Setting a TRAP

By Colleen Crinion

I've seen about a thousand abortions. I've been in the room and held the hands of women from all over the world. I've counseled them about what to expect during the procedure and made sure they were well informed and as comfortable as possible while they were with me.

I did this at two Planned Parenthood centers in two states, Michigan and Maryland.

In Michigan, we had to deal with 24-hour waiting laws. Michigan is a big state, with few clinics performing abortions at all. (Eighty-eight percent of all counties in the United States do not have an abortion provider.) A 24-hour waiting period can make a huge difference, especially for something as time-sensitive as pregnancy.

All too often, women would drive an hour to get to the clinic, only to turn back with an appointment for the next day we were offering the procedure. Most abortion clinics don't offer the procedure every day.

For women who lived close by, had reliable transportation and the ability to take the extra time for a second appointment, and were early in their pregnancies, this was an annoyance and unnecessary. For women who fell short on one of those ifs, a second trip could be incredibly difficult to arrange.

That 24-hour waiting period often resulted in incredible hardship. And for no medical reason.

Unfortunately, laws like these are becoming more common. In more and more states, these restrictions create burdens for women instead of a safer medical experience.

When I worked for Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, I learned about TRAP laws (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers). TRAP laws take many forms, such as mandating larger rooms and requiring a registered nurse on site at all times (regardless of whether abortions are performed).

As someone who has seen a lot of abortions without these standards in place, I can safely say that the size of the room we had was more than adequate. We had a nurse on site, too.

The most recent incarnation of these laws recently passed the Virginia General Assembly and was signed into law by Gov. Bob McDonnell. This law does not make the women of Virginia safer, nor are the doctors better off with these new standards.

Abortion providers, possibly even doctor's offices that offer abortion as part of their services, will now be forced to spend millions of dollars in unnecessary upgrades. This will either force them out of business or force them to pass the costs on to patients. Women will only have a harder time gaining access to their right to a legal medical procedure.

Similar laws are sweeping across state legislatures. Other bills call for restrictions such as mandating that a woman view an ultrasound of her pregnancy and that a doctor explain it to her. South Dakota attempted to take this even further by including mandatory counseling from crisis pregnancy centers, places known to be hostile to abortion.

I have talked to women from all over the map and the economic spectrum, across faiths and ages and life circumstances, about their decision to terminate their pregnancy, and I can honestly tell you that none was clueless. They had thought about their situation. They had factored in their personal circumstances and their family's. They knew what they were doing and why they were doing it. They just needed it to be done, safely and without judgment.

Abortion is a legal medical procedure that one in three women will undergo in their lifetimes. These laws may sound like attempts to ensure an extra layer of safety. What they do in reality, however, is make the procedure even more difficult to get and relegate abortion to the shadows of medical practice. Women had to get abortions in the shadows once before, when it was illegal and called a "back-alley abortion."

We owe our women better health care than that. The woman who sought an abortion because she was a soldier and wanted to serve her country in Iraq deserves better. So does the mother who was so sick during her pregnancy that she couldn't work or take care of her children. So does the teenager who wants to finish school and go to college. So do the victims of rape and incest.

We need to remember all the women who are disadvantaged by these laws that do nothing to make them safer, and everything to put them at risk. Our sisters, our wives, our mothers and our daughters deserve better.

Colleen Crinion is a former Planned Parenthood employee and volunteer with the DC Abortion Fund. She lives in Washington, D.C.