When to have children, and how many children to have, are decisions with profound impact on a woman's economic security for the rest of her life. Not just her own welfare, but her children's welfare often depends on the mother's ability to provide financial and all other kinds of support for herself and her family.

Some members of the US Congress now seek to control whether any woman can buy health insurance under the new health reform law covering the costs of pregnancy termination even with her own money. (Federal funding has not been available for decades for abortion services because of the Hyde Amendment which removes pregnancy termination from the federally funded healthcare services impoverished women can receive.) Other bills under consideration will prevent a woman from obtaining an abortion at her own discretion, in consultation with her doctor, even in the first trimester, except in the cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.

Women's Policy, Inc., a non-partisan, non-profit source of public policy pertaining to women is tracking the bills' progress. You can find WPI's summary of The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, H.R. 3, here, and it includes the arguments for and against.

WPI presents the Protect Life Act, H.R. 358 here, and summarizes the different viewpoints of the witnesses who testified at the congressional hearing.

The National Women's Law Center has prepared fact sheets you can find here and here.

The budget wrangling is also a battleground for women's reproductive rights, but doesn't directly implicate abortion. Under the interest of cutting the federal deficits, Republican members of Congress are proposing that federal funds supporting women's health centers be cut, and the costs of contraception, family planning services, and other primary care for women no longer be available for those women that qualify. Analysis of this "women only" cost cutting measure is here.

In the US Senate, Senator Johanns of Nevada introduced a bill last week "to ensure that women seeking an abortion are fully informed regarding the pain experienced by their unborn child" says WPI.

And finally, newly elected Rand Paul has co-sponsored a bill which would declare that life begins at conception, making all fetuses "persons" under the 14th Amendment, negating the current law as established by Roe v. Wade, as Newsweek reports.