Abortion Clinics Are Rapidly Closing. Many Won’t Come Back

BY ABIGAIL ABRAMS
DECEMBER 2, 2020

Dr. Yashica Robinson is an optimist—and that, she says, is fortuitous. As one of the last abortion providers in Alabama, a willingness to see the bright side is practically a job requirement.

For much of the past year, Robinson, who is the medical director at the Huntsville-based Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives, and her staff have fought to overcome the challenges posed by COVID-19, while simultaneously battling a state effort to suspend all abortion services during the pandemic. “We will continue to be innovative and be creative and find ways that we will make this work,” she says, with characteristic resolve.

Continued: https://time.com/5916746/abortion-clinics-covid-19/

USA – ‘Constantly Preparing for the Next Crisis’: How Independent Abortion Clinics Are Faring With COVID-19

‘Constantly Preparing for the Next Crisis’: How Independent Abortion Clinics Are Faring With COVID-19
“Patients think clinics are closed; there is increased panic due to patient’s fear of being turned away.”

Apr 3, 2020
Sarah Anne Lloyd

Independent reproductive health-care clinics are still largely allowed to operate, even in cities and states with COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders, but the outbreak is straining an already precarious situation.

“What we’re seeing is the barriers that already exist for access to abortion being compounded by the current crisis in a way that it is limiting people’s resources significantly,” said Roxanne Sutocky, director of community engagement at the Women’s Centers, which operates independent clinics in four states. And people most at risk of losing health-care services, including people of color, will be the among the most vulnerable during this pandemic.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2020/04/03/constantly-preparing-for-the-next-crisis-how-independent-abortion-clinics-are-faring-with-covid-19/

USA – The #MeToo Case That Divided the Abortion-Rights Movement

The #MeToo Case That Divided the Abortion-Rights Movement
When an activist accused one of the most respected physicians in the movement of sexually assaulting her, everyone quickly took sides.

Story by Maggie Bullock
March 2020 Issue, Atlantic Magazine
(Posted Feb 21, 2020)

On a 92-degree morning in September, three clinic escorts gathered in the meager shade of a tree outside the Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives. They arrive here at 8:30 a.m. on the dot, regular as clock-punchers, on the three days a week the Huntsville clinic is open to perform abortions. The women and girls arrive dressed for comfort in sweatpants and shower slides, carrying pillows from home or holding the hand of a partner or friend. The escorts, meanwhile, wear brightly colored vests and wield giant umbrellas to block the incoming patients from the sight, if not the sound, of the other group that comes here like clockwork: the protesters.

Sometimes there are as many as a dozen. This day there were four: one woman, three men, all white. Four doesn’t sound like that many until you’re downwind of them maniacally hollering: Mommy, don’t kill me! You’re lynching your black baby! They rip their arms and legs off! They suffer! They torture them!

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-abortion-doctor-and-his-accuser/605578/

21.02.2020

Abortion Access Front

Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives

Amanda Reyes

Candice Russell

Cherisse Scott

Christine Blasey Ford

Laurie Bertram Roberts

Leana Wen

Life’s Work: A Moral Argument for Choice

Loretta Ross

Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund

Naral Pro-Choice America

NARAL Pro-choice Texas

National Network of Abortion Funds

National Women’s Law Center

Physicians for Reproductive Health

Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

Robin Marty

Roe v. Wade

sexual assault allegations

After Abortion Ban Attempt in Alabama, a Flood of Confusion and Phone Calls

After Abortion Ban Attempt in Alabama, a Flood of Confusion and Phone Calls

August 27, 2019
by Catherine Trautwein

Pro-choice demonstrators protest outside the state capitol during the March For Reproductive Freedom in Montgomery, Alabama May 19, 2019. (Seth Herald/AFP)

Almost daily, the Reproductive Health Services clinic in Montgomery, Alabama, receives several versions of the same call: “Are y’all still doing abortions? Have they outlawed it in Alabama? Where can I go?”

The confusion is understandable. In May, Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law the Alabama Human Life Protection Act, which aimed to outlaw abortions in all cases except when the mother’s life was at risk. The passage of the strictest anti-abortion measure in the country made national news.

Continued: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/alabama-abortion-ban-clinic/

USA – The terrifying case of a six-week embryo suing an abortion clinic

The terrifying case of a six-week embryo suing an abortion clinic
An Alabama case brings into sharp clarity what is at stake with the legal battle over a woman’s right to choos

Jill Filipovic
Fri 8 Mar 2019

In Alabama, a man is suing for what he believes is his right: to allow any man to force a female partner to give birth against her will. In a bizarre twist, a judge has allowed a no-longer-in-existence embryo to sue as well. It’s a case that highlights the fundamental divide between the pro-choice movement and the anti-abortion (and, often, anti-contraception) one: is the debate just about “life”? Or is it about allowing men and the government to control women – our lives, our futures, and the very skin, organs and bones we live in?

This case brings the stakes into sharp clarity.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/08/the-terrifying-case-of-a-six-week-embryo-suing-an-abortion-clinic

USA – 4 Independent Abortion Provider Staffers Open Up About Their Work & What Keeps Them Going

4 Independent Abortion Provider Staffers Open Up About Their Work & What Keeps Them Going

By Madhuri Sathish
Dec 17, 2018

Ever since Donald Trump assumed the presidency, the restrictions on abortion access have only been exacerbated. Many states have had to contend with abortion clinic closures, and conservative lawmakers continuously try to use religious exemptions, strict time limits, and financial threats to effectively make abortions impossible to access. But even as state legislatures attempt to crack down on abortion rights, independent abortion providers across the country tell Bustle that they have remained on the frontlines of reproductive justice work, despite the mounting challenges.

Continued: https://www.bustle.com/p/4-independent-abortion-provider-staffers-open-up-about-their-work-what-keeps-them-going-15525204