USA – Abortion Providers Are Acting as Travel Agents. That’s Wrong.

Abortion Providers Are Acting as Travel Agents. That’s Wrong.
The spread of COVID-19 will only further complicate the efforts to get abortion patients to clinics safely and efficiently.

Mar 25, 2020
David S. Cohen & Carole Joffe

We will not find out for a few months how the recently argued U.S. Supreme Court case, June Medical v. Russo, will be decided. But lurking behind the Court’s first abortion case since President Donald Trump appointed two anti-abortion justices is an underappreciated aspect of abortion care in the United States: the extent to which abortion providers serve as de facto travel agents for patients.

If the Supreme Court rules against abortion rights in this case, an already challenging situation will become much worse. But even before the Court rules, the COVID-19 crisis is already complicating abortion care and putting more pressure on providers to troubleshoot travel issues.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2020/03/25/abortion-providers-are-acting-as-travel-agents-thats-wrong/


USA – The Supreme Court’s Fictional Middle Ground on Abortion

The Supreme Court’s Fictional Middle Ground on Abortion
There is no such thing.

By Linda Greenhouse, Contributing Opinion Writer
March 12, 2020

Following last week’s argument in a Louisiana abortion case, the consensus among attentive Supreme Court-watchers is that the outcome depends on Chief Justice John Roberts, who seemed not to share Justice Samuel Alito’s visceral dislike of abortion clinics and his deep suspicion of doctors who work in them. I agree.

Further, many of these close observers came away believing that even if the justices rule for Louisiana, they will take neither of the two drastic steps being pressed on the court by the state and its White House ally: to reject four decades of settled law under which doctors can challenge abortion restrictions on their patients’ behalf, or to overturn the 2016 decision that struck down the same admitting-privileges requirement in Texas that Louisiana is now defending.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/opinion/abortion-supreme-court.html


USA – Abortion Is Safer Than Getting Your Wisdom Teeth Out

Abortion Is Safer Than Getting Your Wisdom Teeth Out

By Amanda Arnold
Mar 10, 2020

Last week, the Supreme Court began to hear an abortion case that could effectively gut Roe v. Wade. The case, June v. Russo, centers on a Louisiana law that forces abortion providers to obtain “admitting privileges” at hospitals within 30 miles. This measure is ostensibly meant to protect patient safety; in effect, though, it could leave the state — in which 10,000 women a year seek abortion care — with just one doctor at one clinic.

Legislation like this is intentionally crafted to erode access to vital reproductive health care. The Supreme Court struck down a law with a nearly identical provision in Texas four years ago because it constituted such a substantial obstacle to abortion access. But rather than presenting such restrictions as what they are — unconstitutional, anti-choice legislation advanced by abortion opponents as part of a concerted attack on the right to choose — conservatives insist they’re precautionary measures, meant to safeguard women.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2020/03/abortion-is-safer-than-getting-your-wisdom-teeth-out.html


USA – The Future Of Abortion Is In The Hands Of John Roberts

The Future Of Abortion Is In The Hands Of John Roberts
Medically unnecessary laws regulating abortion have been exposed as dishonest attempts to close clinics. Will the Supreme Court still give them legal cover?

03/06/2020
By Melissa Jeltsen, HuffPost US

In 2016, Louisiana had six abortion clinics. By 2017, the number had dwindled to three. Soon, there may be only one clinic left to serve nearly 1 million women of reproductive age in the state. Whether or not this happens will likely depend on the outcome of a critical abortion case now with the Supreme Court.

The case centers on a Louisiana law that requires doctors who provide abortions to have “admitting privileges” at a hospital within 30 miles of their clinic, a difficult-to-obtain arrangement that critics say is a sly attempt to wipe out abortion access in the state.

Continued: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/john-roberts-abortion-supreme-court_n_5e613793c5b601904ea6fd78?ri18n=true


No matter what the Supreme Court decides, abortion opponents have already won

No matter what the Supreme Court decides, abortion opponents have already won
As the Supreme Court considers a Louisiana law, this is how anti-abortion groups see the direction of the country.

By Anna North
Mar 5, 2020

WASHINGTON, DC — Standing in front of the US Supreme Court on Wednesday morning, Dennis McKirahan was in a hopeful mood. “It’s a great day,” he said, glancing at the blue sky. “The sun is shining in me and outside.”

