Utah may pass longest abortion waiting period in the nation! Please help!

Perhaps this hasn’t been reported on in the national press much because there is currently so much going on with women’s rights and choice. This is one more thing I’d like to call on the feminist community to report on and keep track of. In Utah HB 461 has passed in the house and has been sent to the state senate. This bill would increase the abortion waiting period from 24 to 72 hours– the longest in the nation. Utah currently has some of the most restrictive and insulting abortion laws in the nation.

Here, a woman’s abortion is not considered voluntary or informed until she meets face to face with a practitioner, waits 24 72 hours, her doctor informs her of the risks and alternatives to abortion, she provides her physician with written consent, she hears a description of the fetus, and hears all the fun resources the Utah Department of Health provides, she also gets fun ultrasounds of the fetus to watch and must be informed of all the public and private childcare options she was obviously too stupid to consider. There are a number of other requirements describing all the detail practitioners must go into and all that she has to be told before she’s informed enough to decide.. 72 hours later. 20 weeks into her term the restrictions increase dramatically.

This, just a couple weeks after the passage of HB 363 in UT which gave schools the right to not teach sex education.

So, here is a roster of the Utah state senate. Please, please, please let them know how you feel about this because laws like this could be coming to a state near you if it passes here. Tell these goons not to further insult and restrict women with the nation’s longest waiting periods.

Finally, if anyone has word on how to get this on change.org or another petition-type website, please leave a comment letting me know. Thanks!

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

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