USA – Planned Parenthood affiliates train abortion doulas to reduce stress for patients

BY: SOFIA RESNICK
MARCH 15, 2024

A 39-year-old single mother of two got up extra early on a recent Wednesday morning, hoping to be one of the first outside the Planned Parenthood clinic near Phoenix, Arizona.

The upside of not telling anyone about her abortion was that she wasn’t going to have to explain herself. The downside was that she couldn’t receive any pain medication, since she’d have to drive herself home. After scraping together $770 to pay for the procedure — $250 of which she said came from an abortion fund — she couldn’t afford an Uber for the 80-minute round trip. So she was overcome with relief when not only did the busy clinic not turn her away, but a retired nurse named Mary Cross offered to be her abortion doula, free of charge.

Continued: https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2024/03/15/planned-parenthood-affiliates-train-abortion-doulas-to-reduce-stress-for-patients/

15.03.2024

Planned Parenthood Arizona

Understanding The Work Of Abortion Doulas In A Post-Roe V. Wade America

BY MICHAEL-MICHELLE PRATT
SEPTEMBER 30, 2023

The matter of abortion has been a hot button issue since it became a politicized one. With the landmark case of Roe V. Wade on January 23, 1973, abortion became legal, only to be overturned on June 24, 2022. In the forty-nine years between those two dates, the reproductive rights of birthing people were thought to be safe and secure. However, Black women, femmes, and trans people have known this to be a falsehood for some time. This group is aware that they are the most vulnerable when drastic legislative changes occur, but the most influential work happens beyond and outside of legislation. Most of the real work has been happening in mutual aid and abolitionist spaces with the help of Black abortion doulas.

Continued: https://www.essence.com/lifestyle/abortion-doula/

30.09.2023

Commentary

abortion doulas

Ash Williams

Black abortion doulas

Bry Reed

reproductive oppression

Abortion in Canada—Legal for Decades But Hindered by Stigma

By Juliet Morrison

Ottawa, Jul 19 2022 (IPS) - Toronto resident Miranda Knight describes her abortion experience as relatively simple. After finding out she was pregnant on a Wednesday in 2017, she booked an appointment at an available clinic and got one for the following Monday. She had the procedure that day and left the clinic by noon.

But Knight’s experience is not the reality for all. As Canada’s most populous city, Toronto has several access points to abortion. Despite abortion being legal nationwide since 1988 and officially treated like any other medical procedure, many other parts of the country do not have access points.

Continued: https://www.ipsnews.net/2022/07/abortion-in-canada-legal-for-decades-but-hindered-by-stigma/

19.07.2022

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Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada

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Autumn Reinhardt-Simpson

Is Canada too ‘smug’ about abortion? These doulas say access is worse than you think

Canadian women face many barriers to abortion access, including money and geography

Colin Butler · CBC News
Posted: Jul 05, 2022

A pair of abortion doulas in southwestern Ontario say Canadians shouldn't take access to safe, legal abortions for granted because there are still barriers to care that are difficult to overcome, including time off work, a lack of financial resources and the distance from urban-centred clinics.

Christal Malone of London and Jennifer Surerus of St. Thomas help make access to safe abortions as seamless and easy as possible for people across the country.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/abortion-doula-canada-1.6507204

05.07.2022

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News

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Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada

Women in Northern Ireland Still Struggle to Access Abortion More Than 2 Years After Decriminalization

BY KRISTEN CHICK/BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND
JUNE 30, 2022

When Katie Boyd decided to have an abortion in November, she thought the process would be smooth. She had celebrated when abortion was decriminalized in Northern Ireland two years earlier, in October 2019, and two years on, it seemed logical that abortion care would now be readily available.

Boyd, 40, called a hotline intended to connect those seeking abortion with care, and was told she’d receive a call within five days from a clinic that could provide an early medication abortion. But five days went by with no call. Her follow-up calls begging for direct contact information for the clinic got her nowhere. As the days turned into weeks, Boyd began to panic.

Continued: https://time.com/6192022/northern-ireland-abortion-access/

A covert network of activists is preparing for the end of Roe

What will the future of abortion in America look like?

By Jessica Bruder
APRIL 4, 2022

One bright afternoon in early January, on a beach in Southern California, a young woman spread what looked like a very strange picnic across an orange polka-dot towel: A mason jar. A rubber stopper with two holes. A syringe without a needle. A coil of aquarium tubing and a one-way valve. A plastic speculum. Several individually wrapped sterile cannulas—thin tubes designed to be inserted into the body—which resembled long soda straws. And, finally, a three-dimensional scale model of the female reproductive system.