He and around a dozen other activists were with the group Shofar Call International, a Christian group that blows a horn typically used in Jewish ceremonies called the shofar as part of anti-abortion demonstrations and religious events. “In Hebrew the Shofar is also referred to as the Bat Kol or the Voice of Heaven,” the group’s website states. “When the enemy hears the Voice of Heaven being proclaimed in the earth, he trembles in fear.”

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2020/3/5/21164953/abortion-supreme-court-louisiana-case-admitting-privileges


USA – Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dominates in abortion case

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dominates in abortion case

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter
Thu March 5, 2020

Washington (CNN)If there is any question whether 86-year-old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has spent her life steeped in issues concerning women's rights, is slowing down after four bouts of cancer, it was not evident Wednesday morning in Washington.

For over an hour, Ginsburg, the leading liberal on the bench, engaged in a high stakes constitutional version of whack-a-mole, taking down arguments put forward by supporters of a Louisiana abortion access law that requires doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/05/politics/ruth-bader-ginsburg-abortion-louisiana/index.html


USA – An Abortion Clinic’s Fate Before a Transformed Supreme Court

An Abortion Clinic’s Fate Before a Transformed Supreme Court
The court will soon hear arguments in its first major abortion case since the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. It could leave Louisiana with a single abortion clinic.

By Adam Liptak
March 3, 2020

SHREVEPORT, La. — Kathaleen Pittman, the director of the Hope Medical Group for Women, remembers when there were 11 abortion clinics in Louisiana. Now there are only three, hers among them. Soon, depending on how the Supreme Court rules in a case to be argued on Wednesday, there may be just one, in New Orleans, more than 300 miles away.

Since 1973, when the court established a constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade, Louisiana has enacted 89 abortion restrictions, the most of any state. The restriction at issue nowrequires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/us/supreme-court-abortion-louisiana.html


USA – The National Right To Abortion Is Facing An Intense Threat. This Group Has Been Preparing For This Fight For Decades.

The National Right To Abortion Is Facing An Intense Threat. This Group Has Been Preparing For This Fight For Decades.
The Center for Reproductive Rights will argue in the first major Supreme Court case over abortion in the Trump era, which could gut Roe v. Wade

Ema O'Connor BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on March 1, 2020

It is no exaggeration to say that the Center for Reproductive Rights was made for this moment.

Around 30 years ago, Nancy Northup, the center’s current president, was outside an abortion clinic in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, linking arms with the people around her to form a human barricade to protect patients trying to get inside. Hundreds of anti-abortion protesters faced them down, chanting, saying prayers, and attempting to block patients from entering the clinic.

Continued: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emaoconnor/abortion-supreme-court-trump-center-reproductive-rights


This Southern State Just Repealed Decades of Abortion Restrictions

This Southern State Just Repealed Decades of Abortion Restrictions
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is expected to sign a bill overturning several anti-abortion laws. That's good news for people across the South.

by Amelia Harnish
Feb 28 2020

When Rachel Scruggs, 25, found out she was pregnant last fall, she knew immediately she would need an abortion. Just weeks prior, she had extricated herself from an emotionally abusive relationship, and she already had a 5-year-old son to look after. Scruggs, who works as a waitress in Manassas, Virginia, took the day off and found a ride to the nearest abortion provider in Falls Church.

At her appointment, Scruggs learned she was seven weeks along, meaning she could have a medication abortion using the drug Mifeprex. Although major medical groups agree that medication abortion can be safely prescribed by midlevel providers like nurse practitioners and physicians’ assistants and administered at home, Virginia law requires that a physician prescribe it and and FDA rules mandate that it be administered in the office.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/akwnq8/virginia-just-repealed-decades-of-abortion-laws


USA – Abortion Clinics Are Getting Nickel-and-Dimed Out of Business

Abortion Clinics Are Getting Nickel-and-Dimed Out of Business
From legal battles to securing vendors to getting the walls painted, every budget line is a struggle.

By Cynthia Koons and Rebecca Greenfield
February 27, 2020

Amy Hagstrom Miller, owner of Whole Woman’s Health in Austin, has faced many existential threats to her business. When Texas passed a law in 2013 requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, she was forced to close the clinic. She fought the measure all the way to the Supreme Court, and in 2016, she prevailed. By a 5–3 decision, the court ruled in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt that the law wasn’t medically justified. There’s an iconic photo of Hagstrom Miller descending the Supreme Court steps afterward, fist raised, smile radiant. Nine months later, she reopened her clinic.

It looked like a happy ending. But a year later the Austin clinic was on the brink again.

Continued: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-27/abortion-clinics-are-the-most-challenging-small-business-in-america