Number of the Day

28: The number of states in which anti-choicers "are pressuring state lawmakers to pass legislation restricting private health insurance plans from covering abortion services."

Currently, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, private insurance companies that participate in public exchanges are allowed to provide abortion coverage. However, women seeking abortion coverage must make two separation payments - the first for abortion coverage and the second for the remaining cost of coverage.

Adam Sonfield, a public policy expert at the Guttmacher Institute (pdf) stated, "Every additional restriction is adding to the probability that insurance companies will throw up their hands and say, 'This isn't worth our time anymore.'"

Meanwhile, the Guttmacher Institute reports today that, though March 31 of this year, "legislators introduced 916 measures related to reproductive health and rights in the 49 state legislatures that had convened their regular session. (Louisiana's legislature will not convene until late April.)" Additionally:

As a whole, the proposals introduced this year are more hostile to abortion rights than in the past: Fifty-six percent of the bills introduced so far this year seek to restrict abortion access, compared with 38% in 2010.

...At the same time, legislators are proposing little in the way of proactive initiatives aimed at expanding access to reproductive health-related services. This stands in sharp contrast to recent years, when a range of initiatives to promote comprehensive sex education, permit expedited STI treatment for patients’ partners and ensure insurance coverage of contraception were adopted. For the moment, at least, supporters of reproductive health and rights are almost uniformly playing defense at the state level.

Swell.

More than 500 pieces of anti-choice legislation introduced in 49 states, with 28 states considering restrictions on private health insurance plans paying for abortions, and our allegedly pro-choice Democratic president who purportedly didn't want his healthcare bill to be "an abortion bill" cannot find time for an address to declare his solidarity with the 52% of the population whose agency and bodily autonomy are being attacked.

*rage*seethe*boil*