2011 A Record Year for Abortion Restrictions

Washington Post WonkBlog: 2011: The year of the abortion restrictions, by Sarah Kliff:

Yesterday I wrote about how little health-care legislation managed to move in Washington this year. After the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, barely anything related to health could make it through a polarized Congress. I overlooked, however, one area where a lot did happen: reproductive health. There, a wave of state-level abortion restrictions that passed this year have reshaped access more than any other year in three decades.

As the above chart from the Guttmacher Institute shows, 2011 marked a sea change for abortion rights. States passed 83 laws restricting access to abortion, nearly four times the 23 laws passed in 2010. A lot of that had to do with the 2010 elections, which ushered in a wave of Republican legislators and governors. This year, the number of states with fully anti-abortion governments — in which both the governor and the legislature oppose abortion rights — increased from 10 to 15. . . .