New Jersey
Ranking: 46
- The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that the state constitution provides a broader right to abortion than the U.S. Constitution. Pursuant to this ruling, the New Jersey Supreme Court has struck down the state’s parental notification requirement and restrictions on the use of taxpayer funds to pay for abortions.
- New Jersey does not have an informed consent law or an enforceable parental involvement law for abortion.
- New Jersey requires that abortions after the first trimester be performed in licensed ambulatory care facilities or hospitals.
- Only physicians licensed to practice medicine and surgery in New Jersey may perform abortions.
- New Jersey provides court-ordered coverage for all “medically necessary” abortions for women eligible for public assistance. This requirement essentially equates to funding abortion-on-demand in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s broad definition of “health” in the context of abortion.
- Under the State Health Benefits plan, any contracts entered into by the State Health Benefits Commission must include coverage of abortion.
- Hospitals providing emergency care for sexual assault victims must provide “emergency contraception.”
- New Jersey requires individual, group, and small-employer health insurance policies, medical or hospital service agreements, health maintenance organizations, and prepaid prescription service organizations to provide coverage for contraceptives if they also provide coverage for other prescription drugs. The provision includes an exemption so narrow it excludes the ability of most employers and insurers with moral or religious objections from exercising the exemption.
- New Jersey law does not recognize an unborn child as a potential victim of homicide or assault.
- The state allows a wrongful death (civil) action only when an unborn child is born alive following a negligent or criminal act and dies thereafter.
- New Jersey does not require infants who survive an abortion to be given appropriate, potentially life-saving medical care.
- New Jersey has a “Baby Moses” law, establishing a safe haven for mothers to legally leave their infants at designated places and ensuring the infants receive appropriate care and protection.
- New Jersey prohibits cloning-to-produce-children, but not cloning-for-biomedical-research – thus making it a “clone-and-kill” state.
- The state allows and funds destructive embryo research and does not prohibit fetal experimentation.
- General hospitals are to advise every pregnant patient of the option to donate umbilical cord blood or placental tissue. Healthcare professionals are to provide pregnant patients with state-prepared materials on umbilical cord blood donation and storage “as early as practicable,” and preferably in the first trimester of pregnancy.
- State funding earmarked for “stem cell research” may also be available for adult stem-cell research.
- While the state does not maintain any meaningful regulation of assisted reproductive technologies, state law does require that informed consent materials include information on embryo donation.
- End of Life Laws:
- In New Jersey, assisting a suicide is a felony.
- The state has a “bill of rights” for patients/residents of healthcare facilities, including the right for competent patients/residents to “refuse treatment.”
- A person is not required to perform or assist in the performance of an abortion.
- A hospital or healthcare facility is not required to provide abortions. The New Jersey Supreme Court has determined that this prohibition is unconstitutional as applied to non sectarian or nonprofit hospitals.
- New Jersey currently provides no protection for the rights of healthcare providers who conscientiously object to participation in human cloning, destructive embryo research, and other forms of immoral medical research.
- Governor Chris Christie vetoed a budget bill that would have given $7.5 million to “family planning organizations” such as Planned Parenthood.
- New Jersey considered measures related to abortion funding, insurance coverage of abortion, informed consent (including anti-coercion and ultrasound measures), and parental involvement. The state also considered a ban on sex- and race-based abortions, and a ban on abortion at 24-weeks gestation (defined as “viability” in the measure).
- New Jersey considered a resolution opposing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate that nearly all insurance plans fully cover “all FDA approved contraceptives” (which includes the abortion-inducing drug ella), as well as a resolution supporting the HHS mandate. The state also considered legislation to include or expand exemptions for religious-based objections to the state’s existing “contraceptive” (insurance) mandate.
- On the bioethics front, Governor Christie vetoed a bill authorizing surrogacy agreements. Other considered legislation included measures declaring May as “Bone Marrow and Umbilical Cord Blood Donation Awareness Month,” prohibiting the creation of human embryos for research purposes, and prohibiting the sale of human embryos.
- The state also sought to actively regulate the assisted reproductive technologies (ART) industry, considering various measures that would have allowed only one human ovum to be fertilized at a time, made certain cryopreserved embryos wards of the state (and allowed the state to find parents for them), and regulated human egg harvesting.
- New Jersey considered measures related to advance planning documents, a measure that would create a “bill of rights” for patients and residents of healthcare facilities, and measures relating to pain management and palliative care.
- Finally, New Jersey considered legislation forcing pharmacists and/or pharmacies to stock and dispense “emergency contraception.”
- State Constitutional Amendment (providing that there is no state constitutional right to abortion)
- Abortion Mandate Opt-Out Act
- Defunding the Abortion Industry and Advancing Women’s Health Act
- Women’s Right to Know Act
- Parental Notification for Abortion Act
- Women’s Health Protection Act (abortion clinic regulations)
- Abortion-Inducing Drugs Safety Act
- Crimes Against the Unborn Child Act
- Women’s Ultrasound Right to Know Act
- Coercive Abuse Against Mothers Prevention Act
- Child Protection Act
- Joint Resolution Commending Pregnancy Centers
- Unborn Wrongful Death Act
- Born-Alive Infant Protection Act
- Pregnant Woman’s Protection Act
- Human Cloning Prohibition Act
- Destructive Embryo Research Act
- Prohibition on Public Funding of Human Cloning and Destructive Embryo Research Act
- Healthcare Freedom of Conscience Act
