Those opposing abortion in the states of Mississippi, West Virginia and other states are submitting bills to ban a common abortion procedure.
Because it is seen as a way of "dismembering a fetus," the process dilation and evacuation or "D&E" is now on the verge of being banned in states such as Mississippi and West Virginia. Courts have already blocked laws that ban the procedure passed by Oklahoma and Kansas in 2015.
The Center for Reproductive Rights represents abortion providers in court cases, states that banning D&E is against the law because it hinders private medical decisions that only expecting mothers and their doctors can carry out.
Kelly Baden, director of state advocacy from the Center of Reproductive Rights, sent a letter to lawmakers in West Virgina stating that the procedure, which is usually done during the second trimester, is used for 95 percent of all abortions done in the period because of the safety it entails.
"Laws like these are an attack on women's health, personal autonomy, and the doctor-patient relationship, and they have the potential to force physicians to subject women seeking safe and legal abortion services in the second trimester to additional invasive and unnecessary procedures," said Baden, in a report by The Guardian.
However, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists believe that there is still no evidence that makes D&E safer. If the proposal passes onto becoming an actual law, women would have to undergo and injection to the fetus to stop its development as a human being, the Press Enterprise reports.
Washington-based National Right to Life Committee sees the procedure as "dismemberment abortion," since it entails using forceps and clamps. Mary Balch, director of state legislation for the committee, mentions that it will not ban all kinds of abortions, including procedures that ensures the death of the fetus before it is taken out.
