NEW YORK, April 13 (UPI) -- The first three months of 2013, state legislators introduced 694 provisions involving reproductive health, half to restrict abortion, U.S. researchers say.
The Guttmacher Institute, which works to advance sexual and reproductive health, said this year legislators seem to be focusing on banning abortion outright -- either by declaring that personhood begins at the moment of conception or by prohibiting abortion even during the first trimester of pregnancy.
In recent years, legislative focused on regulating abortion such as requirements that women undergo an ultrasound, clinic regulations or insurance coverage restrictions, the Guttmacher Institute said.
During the first three months of the year, lawmakers in 14 states introduced provisions seeking to ban abortion prior to viability.
These bans fall into three categories: measures that would prohibit all abortions, those that would ban abortions after a specified point during the first trimester of pregnancy and those that would block abortions at 20 weeks after fertilization -- the equivalent of 22 weeks after the woman's last menstrual period, the conventional method physicians use to measure pregnancy, the analysis said.
At the end of March, two states were ready to enact legislation expanding access to comprehensive sex education; which if enacted -- the first time since 2010 that any state has expanded sex education.
