Tragedies mount for women with ill-fated pregnancies under Texas’ abortion bans

Bridget Grumet, Austin American-Statesman
May 24, 2023

Life took a wrenching twist for Jessica Bernardo last fall. She went from being an elated, expectant mother — listening to audiobooks about pregnancy, teasing her husband about installing child safety gates on the stairs of their Frisco home — to using a private browser on her computer to search for an abortion.

Bernardo desperately wanted the child she named Emma. About 15 weeks into the pregnancy, though, doctors said the child had severe medical conditions and would not survive to birth.

Continued: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/columns/2023/05/24/grumet-texas-abortion-bans-inflict-growing-toll-expectant-mothers/70248396007/


El Salvador: Court Hears Case on Total Abortion Ban

Inter-American Court Ruling Could Set Precedent in Latin America and the Caribbean

March 23, 2023

(Washington, DC) – An Inter-American Court of Human Rights hearing on the case of Beatriz, who was denied an abortion by El Salvador despite her high-risk pregnancy, will highlight the dire consequences of a law that completely bans abortion and is an opportunity for a step forward in the protection of reproductive rights in the region, Human Rights Watch said today.

“This is the first time the Inter-American Court will discuss the consequences of the total criminalization of abortion,” said Cristina Quijano Carrasco, women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Its ruling on El Salvador, which has some of the world’s strictest anti-abortion laws, would set a precedent in Latin America and the Caribbean when it comes to abortion if a women’s life is in danger or if a fetus cannot survive outside the womb.”

Continued: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/23/el-salvador-court-hears-case-total-abortion-ban


How Texas’ abortion laws turned a heartbreaking fetal diagnosis into a cross-country journey

By Eleanor Klibanoff | The Texas Tribune
October 25, 2022

“It was just a matter of time before the baby died, or maybe I’d have to go through the trauma of carrying to term knowing I wasn’t bringing a baby home,” said 27-year-old Lauren Hall. “I couldn’t do that.”

The protesters outside a Seattle-area abortion clinic waved pictures of bloody fetuses, shouting that she was a “baby killer” and begging her to choose life. Lauren Hall, 27, fought the urge to scream back and tell them just how badly she wished life was a choice she could have made.

Continued: https://www.keranews.org/texas-news/2022-10-25/how-texas-abortion-laws-turned-a-heartbreaking-fetal-diagnosis-into-a-cross-country-journey


How Texas’ abortion laws turned a heartbreaking fetal diagnosis into a cross-country journey

“It was just a matter of time before the baby died, or maybe I’d have to go through the trauma of carrying to term knowing I wasn’t bringing a baby home,” said 27-year-old Lauren Hall. “I couldn’t do that.”

BY ELEANOR KLIBANOFF
SEPT. 20, 2022

The protesters outside the Seattle abortion clinic waved pictures of bloody fetuses, shouting that she was a “baby killer” and begging her to choose life.
Lauren Hall, 27, fought the urge to scream back and tell them just how badly she wished life was a choice she could have made.

Continued: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/20/texas-abortion-ban-complicated-pregnancy/


Texas – Abortion restrictions threaten care for pregnant patients, providers say

Women’s health care providers are holding back when counseling pregnant patients about treatment options, doctors report pharmacists are hesitant to distribute some prescriptions, and OB-GYN training is diminishing for Texas medical school students.

BY SNEHA DEY AND KAREN BROOKS HARPER ,Texas Tribune
MAY 24, 2022

Teresa Kim Pecinovsky is terrified she will have a miscarriage.

The 38-year-old Houston mother of two children is in the second trimester of a high-risk pregnancy, but uncertainty about Texas abortion laws means that she — and her gynecologist — are worried about her access to proper medical care if that nightmare were to come true.

Continued: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/24/texas-abortion-law-pregnancy-care/


USA – Why the case against abortion is weak, ethically speaking

Many medical procedures are ethically similar to abortion — but without the outcry. Why?

