USA – ‘Conscience’ bills let medical providers opt out of providing a wide range of care

Carly Graf, KFF Health News
July 31, 2023

A new Montana law will provide sweeping legal protections to health care practitioners who refuse to prescribe marijuana or participate in procedures and treatments such as abortion, medically assisted death, gender-affirming care, or others that run afoul of their ethical, moral, or religious beliefs or principles.

The law, which goes into effect in October, will gut patients’ ability to take legal action if they believe they didn’t receive proper care due to a conscientious objection by a provider or an institution, such as a hospital.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/07/31/conscience-bills-healthcare-providers-not-give-medical-care/70470186007/


Abortion clinics in 3 states sue to protect pill access

Abortion providers in three states filed a lawsuit Monday aimed at preserving access to the widely used abortion pill mifepristone

By MATTHEW PERRONE and DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press
May 8, 2023

Abortion providers in three states filed a lawsuit Monday aimed at preserving access to the abortion pill mifepristone, even as the drug is threatened by a separate Texas lawsuit winding its way through U.S. court system.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia on behalf of clinics in Virginia, Montana and Kansas, is the latest legal action over the decades-old pill, which is part of the two-drug regimen used in most U.S. abortions.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/abortion-clinics-3-states-sue-protect-pill-access-99181828


USA – Clinics offering abortions face a rise in threats, violence and legal battles

April 7, 2023
By Aaron Bolton

Thirty years ago, Blue Mountain Clinic Director Willa Craig stood in front of the sagging roof and broken windows of an abortion clinic that an arsonist had burned down early that morning in Missoula, Montana.

"This morning, Missoula, Montana, learned that there is no place in America that is safe from hateful, misguided groups," she told the crowd of reporters and onlookers.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/04/07/1168547810/clinics-offering-abortions-face-a-rise-in-threats-violence-and-legal-battles


These states will have abortion on the ballot in November

By Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN
 September 5, 2022

Voters in a small number of states will decide in November how those states should handle the abortion issue. Abortion rights have taken on an increased significance and become a top focus in the midterm elections after the US Supreme Court's ruling this summer that there was no longer a federal constitutional right to the procedure.

In its August primary, Kansas was the first state in the nation to let voters weigh in on abortion since the high court overturned Roe v. Wade, and Kansans overwhelmingly chose to reject a state constitutional amendment that would have given state lawmakers the green light to help enact more restrictive abortion laws,

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/05/politics/2022-midterm-elections-abortion-ballot-measures/index.html


With Supreme Court in mind, states aim to curb abortion rights

Lawmakers are introducing new bills to restrict abortion rights.

By JUSTIN FRANZ | KAISER HEALTH NEWS
2 March 2021

When Rep. Lola Sheldon-Galloway introduced a bill in the Montana House two years ago that would have prohibited abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, the Republican legislator knew it was unlikely to survive the veto pen of the Democratic governor.

Sure enough, then-Gov. Steve Bullock vetoed that bill and two other anti-abortion measures passed by the Republican-led state legislature. In his veto message, Bullock wrote that “for over 40 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the U.S. Constitution prohibits a state from banning abortion.”

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/supreme-court-mind-states-aim-curb-abortion-rights/story?id=76201750


State legislatures got redder in 2020. It’s a ‘dire reality’ for abortion rights, advocates say.

29 state legislatures now have antiabortion majorities

Caroline Kitchener, The Lily
Feb. 2, 2021

When the South Carolina legislature convened on Jan. 12, one issue took priority over any other. Senate Bill 1, the first piece of legislation introduced on the Senate floor, bans most abortions, outlawing the procedure once a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat — around six weeks — except in cases of rape and incest, when there is a fatal fetal anomaly, and when a mother’s life is at risk.

SB 1 cleared the state Senate on Thursday. Now it will head to the South Carolina House, where it will almost certainly pass, before making its way to the desk of Gov. Henry McMaster (R).

Continued: https://www.thelily.com/state-legislatures-got-redder-in-2020-its-a-dire-reality-for-abortion-rights-advocates-say/


USA – I helped women get abortions for 28 years — through protests and shifting rules

I helped women get abortions for 28 years — through protests and shifting rules

By Joan Finn-McCracken
May 25, 2018
Joan Finn-McCracken is a former teacher and nurse practitioner. She was a director of Planned Parenthood clinics for 32 years.

One of the first patients who came to our family-planning clinic in Billings, Mont., newly opened in 1969, sought help after she and her boyfriend had hitchhiked 500 miles from Billings to Colorado to terminate a pregnancy. Colorado was one of the five states where abortions could be legally obtained. They had heard about Colorado through his older sister, and were able to borrow enough money for the procedure but not enough for a bus ticket. She was 17, unmarried and so desperate to return home before anyone missed her that she did not stay for her follow-up appointment. Now she came to us for follow-up care, as well as birth control.

Although I was the mother of five children and a graduate of the Duke University School of Nursing, and had taught in two nursing schools, I knew little about abortion. Our patient was afraid to go to her family doctor because she was not sure what was legal or illegal. And neither was I. But I did know we could not prescribe her birth control — it was against the law for anyone under 18.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/i-helped-women-get-abortions-for-28-years--through-protests-and-shifting-rules/2018/05/25/4f680826-5eb8-11e8-a4a4-c070ef53f315_story.html


USA: National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) Rejects Montana County Prosecutor’s Call to Implement “The Handmaid’s Tale”

National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) Rejects Montana County Prosecutor's Call to Implement "The Handmaid's Tale"
Jan 12, 2018

NAPW Advises Pregnant Women Not to "Self-Report" and the Public to Reject Incoherent and Inaccurate Claims Regarding Pregnant Women

On January 11, 2018, the Big Horn County Attorney's Office issued an announcement calling for the "immediate crackdown" on pregnant women that is outrageous, irresponsible, and dangerous to women, children, and families. According to this statement, every pregnant woman should be constantly monitored for the use of alcohol or non-medically prescribed drugs, turned in to state authorities by friends, family members, health care providers and strangers, and become subject to court orders of protection that may be enforced through arrest and incarceration to "incapacitate" expecting mothers. Pregnant women are advised to "immediately self-report" to the Department of Health and Human Services to avoid prosecution. The County Attorney also calls on other prosecutors throughout Montana to join him in this reckless call to hunt down pregnant women. NAPW is shocked by this attack on the health, liberty, and basic human rights of women in Big Horn County.

Continued at source: http://advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/blog/2018/01/statement_condemning_call_for.php


What it’s like to take on the most vilified job in America

Andrew Richard

8/8/16
by Alice Hines

Sam Avery knew she could find what she needed at the All Families clinic, because she’d seen the protesters outside when driving through town. Their “Pray to End Abortion” signs billboarded an otherwise discreet service in Kalispell, Montana, population 22,000. It’s the kind of town where churches outnumber supermarkets and gay pride parades draw counter-protests. The clinic’s owner had a nickname: “Susan Cahill the baby killer,” says Avery. “She’s got that label for the rest of her life.”

Avery got pregnant after quitting the hormonal birth control that was making her sick. She decided to get an aspiration abortion, one of the most common surgeries in the U.S., which takes between three and 10 minutes to complete. Avery’s drive to All Families took four hours from her then-home on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation through Glacier National Park and across the Continental Divide. When she finally met Cahill, she gleaned a different impression from others in town: “She’s a rare mix of badass and surly and also caring and understanding. She has the right proportions to be really good at what she did.”

[continued at link]
Source: Fusion