Indiana’s new law restricting abortions would force women into back alleys, said Kate Michelman, senior adviser to Women’s Health Project.
Michelman spoke Wednesday on a panel concerning the law, HEA 1337. She joined constitutional law professor Dawn Johnsen, community engagement coordinator for Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Wanda Savala, and junior Morgan Mohr.
Mohr, who serves as director for pro-choice group Generation Action IU, said the event was designed to educate the Bloomington community, students and non-students, about the new law and set up steps for action against it.
Throughout the panel, participants encouraged the audience to register to vote, voice their concerns to their government representatives and talk about the law to raise public awareness.
“Talk about it in the grocery line,” Michelman said. “We need to educate people about how dangerous this law is.”
Savala and Johnsen said it’s hard to predict the exact effects of the law because its language is so vague.
“It’s so broadly written, it’s difficult to predict its impact,” Savala said.
She said what the law does is further shame and stigmatize women for their reproductive choices.
“There’s now a long list of what doctors must tell women,” Johnsen said. “What’s that going to do to the doctor-patient relationship?”
HEA 1337 requires any physician performing the abortion to tell the pregnant woman human physical life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human sperm and Indiana does not require a fetus to be aborted solely because of the fetus’s race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, or diagnosis or potential diagnosis of the fetus having Down syndrome or any other disability, according to the HEA 1337 bill.
“The ban on reasons for which women can obtain abortions is blatantly unconstitutional in addition to being deeply offensive to women,” Johnsen said.
Michelman said her own experience with abortion made her understand how much discrimination there is in this society against women. When she obtained an abortion in 1969, she said her whole life changed. She sa made her feel isolated and alone.
“I think women still feel alone in this,” Michelman said. “We’re beginning to hear stories of women taking it into their own hands because of these strict laws in places like Texas.”
She said society still stigmatizes women who seek abortion.
The panel discussed how the law disproportionately targeted poor women and women of color.
“All of the restrictions, the admitting privileges, the waiting period, disproportionally affect women without political power by making abortion more expensive and difficult,” Johnsen said.
All of the speakers emphasized the importance of raising awareness of the new law.
“It takes some real doing, but we can effect the way people think about these issues,” Michelman said.
