Our Abortion Stories: ‘I Knew Something Was Wrong, But My Doctor Wouldn’t Listen’

“Do I want my daughter to enter her childbearing years in a state where the providers of women’s healthcare are hamstrung by draconian laws?”

Feb 6, 2024
by TALLULAH COSTA, ALEXA SCHNUR and LIVIA FOLLET

In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the longstanding precedents of Roe v. Wade, representing the largest blow to women’s constitutional rights in history. A series from Ms., Our Abortion Stories chronicles readers’ experiences of abortion pre- and post-Roe. Abortions are sought by a wide range of people for many different reasons. There is no single story. Telling stories of then and now shows how critical abortion has been and continues to be for women and girls.

The fall of Roe will continue to strain abortion access nationwide. We cannot, we must not lose the right to safe and accessible abortion or access to birth control.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2024/02/06/abortion-stories-roe-v-wade-doctor-health-abortion-miscarriage/


Stories of safe abortion care in Mozambique

29 JAN 2024
Médecins Sans Frontières

In every country, women from all walks of life may seek out an abortion at some time of their lives due to many reasons. Where safe abortion care is too difficult to access, people with an unwanted pregnancy often have no choice but to resort to unsafe abortion, one of the leading causes of maternal mortality globally.

To reduce the high number of women dying from unsafe abortion, Mozambique in 2014 legalised abortion up to 12 weeks and beyond in cases of rape, incest, and severe foetal anomalies such as heart defects. This essential care is provided free of charge. But even though abortion is free and legal, other barriers including stigma and misinformation can still make it difficult to access safe care. 

Continued: https://msf.org.au/article/stories-patients-staff/stories-safe-abortion-care-mozambique


6 Women Reveal Why They’re Stocking Up on the Abortion Pill

By Yerin Kim
Jan 29/2024

Courtney, 27, learned about advance provision — a practice that involves ordering abortion pills as a precautionary measure — during a TikTok scroll. Once she found there were telehealth organizations safely shipping abortion pills to states with abortion bans, she sought her own supply. Living in Arkansas, where abortion is completely banned, paired with recently learning that she'd been taking a medication that had made her birth control ineffective, Courtney requested advance-provision pills through Aid Access, a nonprofit providing access to medication abortion by mail.

"If I ever was in the position of being pregnant and wanting to terminate, I would have the option to decide that for myself in the comfort of my home."

Continued: https://www.popsugar.com/fitness/abortion-pill-advance-provision-49332675


These Are The Abortion Stories You Don’t Hear After Roe v. Wade

Why telling all kinds of abortion stories — particularly the mundane — is important in helping achieve reproductive justice.

BY DANIELLE CAMPOAMOR
DECEMBER 28, 2023

In the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade, countless stories of people being denied access to abortion care emerged, the majority focusing on instances of fatal fetal abnormality, rape, incest or catastrophic pregnancy complications.

From a woman in Texas being admitted to the ICU and nearly dying, to a 10-year-old girl in Ohio forced to cross state lines to access care after she was raped, to a mother who says she was told to wait in a hospital parking lot until she was closer to death before doctors would treat her, these stories saturated headlines across the country, and for good reason — people with the capacity to get pregnant losing the Constitutional right to bodily autonomy is, it turns out, deadly.

Continued: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/these-are-the-abortion-stories-you-dont-hear-after-roe-v-wade


Meet 18 women who shared heartbreaking pregnancy journeys in post-Roe world

On the Brink: Women detail impact of abortion restrictions on their health care.

By Nadine El-Bawab, Tess Scott, Christina Ng, and Acacia Nunes
December 16, 2023

…In a monthslong investigation, 18 women from across 10 states shared their deeply personal stories, chronicling their heartbreaking journeys and how, in some cases, they were brought to the brink of death because they couldn't access timely care in their home states.

The women appeared in a companion broadcast, "Impact by Nightline: On the Brink," with exclusive interviews by Diane Sawyer and Rachel Scott, which looks at the hidden health care crisis playing out in clinics and exam rooms across the country. So many families posing the question: is this what lawmakers intended? "On the Brink" premieres Dec. 14 on Hulu.

