Sadly, since Roe, many right-wing organizations and activists have taken it upon themselves to demonize women who seek abortions and other reproductive services and the doctors and other health professionals who provide abortions and other reproductive medical treatments and services.

Anti-abortion organizations have attempted to chip away at abortion rights in whichever way they can, including enacting state laws that would criminalize abortions if the Roe decision were to be overturned.

Additionally, many states have enacted measures that make it more confusing and difficult for women to get abortions. Some states require minors to receive some type of parental consent or notification before they can get an abortion and other states have similar spousal consent and notification laws.

Some states have restricted where abortions can be performed and by whom. Others have mandated waiting periods before women can receive an abortion or require women to view certain images or read certain literature before they receive abortions.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 135 of the 1,100 anti-abortion and anti-family planning initiatives proposed by state lawmakers were enshrined in state provisions in 2011. That’s a new single-year record for state provisions restricting abortions and other reproductive health services.

Because Planned Parenthood helps facilitate abortions, several states also have barred or attempted to bar Planned Parenthood from receiving state funds. Legislators have done this despite the restriction that government funds cannot be used to perform abortions. These legislative efforts sought to smear Planned Parenthood and, in effect, denied many women much needed medical exams and services offered by Planned Parenthood clinics.

This past year, five states even banned abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy, a full four weeks prior to the point of possible fetal viability the Supreme Court identified as a constitutionally approved cut-off point in most cases.

Other states have passed laws that require many clinics to make costly renovations on such things as the width of hallway and sizes of rooms in an effort to close clinics. Some states are even preparing for possible ballot initiatives that, if ratified by voters, would redefine ‘personhood’ as existing at the moment of conception, theoretically making abortions and some forms of birth control illegal.

Just last week, on New Year’s Eve, an Alabama man firebombed an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Fla., destroying the facility. This particular clinic, American Family Planning, previously had been bombed. In 1994, anti-abortion protesters also assaulted American Family Planning workers and assassinated the abortion provider along with his security escort. A year before the assassination at American Family Planning, an abortion provider at another Pensacola clinic was also assassinated by an anti-abortion activist.

In a time where political rhetoric amongst tea party activists and even Republican presidential hopefuls has reached an all-time low and women, gays, immigrants and other marginalized groups are punted around like political footballs, it’s time we re-examine our nation’s rhetoric around abortion and other social issues.

As we recognize the 39th anniversary of Roe, it’s time we recommit ourselves to protecting women’s right to privacy, to make her own medical and family planning decisions, including the right to an abortion.

Mitch Goldsmith is a State News guest columnist and social relations and policy, women’s and gender studies senior. Reach him at goldsm40@msu.edu.