abortion

More women in Indiana are choosing to abort pregnancies with the so-called “abortion pill,” even while the total number of procedures is decreasing in the state.

The vast majority of abortions are done using one of two procedures. So-called “chemical” or “medical” procedures use a pill to abort a fetus at home. “Surgical” abortions, which are also referred to as "suction curettage,” use a vacuum-like device to suction out fetal tissue. Both methods are legal in Indiana and cost approximately the same.

The number of abortions in Indiana decreased in 2015, the latest data point in a six-year decline.

Last year, nearly 8,000 abortions were performed in Indiana, a 2 percent drop from the year before, according to annual data from the Indiana State Department of Health.

Abortion rates have declined in the state since 2009. That roughly lines up with national data showing fewer people undergoing the procedure since 2010.

But Indiana Right to Life President Mike Fichter said, in Indiana, the state’s political climate has a lot to do with the trend.

An Indiana Appeals Court overturned the feticide conviction Friday for a woman who took abortion inducing drugs. The case was the first time a woman has been convicted of feticide for ending her own pregnancy.

Purvi Patel was 30 weeks pregnant when she took abortion inducing drugs. She delivered the pre-term fetus in her home.

Prosecutors charged her with felony feticide and neglect of a dependent resulting in death.

Planned Parenthood will close six of its clinics in Indiana by the end of the year. But it won't affect the availability of abortion services in the state.

The women's health provider will close its Muncie and Terre Haute clinics this month, and merge four others with nearby neighbors.

Indiana currently has six clinics, in four counties, providing elective abortions. That means only about four percent of counties have abortion providers—less than the average of 11 percent nationwide. But despite recent victories for the pro-choice movement, that’s unlikely to change.

Planned Parenthood and the ACLU sued over three parts of the new law, including its two most significant provisions.

The first of those bans abortions performed solely because of a fetus’ potential disability, sex or race. The state argues that provision prevents discrimination.

But federal judge Tanya Walton Pratt says it clearly violates a right first established by the Supreme Court in 1973 – a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy before viability.

An Indiana University reproductive rights expert says the U.S.  Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a Texas anti-abortion law could make it easier to invalidate some of Indiana’s laws.

The Texas law required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion facility.

Abortion remains as controversial as ever, but a bill passed this year in Indiana, which bans abortions based on race, sex, and disability and prohibits the selling of fetal tissue, has garnered an especially harsh response.

The Indiana Solicitor General says the state’s new abortion law requiring fetal remains to be either cremated or buried is about ensuring respect for life.

The ACLU of Indiana says it’s irrational to treat fetal remains the same as human remains.  

Indiana’s new abortion law says medical facilities, including abortion clinics, must cremate or bury aborted or miscarried fetal remains, not dispose of them as medical waste (as has been the case under state law).