What It’s Really Like to Challenge Texas’ Absurd Abortion Laws

The government won’t admit what it’s actually doing.

BY DAHLIA LITHWICK
DEC 18, 2023
(1-hour podcast, partial transcript)

… Last summer, Amanda Zurawski and a number of plaintiffs sued to have Texas clarify its inscrutable and malleable “exception” rule, that, as it currently stands, does not seem to allow many exceptions at all, and instead threatens all abortion providers with losing their licenses, paying extortionate fines, and going to prison for 99 years if they help their clients access such care. That case went to the Texas Supreme Court on the same day Kate Cox learned that her baby would die of trisomy 18, the week before the Texas courts forced her to travel out of state to terminate her pregnancy.

On Amicus this week, Amanda Zurawski, the lead plaintiff in that ongoing Texas lawsuit, and one of her lawyers, Jamie Levitt, of Morrison and Foerster, who joined with the Center for Reproductive Rights to protect the rights of women in Texas, joined the show. Our conversation, lightly edited for clarity, follows.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/12/amanda-zurawski-on-challenging-texas-abortion-law.html

Nigeria – Interview: 2024 health budget of N1trn will barely scratch the surface, says expert

Dec 16, 2023
In 2017, Nigeria’s maternal mortality hit 917 per 100,000 births. Three years later, the figures surged by nearly 14 percent to 1,047 deaths, ranking among the world’s highest. With each spike, it is a bleak canvas of despair for countless Nigerian women seeking to bring life into the world.

With the conclusion of the 16 days of activism, Lucky Palmer, country director of Ipas Nigeria Health Foundation, spoke with TheCable’s CLAIRE MOM to shed light on the factors that contributed to the country’s high maternal mortality rate and offered practical steps that can be taken to ensure every woman’s right to safe childbirth.

Continued: https://www.thecable.ng/interview-2024-health-budget-of-n1tn-will-barely-scratch-surface-says-expert

16.12.2023

Interviews/Podcasts

Ipas Nigeria Health Foundation

Meet 18 women who shared heartbreaking pregnancy journeys in post-Roe world

On the Brink: Women detail impact of abortion restrictions on their health care.

By Nadine El-Bawab, Tess Scott, Christina Ng, and Acacia Nunes
December 16, 2023

…In a monthslong investigation, 18 women from across 10 states shared their deeply personal stories, chronicling their heartbreaking journeys and how, in some cases, they were brought to the brink of death because they couldn't access timely care in their home states.

The women appeared in a companion broadcast, "Impact by Nightline: On the Brink," with exclusive interviews by Diane Sawyer and Rachel Scott, which looks at the hidden health care crisis playing out in clinics and exam rooms across the country. So many families posing the question: is this what lawmakers intended? "On the Brink" premieres Dec. 14 on Hulu.

These are their stories.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/meet-18-women-shared-heartbreaking-pregnancy-journeys-post/story?id=105563366

Brazil’s Abortion Dilemma Explored in Ventana Sur’s Pix-in-Post Debut ‘November’

By Callum McLennan
Nov 30, 2023

…The film follows Janaína, played by Mayara Santos, a star student looking to be the first member of her family to graduate college. Janaína lives in a small apartment with her grandmother and mother at their small apartment in Recife. We meet her out partying with her best friend and boyfriend. Life seems good. The shock of an unplanned pregnancy changes that. Abortion remains illegal in Brazil. The ensuing weight of branching feelings, risks and relationships fills Janaína’s life with choices no one should face unsupported.

Producer Dora Amorim told Variety, “Our characters are women living with all their complexities, contradictions, cultures and realities, who carry stories that are the foundation of their condition as women in our contemporary society and also in the North-East of Brazil.

Continued: https://variety.com/2023/film/global/ventana-sur-brazil-abortion-debate-1235813508/

30.11.2023

Texas Supreme Court to hear case on state abortion laws and pregnancy complications

NOVEMBER 26, 2023
By Sarah McCammon, Selena Simmons-Duffin
7-Minute Listen

The Texas Supreme Court will hear a case this week brought by women who say the state's abortion laws are harming them.

SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:
This week, the Texas Supreme Court will consider this question. Are the state's abortion laws harming women when they face pregnancy complications? The case posing that question was brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is fiercely defending the state's current abortion laws. Here to talk about it is NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin. Hi, Selena.
Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/11/26/1215227706/texas-supreme-court-to-hear-case-on-state-abortion-laws-and-pregnancy-complicati

USA – Our Abortion Stories: ‘There Were No Resources Available to Make Choosing to Be a Single Mom a Sane Choice’

“Your abortion is not a taboo or a deep, dark secret; abortion is healthcare.”

11/21/2023
by VAL DIEZ CANSECO

Last summer, the Supreme Court overturned the longstanding precedents of Roe v. Wade, representing the largest blow to women’s constitutional rights in history. A series from Ms., Our Abortion Stories chronicles readers’ experiences of abortion pre- and post-Roe. Abortions are sought by a wide range of people for many different reasons. There is no single story. Telling stories of then and now shows how critical abortion has been and continues to be for women and girls.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/11/21/our-abortion-stories-roe-v-wade-women-health-rape/

21.11.2023

women's abortion stories

Is Russia Heading Toward an Abortion Ban?

Russia on the Record
Nov 17, 2023
Podcast: 49 minutes

The Soviet Union was the first country in the world to allow abortion, and until this year, modern Russia has had some of the world’s most liberal abortion legislation.

But in recent months, several Russian regions have pursued anti-abortion policies ranging from outlawing the so-called act of “coercing women” into having an abortion — which could also be interpreted as banning any information about safe abortion — to banning the procedure in private clinics.

Continued: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/11/17/is-russia-heading-toward-an-abortion-ban-a83144j

17.11.2023

Abortion Pills Go Global — Reproductive Freedom Across Borders

By Rose Aguilar, Sarah Lai Stirland
October 26, 2023
Podcast: 52:40 minutes

On this edition of Your Call, social scientist Sydney Calkin discusses her new book, Abortion Pills Go Global: Reproductive Freedom Across Borders.

Calkin examines how the global flow of these pills is changing the politics of abortion in countries with restrictive abortion laws. Here in the United States, women used abortion pills to end more than half of unwanted pregnancies in recent years.

Guest: Sydney Calkin, senior lecturer in the School of Geography at Queen Mary University of London and co-editor of After Repeal: Re-thinking Abortion Politics

Continued: https://www.kalw.org/show/your-call/2023-10-26/abortion-pills-go-global-reproductive-freedom-across-borders

27.10.2023

Interviews/Podcasts

abortion pills

Abortion Pills Go Global: Reproductive Freedom Across Borders

Rose Aguilar

Sarah Lai Stirland

self-managed abortion

Our Abortion Stories, a Provider’s Perspective: ‘I Wore a Bulletproof Vest When I Went to the Abortion Clinic’

“Abortion providers are given advice on how to avoid attacks,” wrote Dr. Steven H. Eisinger, an ob-gyn for over four decades. “Drive different routes; be acutely aware of your surroundings; never stand in a window.”

10/13/2023

by STEVE EISINGER

A Spy in the Freedom of Choice Clinic
A young woman showed up at Freedom of Choice (my abortion clinic) who appeared—I hesitate to write it—godly. She had a sweet expression and a low voice. Her dress was modest and appeared old-fashioned to me. She was not sure what she wanted to do.

I tried to elicit her story. It had to do with a fiancé who had a job; maybe he was moving and maybe she was in school. It was not clear. She was also quite vague regarding her last menstrual period, contraception and a pregnancy test that she could not quite read. She seemed more interested in asking me personal questions, like, “Why do you do abortions?”

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/10/13/abortion-provider-stories/

13.10.2023

Interviews/Podcasts

Dr. Steven H. Eisinger

Freedom of Choice clinic

stories from abortion providers

Q&A: Renee Bracey Sherman on the history of abortion coverage

OCTOBER 11, 2023
By FEVEN MERID

In 2016, Renee Bracey Sherman founded We Testify, an organization that centers the stories of people who have abortions—particularly those from communities of color and those who face significant barriers to reproductive health resources—in the hopes of transforming the public discussion around the procedure. “Abortion is probably one of the most lied-about, misunderstood, misrepresented medical, political, personal, familial issues there is,” she told me recently.

Since she founded We Testify, Bracey Sherman has produced a documentary with Planned Parenthood and is now working on a book, Countering Abortionsplaining, with Regina Mahone, an editor at The Nation.

Continued: https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/qa_renee_bracey_sherman_abortion_archives.php

11.10.2023