Rachel Benson Gold joined the staff of the Guttmacher Institute in 1979 and currently holds the position of Director of Policy Analysis and Washington Office Operations in the Institute's Public Policy Division. Her expertise is on the role of the public and private sectors in financing reproductive health care. Ms. Gold is the author of several reports and articles in the field of reproductive health and recently completed an analysis of the critical role of Medicaid in providing publicly funded family planning services.
Elizabeth Nash is a Public Policy Associate in the Guttmacher Institute's Washington DC office. She coordinates the efforts of the state team, which analyzes legislative, regulatory and judicial actions on reproductive health issues and develops Guttmacher's monthly State Policies in Brief series and update of state policy developments. Ms. Nash joined the Institute in 1999.
In the first six months of 2011, states enacted 162 new provisions related to reproductive health and rights.
Three topics — insurance coverage of abortion, restriction of abortion after a specific point in gestation and ultrasound requirements — are topping the agenda in several states.
Even as state legislators were largely preoccupied by ongoing budget crises in 2010, issues related to reproductive health and rights nonetheless garnered significant legislative attention.
In the first half of 2010, more than 900 measures related to reproductive health and rights were introduced in the 45 states in which the legislature met. Although legislators continue to grapple with unprecedented budget shortfalls, bills on reproductive health and rights have been the subject of widespread debate and action
By the end of March, 825 measures had been introduced in the 44 legislatures that have convened so far in 2010.
More than 900 measures on reproductive health and rights were introduced in the states and the District of Columbia in 2009, and by year’s end, 77 new laws had been enacted in 34 states and DC. (This is more than twice the 33 new laws enacted in 20 states in 2008.)
Although state legislatures are heavily focused on responding to the current economic crisis, numerous bills on reproductive health have also been the subject of debate and action.
With the legislative year well underway, laws to establish fetal personhood, mandating medically accurate sex ed, and treating partners for STIs are on the move.
In 2008, a few state legislatures took steps to promote reproductive health, by requiring hospitals to provide information on EC to rape survivors and laying the groundwork for expanding Medicaid family planning coverage.
This year, the most significant developments in state-level reproductive health law lie ahead, in the form of ballot initiatives that will come before voters in three states in November.
