Anti-Abortion State Legislators Rise in Power

[Emit]

Anti-Abortion State Legislators Rise in Power
By Sharon Johnson

WeNews senior correspondent

Friday, January 14, 2011

State legislatures look poised for what pro-choice activists grimly call a banner year in bills to limit abortion rights. The first of two stories on anti-choice momentum in the states after the 2010 midterm elections.

(WOMENSENEWS)--Pro-choice advocates are bracing for a tough year in state lawmaking.

"Thanks to the gains by conservatives in the Nov. 6 election, 2011 will be a banner year for anti-choice legislation in the states," predicted Donna Crane, policy director of the Washington-based NARAL Pro-Choice America, the political watchdog of the pro-choice movement for more than 30 years.

Only 34 of the more than 600 anti-abortion bills proposed by state lawmakers in 2010 were approved last year. But that number is set to soar, says Crane, because 15 states now have anti-choice legislatures and governors versus 10 in 2010--and anti-choice politicians made gains throughout the country.

"Other states have experienced significant increases in the number of conservatives who are in key positions in legislatures where they can roll back pro-choice laws that have been on the books for 30 years," she said.

~snip~

http://www.womensenews.org/story/reproductive-health/110113/anti-abortion-state-legislators-rise-in-power

[Imajika]

1. We held our losses on the national level...

...to only, as President Obama called it, a shellacking. However on the local and state level, the 2010 election cycle was a massacre of really epic proportions. Not sure if people realize that, counting the couple of dozen Democratic defections to the GOP right after the election, the Republicans gained well over 700 state legislative seats alone.

Reproductive rights, along with unions, public sector employees, etc, will be under an almost unprecedented attack for at least the next 2 years.