idaho woman named Jennie Linn McCormack had an abortion using the medical abortion pill RU-486 which she [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7told-u","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":833,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions\/833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanwomensservices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}