Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers
Targeted regulations of abortion providers (TRAP) bills single out abortion clinics and providers and subject them to regulations that are more stringent than those applied to medical clinics generally. Unlike many restrictions intended to delay or influence a pregnant woman’s decision to obtain an abortion in the name of protecting a state’s interest in potential life, TRAP laws seek to eliminate access to safe abortion care by requiring that clinics meet medically unnecessary and sometimes ridiculous conditions (for example,
the size of a janitor’s closet), thereby raising the costs of retrofitting clinics to a degree that makes running a clinic untenable.
Passed under the guise of safety and protecting women’s health, these laws make it difficult if not impossible for small, independent providers to perform abortions due to the expense and uncertainty involved in complying with onerous regulations. These laws also subject abortion providers to civil and criminal penalties and harassment in the form of multiple and unannounced clinic inspections, and interfere with their practice of medicine. In essence, these regulations, which force clinics to transform into miniature hospitals, do not reflect medical best practice standards, under which such regulations are entirely unnecessary.
According to
the Guttmacher Institute, less than 0.3 percent of abortion patients in the United States experience a complication that requires hospitalization, making abortion one of the safest procedures in the country. The risk of dying from a legal abortion in the first trimester—which is when nearly nine in ten abortions in the United States are performed—is no more than four in a million. The risk of death from childbirth, by way of comparison, is about 14 times higher than that from abortion.
Given the procedure’s long track record of safety, nearly all abortions in the United States are performed in outpatient facilities such as doctors’ offices and clinics. Indeed, in 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court held in
Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health that requirements that abortions be performed in hospitals during the second trimester of pregnancy could not be justified on the basis of protecting the woman’s health and safety.
Nevertheless, anti-choice activists have found great success in imposing a variety of TRAP laws that create unnecessary and restrictive regulations.
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Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers | Law Topics | RHRC Data
TRAP laws are a backdoor attempt to weaken Roe v. Wade.