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• Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) proposed this bill, which would require doctors to inform any woman seeking an abortion that her fetus will experience pain. Under this legislation, abortion providers would be obligated before performing any abortion procedure 1) to tell the woman orally, and also show her, using government-sponsored brochures containing graphic illustrations, that Congress has found that a fetus can experience pain at a certain point in its development, and 2) to offer her anesthesia for the fetus.

Anti-choice forces will pursue a similar bill here in Massachusetts, called the Women’s Right To Know Bill, which would also employ explicit visuals and speeches and would mandate a 24-hour waiting period for the woman to contemplate those very images.

"It’s designed to dissuade women from choosing an abortion," Kogut says.

• RU-486 Suspension and Review Act. Both the House and the Senate in the next session are expected to consider this bill, which could jeopardize women’s access to RU-486 (mifepristone), a drug that induces abortion early in a pregnancy and provides an alternative to the more common surgical procedure. Before it received approval from the Food and Drug Administration, in 2000, RU-486 underwent about a decade of tests and trials here and in Europe. But the lawmakers sponsoring the bill — informally known as "Holly’s Law" in memory of 18-year-old Holly Patterson, who died after taking mifepristone — say it has dangerous and sometimes-fatal side effects. Abortion providers argue that Patterson’s death, while tragic, was not the result of using RU-486.

Saporta, of the NAF, remains hopeful that this bill won’t get far. The FDA last week changed the label on RU-486 to include more-comprehensive warnings.

• Emergency contraception. When the FDA announced last year it would not approve the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception (also known as the "morning-after pill," this type of drug prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus), the agency "ignored [both] the science" and the recommendations of two advisory committees, says Amy Allina, of the DC-based National Women’s Health Network. She describes it as another "signal to the religious conservatives."

Now the FDA is re-examining the drug (which right-wingers have consistently misrepresented as a version of abortion). It could decide to pull emergency contraception from the market entirely, to relabel it, or to make it available as an over-the-counter drug with an age limit.

That’s why it’s important to keep an eye on whom Bush will appoint as the next FDA commissioner. "If he puts someone in the job that shows as much disrespect for science as the agency has shown over the last six months, it could have a really damaging effect," Allina says.

Bush’s record for these appointments isn’t any better than it is for judicial nominees. In 2002, for example, the president nominated David Hager to chair the FDA’s Advisory Committee on Reproductive Health Drugs. Not only is Hager vehemently anti-choice, but he also authored the 1998 book As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now, and has suggested prayer and Bible reading as treatments for premenstrual syndrome.

• Abstinence-only education. "Our president is obsessed with abstinence-only programs," NARAL’s Kogut says. "The amount of federal funding coming into states for abstinence-only sex-ed programs is astounding." Indeed, the newly appointed secretary of education, Margaret Spellings, is an avowed proponent of these initiatives, despite significant evidence casting doubt on their effectiveness.

HERE IN Massachusetts, of course, voters just elected their first pro-choice House of Representatives. Coupled with the state constitution’s pro-choice protections, this makes the Bay State one of the most progressive on reproductive rights. "We’d be jumping for joy if we didn’t have the shadow of the national landscape hanging over us," Kogut says.

Pro-choice forces in the state expect to take advantage of that friendly legislative majority to make headway on a variety of reproductive-health issues. "It really is going to become a state-by-state fight to be sure that we have policies in place as best we can to protect access to reproductive-health services," Kogut says. For example, she is optimistic about the fight to make emergency contraception available over the counter. The state Senate passed the legislation last session, but it never made it to the House floor; this time around, Kogut hopes new House Speaker Sal DiMasi will be more receptive to the issue than his famously anti-choice predecessor, Tom Finneran.

But even in Massachusetts, one of the bluest of the blue states, women’s advocates can’t breathe easy.

"We need to be looking at Massachusetts as one of the places to make sure that women can get the services that they need, but nothing is guaranteed here. We have to be vigilant," Kogut says. "The climate is good for us to have services available to women, but there are also anti-choice forces at play here."

PERHAPS THOSE forces should be looking in other directions. Since George W. Bush took office, in 2001, abortion rates in the United States have actually gone up, according to Dr. Glen Harold Stassen, the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary. Complete national statistics since 2001 aren’t available, but Stassen found data from three states through 2003, and from 13 more covering 2001 and 2002. Eleven of those states reported an increase in abortion rates; five of them saw a decrease.

"What does this tell us?" Stassen asks. His answer is one that pro- and anti-choice advocates alike could use to frame their fight. "Economic policy and abortion are not separate issues; they form one moral imperative," he writes in SojoMail, a weekly e-mail magazine that discusses faith, politics, and culture. "Rhetoric is hollow, mere tinkling brass, without health care, health insurance, jobs, child care, and a living wage."

Stassen is pro-life, and in his SojoMail piece, "Pro-Life? Look at the Fruits," he advises those who share his beliefs to refocus their fight on increasing employment and health insurance. Many pro-choice advocates agree. Nina Selvaggio, president of Greater Boston NOW, explains that with the economy in such disarray (she cites a stagnant minimum wage, unemployment, and lack of health insurance), pregnant "women are faced with another mouth that they can’t afford to feed." But, she says, "Unfortunately, I think anytime you see the abortion rate on the rise, that just fuels the anti-choice movement even more."

So, rather than crafting laws that would address the economic considerations that drive women to abortion, or promoting effective sex ed that teaches pregnancy prevention, anti-choice activists use this kind of data to push for ever-more-severe restrictions on abortion — despite the fact that such restrictions might not work. And their impact could last for generations.

"I really do think that these are sort of extraordinary times," says the ACLU’s Melling. "What we face is a Congress intent on enacting more restrictions that really are sort of unparalleled, and will affect real women’s lives and in particular affect the lives of young women and poor women."

Deirdre Fulton can be reached at dfulton[a]phx.com