Abortion Clinic Protests Are Still Happening in the Pandemic: ‘They Accost Patients Face to Face’

Abortion Clinic Protests Are Still Happening in the Pandemic: ‘They Accost Patients Face to Face’
“They don’t social distance. They block, stalk, push, shove, talk, scream. It’s business as usual out there for them.”

by Carter Sherman
May 26 2020

When Kelly Benzin arrived at the Grand Rapids, Michigan, abortion clinic where she works one recent Wednesday morning, everything seemed normal. Even in the midst of the pandemic, the Heritage Clinic for Women had been drawing about five to 15 protesters a day, she said. One was just setting up his chair as Benzin pulled in.

But around 8 a.m., when the clinic officially opened, Benzin realized that about 25 to 35 people had started to gather outside. Soon, they started to approach patients, handing out roses and trying to talk them out of getting abortions.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/889nnp/abortion-clinic-protests-are-still-happening-in-the-pandemic-they-accost-patients-face-to-face

USA – As Coronavirus Rages On, So Does Anti-Abortion Harassment and Extremism

As Coronavirus Rages On, So Does Anti-Abortion Harassment and Extremism

3/25/2020
by Micaela Brinsley, Ms. Magazine

In clinics in North Carolina, Wisconsin and Kentucky, anti-choice protesters have continued to show up at clinics that provide abortion services, refusing to comply with the pressure for people to practice social distancing and shelter-in-place.

Witnesses have reported protesters gathering in front of clinic doors, walking up to patients, and even “shoving unwanted pamphlets and gift sacks into confused patients’ hands” and through car windows—blatantly ignoring public health recommendations for people to stand six feet apart from one other.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2020/03/25/as-coronavirus-rages-on-so-does-anti-abortion-harassment-and-extremism/

Safe abortion access for all who need it

Safe abortion access for all who need it
MSF and HowToUseAbortionPill.org have created an online training course

Jan 23, 2020
Doctors Without Borders

Talking about abortion is not a crime. These days, however, health care providers and humanitarian workers who receive US funding overseas risk being shut down if they do just that.

The Global Gag Rule—which President Donald Trump reinstated and expanded on January 23, 2017—prohibits doctors, nurses, and other health workers around the world from even speaking about abortion. If they do, they could lose their US government funding. Health workers are relied upon to provide thorough, evidence-based medical information, and now they’ve been silenced in the places where that information is needed the most.

Continued: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/news-stories/story/safe-abortion-access-all-who-need-it

USA – Meet the Abortion Clinic Escorts Shielding Patients From Harassment

Meet the Abortion Clinic Escorts Shielding Patients From Harassment

Rose Himber Howse
Jan 22, 2020

It’s my first day as an escort at A Woman’s Choice, the lone abortion clinic in Greensboro, North Carolina. At 7 in the morning, it feels like I’ve stumbled onto a block party. At least 50 people are gathered in the parking lot, a space designed for 20 cars, and a guitarist with an amp is strumming and crooning.

Blocking the view of the actual clinic is the Greensboro Pregnancy Care Center’s mobile unit: a pink and white van that serves as the mother ship for six anti-abortion activists also wearing pink. The layout is a nightmare for patients who have to navigate a series of turnoffs that lead them past the van and through the parking lot where these protesters set up camp each morning.

Continued: https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2020/01/22/abortion-clinic-escorts/

What It’s Like to Get an Abortion in North Carolina

What It’s Like to Get an Abortion in North Carolina
In recent years, North Carolina has “gone to town on abortion restrictions.” This is one person's story.

by Kimberly Lawson
Dec 5 2019

In recent years, North Carolina has, as one researcher put it, “gone to town on abortion restrictions.” State lawmakers in 2013 famously reworked a bill about motorcycle safety to include several provisions intended to make it harder for abortion clinics to stay open, among other things. Although courts have overturned a number of other state restrictions—including a forced narrated ultrasound law and a previously unenforced 20-week ban—North Carolinians still face several barriers to accessing abortion care.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/8xwwgb/what-its-like-to-get-an-abortion-in-north-carolina

05.12.2019

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USA – These 5 States Are the Next Battlegrounds in the Abortion Wars

These 5 States Are the Next Battlegrounds in the Abortion Wars
Abortion rights groups are pouring tens of millions into these states to flip their legislatures in 2020.

by Carter Sherman
Oct 22 2019

When Americans think about the future of abortion, they often think of the Supreme Court decision to legalize abortion nationwide in Roe v. Wade. But over the last decade, the real battle over abortion hasn’t been in Washington, D.C. — it’s played out in statehouses across the country, where legislators have passed restriction after restriction on the procedure.