The two of us were sitting on the sand. The woman, whom I’ll call Ellie, had suggested that we meet at the beach; she had recently recovered from COVID-19, and proposed the open-air setting for my safety. She also didn’t want to risk revealing where she lives—and asked me to withhold her name—because of concerns about harassment or violence from anti-abortion extremists.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/roe-v-wade-overturn-abortion-rights/629366/

04.04.2022

American Medical Association

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Autonomous Pelvic Care

Carol Downer

Choix

Clergy Consultation Service

Danika Severino Wynn

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dilatation and curettage

DIY abortion

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An Abortion Doula On Canada’s Problematic Lack Of Access

Sarah Ratchford
Last Updated July 28, 2020

As an abortion doula, Shannon Hardy spends her days driving people to appointments or taking care of them afterwards. That all changed when the pandemic started. Sharing a car with a stranger, not to mention helping them convalesce, has been out of the question since COVID-19, leaving many without access to this crucial healthcare service.

Getting an abortion in Atlantic Canada, where Hardy lives, was a challenge even before coronavirus. Though abortions have been decriminalized in Canada since 1988, provinces have jurisdiction over access. As a result, where and at what point in a pregnancy you can get an abortion is influenced by the local political climate, and varies widely. Mifegymiso, the pill that induces what's called a medical abortion, is available and covered by provincial healthcare, but not every doctor will prescribe it. In some places, there's access to surgical abortions, but parts or all of it are not covered or you have to pay up front and seek reimbursement afterward.

Continued: https://www.refinery29.com/en-ca/abortion-doula-canada-access

28.07.2020

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barriers to abortion access

Blaine Higgs

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Abortion ‘doulas’ in Chile risk prison, saying women need their help

Abortion 'doulas' in Chile risk prison, saying women need their help
“We are doing this because the law is insufficient."

May 28, 2020
By Liam Miller

SANTIAGO, Chile — The woman anxiously removes the SIM card from the cheap cellphone and cuts the chip into pieces before sweeping the fragments into the trash. When her nerves pass, she allows herself a small sigh of relief.

Despite using a "burner" phone like those associated with drug deals in TV crime series, this woman is using it for a different purpose. A college-educated professional, she's one of several women in a group of abortion "doulas," part of a clandestine network willing to break the law and face prison to help women obtain abortions, as long as it's medically safe to do so.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/abortion-doulas-chile-risk-prison-saying-women-need-their-help-n1154506

USA – Not Your Grandmother’s Illegal Abortion

Not Your Grandmother’s Illegal Abortion

By Jennifer Block
Book excerpt
July 1, 2019

The sola variety of papaya resembles a pregnant uterus, so much so that around the world, humans use the fruit to learn one method of modern reproductive health care: manual vacuum aspiration, or MVA, a low-risk, low-tech method of first-trimester abortion that requires little or no anesthesia. As one doctor remarked at a conference in 1973, where the technology was introduced to physicians from around the world, “it’s something we will be able to bring practically into the rice paddy.”

This, too, is the fruit I have been given to practice on. I’ve placed it on a table across from me, and I’m focused on the neck, where its stem grew, which evokes the cervical os. The tool I’m using is a large plastic syringe with a bendable plastic strawlike thing, called a cannula, where the needle would be. At the top of the syringe is a bivalve to create one-way suction.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2019/07/excerpt-from-everything-below-the-waist.html

USA – ‘Unconditional support’: A day in the life of an abortion doula

'Unconditional support': A day in the life of an abortion doula
It is controversial work providing compassionate support to the lonely and stigmatized

Amy Wright Glenn
January 21, 2019

Clare is a “full spectrum doula” who specifically focuses on supporting people having abortions. She chose this profession because of her own abortion experience.

“I felt very much alone,” she remembers.

Even though Clare, who asked to be identified by her first name only, knew she wanted an abortion from the onset of her pregnancy, she did not receive “any support from medical providers in finding out about what abortion options were available.” She felt ignored, silenced and “even shamed” by her gynecologist for the choice she'd made. Why?

Continued: https://www.phillyvoice.com/abortion-doula-controversy-full-spectrum-amy-wright-glenn/