Abortion Is Revolutionary: A Conversation with Lauren Rankin

April 5, 2022  
By Eleanor J. Bader

“ABORTION IS ABOUT someone’s future, their dreams, their lives,” Lauren Rankin writes in Bodies on the Line: At the Front Lines to Protect Abortion in America (Counterpoint Press). “When abortion is reduced to a mere political fight, we miss this, and we miss the very real stakes when access is denied.”

Those stakes, of course, have been enormous, with access to abortion limited by legal restrictions such as parental consent and notification requirements for minors; mandates that separate counseling from the actual procedure; and by the denial of insurance coverage by Medicaid and other plans. In addition, protests outside clinic doors have been ubiquitous for nearly five decades. In fact, picketers typically accost patients — often screaming at them as they thrust photos of bloody fetal parts in their faces — in an effort to dissuade them from ending their pregnancies. What’s more, anti-abortion violence, including the murder of 11 doctors and escorts since 1993, has had a chilling impact on the number of available providers.

Continued: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/abortion-is-revolutionary-a-conversation-with-lauren-rankin/


‘It Wears on Your Soul’: COVID Has Created an Abortion Nightmare in Texas

'It Wears on Your Soul': COVID Has Created an Abortion Nightmare in Texas
In recent weeks, providers have been forced to cancel hundreds of abortion appointments, then call patients back in, only to send them home once more. Abortion funds are helping manage the fallout.

by Mary Tuma
Apr 27 2020

When Texas officials effectively banned abortion in the state in late March, Kamyon Conner and her staff rushed to figure out how to compassionately tell clients that they could no longer access care. Conner doesn’t run an abortion clinic, she’s the executive director of the Texas Equal Access Fund, an abortion fund that provides financial assistance to women in north, east, and west Texas. Their hotline was already busier than normal even before Texas used the coronavirus pandemic to restrict access to abortion.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/g5x4n3/texas-abortion-funds-workers-are-managing-the-fallout-of-state-abortion-ban-during-coronavirus-covid19-pandemic


USA – ‘You have to stand up to illegitimate authority’: what veteran abortion activists can teach us in the Trump era

‘You have to stand up to illegitimate authority’: what veteran abortion activists can teach us in the Trump era
The pioneers who struggled for legalisation in the 60s are seeing the same battles being fought all over again

Laura Barton
Sat 18 Jan 2020

The telephone sat in the dormitory hallway, and when it rang it might have been for any of the residents – young women in their teens and early 20s, all students at the University of Chicago. Calls came from family and friends and boyfriends, from colleagues and classmates and clubs. But sometimes the voice at the end of the line would ask for “Jane”.

This was 1965, and in Chicago the social justice movement was gathering pace – a new era that encompassed civil rights, student rights, women’s rights and resistance to the war in Vietnam. Among those involved was Heather Booth, a 19-year-old social sciences student from New York.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/18/you-have-to-stand-up-to-illegitimate-authority-what-veteran-abortion-activists-can-teach-us-in-the-trump-era


New York could become first city to provide abortion funding

New York could become first city to provide abortion funding

By Caroline Kelly, CNN
Sat June 15, 2019

(CNN)New York is slated to become what abortion activists say would be the first city in the country to provide funding for abortions.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, both Democrats, announced a budget agreement Friday that included funding for individuals seeking abortions in the city.

continued: https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/14/politics/new-york-city-abortion-funds/index.html


Abortion Support Network expands service to Malta and Gibraltar

Abortion Support Network expands service to Malta and Gibraltar (Press Release)

Published on February 14, 2019

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, ASN brings the gift of confidential, non-judgemental information and funding for abortion costs to new countries

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue
Ireland has safe legal abortion
So we’re expanding to help Malta and Gibraltar too!

Abortion Support Network (ASN), a small UK-based charity providing financial assistance, practical information and accommodation to those living in countries with restrictive abortion laws, announced today that it has launched its service to people resident in Malta and Gibraltar. As of today, anyone in those countries will be able to ring the ASN helpline, visit the ASN website or send an email and receive confidential, non-judgmental information about the least expensive way to arrange abortion and travel, clinics that ASN works with in several EU countries, and, where necessary, receive financial help towards the cost of travelling from your home country and paying privately to access a safe, legal abortion.

Currently Malta is the only country in Europe where abortion is completely against the law, whereas the law in Gibraltar allows abortion to save a woman’s life.

Continued: https://www.asn.org.uk/news-and-events/abortion-support-network-expands-service-to-malta-and-gibraltar-press-release/


Abortion-seekers find support in New Mexico interfaith group

Abortion-seekers find support in New Mexico interfaith group

By Sarah Halasz Graham
Nov 3, 2018

She arrived under cover of darkness, alone, a stranger in an unfamiliar city.

In July 2014, El Paso resident Kasey Sanchez was 27 years old — and 27 weeks pregnant. In the seven weeks since she’d learned she was expecting, Sanchez had told no one, except a few muted voices on the phone — voices of people who promised to help.

Continued: http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/abortion-seekers-find-support-in-new-mexico-interfaith-group/article_7788ef9e-6806-5c27-944e-142fee7d75cb.html