Now, abortion rights activists believe they have a unique chance to wrest back those state legislatures from abortion opponents. And though Election Day 2020 is still more than a year away, they’re already preparing.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/43kpy3/these-5-states-are-the-next-battlegrounds-in-the-abortion-wars

This Is What Women Have to Go Through to Get an Abortion in North Carolina

This Is What Women Have to Go Through to Get an Abortion in North Carolina
As Told To Macaela Mackenzie

November 21, 2018

Calla Hales oversees four abortion clinics in North Carolina and Georgia. For the past 40 Saturdays, she's been facing the front lines of an anti-abortion protest that drew thousands of pro-life activists. This is her story as told to Glamour's Macaela MacKenzie.

My typical Saturday commute to work feels a little like driving straight into a festival. There are tour buses, music blasting over loudspeakers, hundreds of people congregated in brightly colored shirts. Except this isn’t a festival or a fun town parade—I run four abortion clinics in North Carolina and Georgia, and this is the anti-abortion protest we face every week.

Continued: https://www.glamour.com/story/this-is-what-women-have-to-go-through-to-get-an-abortion-in-north-carolina

USA -The effect of a documentary: Charlotte, NC

USA -The effect of a documentary: Charlotte, NC
Dec 12, 2017
by International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion

Care in Chaos, a documentary by the US feminist news wire, Rewire, recently received the “Best Documentary Short” award from the Nevada Film Festival. It examines how policing practices and policies in Charlotte, North Carolina and Fargo, North Dakota impede or facilitate access to reproductive health care. Providers throughout the country work every day to serve patients, often under siege from an anti-choice movement driven by ideology and disrespect for women’s lives. As Care in Chaos shows, local authorities can make the difference in whether women can obtain critical care.

Right after the documentary’s release, they write, they saw real policy action. The city of Charlotte revised its sound permits to stop anti-choice protesters harassing patients and staff with loudspeakers and amplifiers. Now it’s easier for women in Charlotte to access comprehensive reproductive healthcare.

Watch the film "Care in Chaos" (21 minutes): https://rewire.news/videos/2017/07/11/care-in-chaos/

Source: http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/usa-the-effect-of-a-documentary-charlotte-nc/

USA: Raleigh abortion clinic operator believes job was reason she was raped

Raleigh abortion clinic operator believes job was reason she was raped

Sep 20, 2017

Raleigh, N.C. — In a growing culture of divisiveness, a 27-year-old Raleigh woman, who now lives in Charlotte, feels like she has put a face on how someone's views can lead to violence.

"Free speech doesn't mean you can run up on someone in the street and punch them randomly because you don't agree with them. It doesn't mean you can mow them down with your car. It doesn't mean that you can drag them into someone's backseat and assault them," said Calla Hales.

Continued: http://www.wral.com/raleigh-abortion-clinic-operator-believes-job-was-reason-she-was-raped/16962195/

20.09.2017

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What It Was Like to Be an Abortion Provider in the U.S. Before Roe v. Wade

What It Was Like to Be an Abortion Provider in the U.S. Before Roe v. Wade
Michael Stone
Jul 27, 2017

Dr. David Grimes performed his first abortion in 1972 as a medical student at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Five years before, North Carolina had joined Colorado and California in becoming the first states to legalize abortions in a few select scenarios: rape, incest, physical or mental defects in the child, and threats to the health or life of the mother.

The Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade made abortion legal, upon the mother’s request, across the nation. The decision came shortly before Grimes graduated from medical school, and he would go on to perform the procedure many times in his 42-year OB-GYN career. Now retired, he is an author of Every Third Woman in America: How Legal Abortion Transformed Our Nation.

Continued at source: Time: http://time.com/4873317/abortion-provider-interview/