Biased Counseling and Mandatory Delays
What are biased-counseling and mandatory-delay laws, and how do they endanger women's health? Biased-counseling and mandatory-delay laws prohibit women from receiving abortion care until they are subjected to a state-mandated lecture and/or materials typically followed by a delay of usually at least 24 hours. Like any patient, a woman considering abortion should receive full and unbiased information from her doctor about her medical options. However, these laws impose unnecessary government intrusion into private decisions and the doctor-patient relationship; often, they require that women be provided with medically inaccurate information, such as the disproven claim that abortion causes breast cancer. Mandatory delays create additional burdens for women, especially women in rural areas who often have to travel for many hours to reach a health-care provider, and for women who do not have the resources to take extra time off work or pay for childcare. Mandatory-delay laws endanger women’s health by creating unnecessary burdens that can impede earlier, and therefore safer, abortion care. Currently, 32 states have laws that subject women seeking abortion services to biased-counseling requirements and/or mandatory delays. Washington’s pro-choice majority has kept biased-counseling and mandatory delay laws off the books in our state.
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