These are their stories.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/meet-18-women-shared-heartbreaking-pregnancy-journeys-post/story?id=105563366


Texas Supreme Court to hear case on state abortion laws and pregnancy complications

NOVEMBER 26, 2023
By Sarah McCammon, Selena Simmons-Duffin
7-Minute Listen

The Texas Supreme Court will hear a case this week brought by women who say the state's abortion laws are harming them.

SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:
This week, the Texas Supreme Court will consider this question. Are the state's abortion laws harming women when they face pregnancy complications? The case posing that question was brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is fiercely defending the state's current abortion laws. Here to talk about it is NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin. Hi, Selena.
Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/11/26/1215227706/texas-supreme-court-to-hear-case-on-state-abortion-laws-and-pregnancy-complicati


USA – Our Abortion Stories: ‘There Were No Resources Available to Make Choosing to Be a Single Mom a Sane Choice’

“Your abortion is not a taboo or a deep, dark secret; abortion is healthcare.”

11/21/2023
by VAL DIEZ CANSECO

Last summer, the Supreme Court overturned the longstanding precedents of Roe v. Wade, representing the largest blow to women’s constitutional rights in history. A series from Ms., Our Abortion Stories chronicles readers’ experiences of abortion pre- and post-Roe. Abortions are sought by a wide range of people for many different reasons. There is no single story. Telling stories of then and now shows how critical abortion has been and continues to be for women and girls.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/11/21/our-abortion-stories-roe-v-wade-women-health-rape/


In the three years since Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruling, Abortion Without Borders has helped more than 125,000 people in Poland to access safe abortion

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

In the three years since Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruling, Abortion Without Borders has helped more than 125,000 people in Poland to access safe abortion with more than PLN 3,675,000 (€823,290) in funding.

During the last year (from 22.10.2022 to 22.10.2023), Abortion Without Borders groups helped 46,773 thousand people from Poland to access abortion with more than PLN 1,675,031 (€375,250). More than 1,235 of these people traveled abroad to access a second or third trimester abortion.

Continued: https://womenhelp.org/en/page/1577/new-data-from-abortion-without-borders-in-the-three-years-since


Ohio’s Issue 1: Three women share their pre-Roe abortion experiences

October 24, 2023
BY GINNY RICHARDSON

On Nov. 7, Ohioans will vote on Issue 1, which would establish a state constitutional right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” including decisions about abortion, contraception, fertility treatment, miscarriage care, and continuing pregnancy. Free access to birth control, including abortion when necessary, is a fundamental prerequisite to the emancipation of women and, therefore, all working people.

To contextualize this vote within the history of the struggle for reproductive rights, People’s World has collected three previously unpublished personal stories. Each one addresses an individual woman and her experience in obtaining reproductive care, as well as the impact of the prevailing laws at the time on her decisions and treatment.

Continued: https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/ohios-issue-1-three-women-share-their-pre-roe-abortion-experiences/


6 Stories Show the Human Toll of Poland’s Strict Abortion Laws

By Anna Pamula | Photographs by Kasia Strek for TIME
OCTOBER 13, 2023

Krzysztof Sowinski has cried every day since his wife Marta, who was five months pregnant, died of sepsis in 2022; he believes doctors put Marta’s life in danger by not giving them the option to terminate the pregnancy while the fetus’ heart was still beating. Janusz Kucharski also lost his partner Justyna to sepsis in the fifth month of a pregnancy. She left behind two boys.

It is likely, reproductive-rights advocates say, that these women would be alive if not for Poland's increasingly restrictive abortion laws. Abortion has been illegal in the country since 1993, but a 2020 ruling by Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal, which went into effect the next year, removed one of the exceptions to the law—fetal abnormalities—and imposed a near-total ban on abortion. Now women can terminate a pregnancy only if the women’s life or health is at risk (including mental health risks with a psychiatric diagnosis) or if there is reasonable suspicion that the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.

Continued: https://time.com/6320172/poland-abortion-laws-maternal-health-care/