Pro-choice groups go on 'offense' to broaden abortion access

This is welcome news: Two pro-choice groups announced Wednesday that they are launching a broad campaign to pass state legislation that will expand women's access to abortion. The strategy includes a quarter-million dollar national ad campaign, new polling data, and the distribution of a "playbook" with 29 model policies that can help change the debate and improve abortion access.

"It's far past time for us to go on offense," Gloria Totten, president of the Public Leadership Institute (PLI), said on a press call with reporters.

Couldn't agree more. Both Totten and Andrea Miller, president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health (NIRH), noted that since 2010, state lawmakers have passed 318 laws making it more difficult to get abortions. "Which brings us to a grand staggering total of more than a thousand restrictions enacted at the state level since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973," Miller added.

The polling NIRH commissioned suggested that part of the problem is how little most Americans actually know about restricted abortion access in many states. More than half of people polled were unaware of the legislative trend toward restricting access and, perhaps surprisingly, women were less likely to know about it than men (42 percent of women had heard of it vs. 48 percent of men). 

But there's a silver lining. "When voters learn how lawmakers have legislated against women's rights and women's access to abortion," Miller said, "they are appalled."

About two-thirds of voters say that trend is headed in the wrong direction or, as Miller noted, "only 35 percent of voters think this is a good thing that's been happening."

Totten said they started shipping the policy playbook at the beginning of January and are now talking to advocates in about 13 mostly blue and purple states. In 2016, they expect to focus more heavily on about seven or eight states, but they don't have firm commitments yet.