Idahoans in rural Sandpoint reflect on a year without labor and delivery services

March 11, 2024
By Amanda Sullender

Lauren Sanders could not give birth in her hometown of Sandpoint. With the closure of the local hospitals’ labor and delivery services a year earlier, she had to drive over an hour to Coeur d’Alene to give birth to her son, now 4 months old.

“I was privileged to be able to drive that way for all my appointments and my birth. I was privileged to have the perfect pregnancy with no complications. I’m lucky ’cause that is who the laws of Idaho work for – people with perfect pregnancies,” Sanders said at a rally outside of Bonner General Hospital on Friday. “That is not the case for most people who give birth. Pregnancies are not supposed to be perfect.”

Continued: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/mar/11/amid-pro-abortion-protest-idahoans-in-rural-sandpo/


Wyoming Banned Abortion. She Opened an Abortion Clinic Anyway.

The only abortion clinic left in the state has been protested and set on fire, rebuilt and opened as Wyoming grapples with what it means to be conservative in a post-Roe nation.

By Kate Zernike, NYT
March 10, 2024

It was not such an implausible idea, back in 2020, when a philanthropist emailed Julie Burkhart to ask if she would consider opening an abortion clinic in Wyoming, one of the nation’s most conservative states and the one that had twice given Donald Trump his biggest margin of victory.

In fact, Ms. Burkhart had the same idea more than a decade earlier, after an anti-abortion extremist killed her boss and mentor, George Tiller, in Wichita, Kan., where he ran one of the nation’s few clinics that provided abortion late in pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/10/us/wyoming-abortion-clinic-julie-burkhart.html


The Biggest Thing Missing From Joe Biden’s State of the Union

BY DAVID S. COHEN, GREER DONLEY, AND RACHEL REBOUCHE
MARCH 08, 2024

On Thursday night, President Joe Biden gave an energetic and compelling State of the Union address that centered reproductive freedom. It was the second topic he addressed, behind only threats to democracy, abroad with Putin and at home with Trump. In turning to reproductive rights, Biden was able to showcase the powerful stories of his invited guests, like Kate Cox and Latorya Beasley, to underscore the real harms of anti-abortion policies.

There was a lot to appreciate in his speech, but there were missed opportunities.  Reproductive rights and justice advocates immediately noticed that Biden did not say the word “abortion”—a recurring issue for the president. But we noticed the omission of another word, which we think is possibly even more significant given the coming election: Comstock.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/abortion-comstock-act-joe-biden-state-of-the-union.html


Library archives uncover long-lost history of Colorado women dying trying to get an abortion before it was legal

By John Daley
Mar. 7, 2024

Abortion access —  some states have outlawed it, others have seen scores of patients from out of state —  has been in the news since the U.S. Supreme Court repealed the Constitutional right to an abortion two years ago.  But looking back through history shows that unplanned pregnancies and access to abortions have been in the news for a long, long time.

More than a century ago, readers of the Rocky Mountain News learned about the death of a young woman who worked in a shop named Maude, who was trying to terminate a pregnancy. A woman named Mrs. Proctor, the wife of the manager of a “remedy company,” was charged with manslaughter in Maude’s death.

Continued: https://www.cpr.org/2024/03/07/denver-public-library-history-of-abortion-access-in-colorado/


Manitoba introduces law to create protest-free zones near abortion clinics

People seeking abortion services deserve privacy and safety, families minister says

The Canadian Press
Mar 07, 2024

The Manitoba government plans to restrict protests near clinics and hospitals where abortions are performed, as well as at the homes of abortion providers.

The NDP government introduced a bill Thursday that, if passed, would create "buffer zones" of 50 metres to 150 metres around related health facilities and staff homes. Several provinces, including Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec, already have similar laws in place.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/abortion-protest-restrictions-manitoba-legislation-1.7137091


What can a Sask. doctor who objects to an abortion tell a patient?

The oversight body for doctors in Saskatchewan alleges Dr. Terence Davids crossed the line with comments he made in December 2023.

Brandon Harder
Mar 06, 2024 

In areas where medicine intersects with personal values, where is the line when it comes to what a physician can say to a patient?

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan (CPSS), the professional body that licences and oversees doctors in the province, recently alleged that one doctor crossed the line.

Continued: https://leaderpost.com/news/what-can-a-sask-doctor-who-objects-to-an-abortion-tell-a-patient


USA – Why Hospitals in Many States With Legal Abortion May Refuse To Perform Them

By Rachana Pradhan
MARCH 5, 2024

Many states that tout themselves as protectors of reproductive health care, including California, Michigan and Pennsylvania, have little-noticed laws on the books protecting hospitals that refuse to provide it.

The laws shield at least some hospitals from liability for not providing care they object to on religious grounds, leaving little recourse for patients. The providers — many of them Catholic hospitals — generally refuse to perform abortions and sterilizations because the services run contrary to their religious beliefs, but their objections can extend to other kinds of care.

Continued: https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/health-202-catholic-hospitals-legal-abortion-refusal/


The Right-Wing War on Abortion Has Nothing to Do With Babies

Coverage of the recent controversy over IVF has made a perilous omission: This is a battle over body autonomy.

Jessica M. Goldstein
March 4, 2024

… But the insidious, vile truth is that the Alabama ruling—as well as all of the statutes and the language of the Alabama state Constitution, a plain reading of which really left the state Supreme Court no choice but to restrict IVF—has got nothing to do with babies. The anti-abortion movement is not about babies. It has never been about babies. It’s about control.

The force behind every anti-abortion policy is not concern for babies or the alleged humanity of unfertilized embryos; it is violent misogyny, plain and simple, with the obvious intent of stripping every person who can get pregnant of their basic human rights.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/179464/abortion-body-autonomy-forced-birth


France adds abortion rights to the constitution. Could it happen in Canada?

France's upgrading of abortion rights is a bold political message in a world that is increasingly veering to the far right.

By Allan Woods, Staff Reporter
Monday, March 4, 2024

PARIS—However linked the two countries' histories, however shared their values, it is difficult to imagine Canada following in France's footsteps to enshrine the right to abortion in the Constitution.

French lawmakers did that Monday in a historic vote at Château de Versailles that puts the ability to end a pregnancy right up there with the country’s famous motto: "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité."

Continued: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/france-adds-abortion-rights-to-the-constitution-could-it-happen-in-canada/article_04bc5ff0-da42-11ee-959b-e3b780f9717f.html


USA – The anti-abortion playbook for restricting birth control

Contraception, like IVF, poses problems for those claiming personhood begins at conception.

By Rachel M. Cohen
Mar 3, 2024

The national debate over IVF, unfolding after an Alabama court decision prompted multiple clinics in the state to halt operations, prompts a question: What might be next? Could other fertility treatments and even birth control be under threat given that Roe v. Wade is no longer the law?

If the idea that birth control could be at risk in America strikes you as hard to believe, I understand.
There’s no proposed legislation on the table to ban it, and it does seem unbelievable that contraception — which an overwhelming majority of US women, including religious and Republican women, have used and support — could one day disappear.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/24087411/anti-abortion-roe-dobbs-birth-control-contraception-ivf