state legislative trends

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.

The Michigan House is poised to consider a symbolic bill that would mirror the federal ban on so-called partial birth abortion. Local Planned Parenthood staff say Michigan Right to Life is using the bill as an election-year loyalty test.