By NATHAN NOBIS - JONATHAN DUDLEY
APRIL 11, 2021

Abortion rights are under attack. But ethics education can help — and defenders of abortion rights should recognize this, before it's too late.

In recent years, over 250 abortion-restrictive laws have been proposed across 45 states. Arkansas and South Carolina are the most recent states to pass laws to ban abortion after 6 weeks into pregnancy, when a "heartbeat" can be detected in the fetus and before many women even know they are pregnant.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2021/04/11/why-the-case-against-abortion-is-weak-ethically-speaking/


Ireland – My baby heartbreak changed history

When Amy learned the child she was carrying wouldn't survive, she faced an agonising choice, that ended in a battle to change Irish abortion laws. Now, she describes the case that saw her branded a murderer at 17

By Jenny Johnston for the Daily Mail
15 July 2020

The worst thing for Amy Dunne is that she never saw her daughter’s face. ‘I couldn’t at the time. I had the choice and I just couldn’t do it. I stood by the cot and touched her fingers and her toes, but she was never in my arms, and the blanket was covering her face.

‘I remember watching the priest hold her to give her a blessing, and being bitter and jealous that he was holding my baby. I think maybe even at the time I knew that I would be angry for the rest of my life because I never got to see my child.’

Continued:  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8526743/My-baby-heartbreak-changed-history.html


Ireland – Amy Dunne on her lonely, harrowing abortion fight: ‘I was told I would be done for murder’

Amy Dunne on her lonely, harrowing abortion fight: 'I was told I would be done for murder'
At 17, Dunne was pregnant with a baby who had a fatal abnormality. She was given a pseudonym and became the focus of a landmark Irish legal case – but now she is reclaiming her story

Rory Carroll
Thu 5 Dec 2019

The week Amy Dunne turned 17, she was several months pregnant and made two discoveries – one devastating and the other incomprehensible. A hospital scan showed something badly wrong in her womb. The foetus had anencephaly, a fatal abnormality. Doctors said the baby, a girl, would die soon after birth.

Although she was living in foster care and still a child herself, Dunne had looked forward to becoming a mother and building a new life with her boyfriend. Distraught, she shared the news with her social workers and said she needed to travel to Britain from Ireland for an abortion. That’s when Dunne discovered something badly wrong in her country.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/dec/05/amy-dunne-miss-d-abortion-told-would-be-done-for


USA – I Shouldn’t Be Forced to Give Birth to a Baby Who Won’t Live

I Shouldn’t Be Forced to Give Birth to a Baby Who Won’t Live
Our baby had a fatal birth defect. My federal health insurance plan refused to cover the abortion.

By Sarah E. Levin
July 3, 2019

When I was 20 weeks pregnant, I and my husband learned during a routine ultrasound that our baby had not developed a major portion of her brain and never would. The condition, anencephaly, a type of neural tube defect that also stunts the growth of the skull, is terminal. If carried to term, our baby would be very unlikely to survive for more than a few hours.

One in 1,000 fetuses have this condition. We had no warning signs. No indications. No idea this was coming. This was a baby we had planned for. Just three weeks earlier we had told our 5-year-old daughter that she would soon have a baby sister. We returned home from the hospital that day and had to tell her that her sister was not coming any more. It was the first time she saw me sobbing, unable to speak.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/03/opinion/abortion-hyde-amendment.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage


On Abortion in the Context of Malta: a Medical Doctor’s Perspective

On Abortion in the Context of Malta: a Medical Doctor’s Perspective

April 3, 2019
Gilbert Gravino
Illustrations by the author

It is extremely important to differentiate between being anti-abortion at an individual level and being anti-legalising-abortion (anti-choice), a distinction that is often overlooked. It is perfectly reasonable and respectable for individuals who would never have an abortion themselves to be pro-choice.

At the heart of every debate on abortion are its scientific, moral, social, psychological and medical aspects. They all play a crucial role in formulating an opinion and taking a stance on the issue.

Continued: https://www.islesoftheleft.org/on-abortion-in-the-context-of-malta-a-medical-doctors-perspective/