USA – Appeals court judges embrace anti-abortion speculation

BY: SOFIA RESNICK AND KELCIE MOSELEY-MORRIS
MAY 18, 2023

America’s major medical institutions and drug policy scholars have roundly denounced as “pseudoscience” many of the claims brought by anti-abortion groups in a high-profile federal lawsuit asking the Food and Drug Administration to revoke its 23-year-old approval of mifepristone, one half of a two-drug regimen that has become the most common form of pregnancy termination post-Roe v. Wade.

But the appeals court’s three-judge panel that heard oral arguments Wednesday appeared to be persuaded not by the medical consensus in this case, but by some of the evidence brought forward by plaintiffs that consists largely of anecdotes, speculation, and cherry-picked studies brought by a handful of anti-abortion medical groups and doctors.

Continued: https://newjerseymonitor.com/2023/05/18/appeals-court-judges-embrace-anti-abortion-speculation/

A Zealot Judge Has Ordered a Nationwide Abortion Pill Ban

Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling threw the fate of mifepristone into question. The case is likely headed to the Supreme Court within days.
By Elie Mysta
APRIL 7, 2023

United States District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk outlawed distribution of the abortion drug mifepristone in a 67-page ruling Friday evening. The order revokes the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of one of the most commonly used methods to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, and his order could end access to the drug nationwide.

Kacsmaryk, who was a noted anti-abortion lawyer before Donald Trump elevated him to the federal bench, argued that the FDA didn’t properly consider the safety of mifepristone when it approved the drug back in 2000.

To get to this ruling, Kacsmaryk didn’t just have to agree with the fake science cooked up by forced-birth activists against the drug; he also had to invent a bunch of legal gobbledygook to find a reason for the activists to challenge the FDA process in the first place.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/a-zealot-judge-has-ordered-a-nationwide-abortion-bill-ban/

How close to death must a woman be to get an abortion in Tennessee?

The strictest abortion law in the US doesn’t allow exceptions for medical emergencies – and efforts to change it face powerful opposition from the right

Stephanie Kirchgaessner
Mon 20 Mar 2023

Months after the implementation of the most stringent abortion ban in the country, conservative lawmakers in Tennessee have publicly acknowledged that the state’s ban poses grave risks to the lives of women.

Now a political debate over how to change the law is centered on questions that would have been considered unthinkable before last June’s reversal of Roe v Wade: like how close to death a woman must be before a doctor may legally treat her if it means terminating her pregnancy, and whether women should be forced to carry embryos with fatal anomalies to term.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/20/tennessee-abortion-ban-strictist-in-us

USA – Anti-abortion priest Pavone defrocked for blasphemous posts

By: Nicole Winfield, The Associated Press
Sunday, Dec. 18, 2022

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican has defrocked an anti-abortion U.S. priest, Frank Pavone, for what it said were “blasphemous communications on social media” as well as “persistent disobedience” of his bishop who repeatedly told him to stop his partisan activism for Donald Trump.

A letter to U.S. bishops from the Vatican ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Christophe Pierre, obtained Sunday, said that the decision against Pavone, who heads the anti-abortion group Priests for Life, had been taken Nov. 9, and that there was no chance for an appeal.

Continued: https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/life/faith/2022/12/18/anti-abortion-priest-pavone-defrocked-for-blasphemous-posts

USA – The Anti-Abortion Movement Is More Conspiracy-Addled Than Ever

From rampant antisemitism to groomer panic, pro-life activists are knee-deep in the far-right fever swamp.

Audrey Clare Farley
December 13, 2022

The “pro-life” movement has gone full groomer. Scroll the Twitter feed of the movement’s darling, Live Action founder Lila Rose, and you’ll find as many recent posts about the sexualization of children as you will see missives that are singularly about abortion. Take a gander at the feed of Students for Life, and you’ll find people calling Planned Parenthood staff “groomers.” Turn the television channel to EWTN, a staunchly anti-abortion Catholic network and the largest religious broadcast in the world, and you’ll find hosts decrying Disney’s “transgender grooming” of kids.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/169461/anti-abortion-movement-antisemitic-conspiracy

USA – Five sets of fetal remains found in anti-abortion activist’s home, DC police say

Lauren Handy claims she gained access to organ bank at university in Seattle but authorities have not disclosed source of fetuses

Jessica Glenza and Stephanie Kirchgaessner
Thu 31 Mar 2022

Five sets of human fetal remains were recovered from the Washington DC home of an anti-abortion activist after a raid, the capital’s Metropolitan police department confirmed to the Guardian on Thursday.

The activist, a woman named Lauren Handy, 28, is a leader of the group Progressive Anti-Abortion uprising (PAAU) and has described herself as a “Catholic anarchist” in the past.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/31/five-fetuses-found-anti-abortion-activists-home-dc

31.03.2022

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USA – The Pseudoscience That Could Kill Women

MAR. 15, 2022
By Sarah Jones, New York Magazine

Here is a scientific fact: Ectopic pregnancies are not viable. They occur when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus, which dooms the pregnancy and, without treatment, can doom a woman, too. Ectopic pregnancies can lead to hemorrhage and are the leading cause of death for women in the first trimester of pregnancy. Here’s another fact: There is one way to save a woman from an ectopic pregnancy, and that is through termination — an abortion.

A proposed Missouri bill ignores these facts outright. H.B. 2810 would make it a felony, punishable by ten-years-to-life in prison, to perform an abortion after ten weeks of pregnancy, including in cases of ectopic pregnancy, the Springfield News-Leader reports. The bill’s architect, state representative Brian Seitz, offered a familiar justification for his work. “This bill is about protecting life,” he told the newspaper. In a confusing email to Bloomberg News, Seitz claimed that his bill had been misrepresented by critics and that it would do nothing “to curtail that LEGAL activity, as it can present a clear and present danger to the mother.”

Continued: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/the-anti-abortion-movements-deadly-pseudoscience.html

US/UK – Madison County man charged with making social media threats to abortion activists

by: Daniel Griffin
Posted: Apr 20, 2021

COLUMBUS (WCMH) — A London, Ohio man has been charged by a federal grand jury with making online threats against people connected with a non-profit organization whose mission is to help people access safe abortions.

James David Hampton, 40, was charged with 10 counts stemming from an alleged incident that took place on Aug. 26, 2020, according to a statement from Vipal J. Patel, acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.

Continued: https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/madison-county-man-charged-with-making-social-media-threats-to-abortion-activists/

20.04.2021

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What a real love letter to abortion care providers would say

Anti-abortionists send cards to discourage providers from the work they do, but they deserve our appreciation.

MERCEDES SANCHEZ
MARCH 10TH, 2021

Our clinics, like many others around the country, receives a card decorated with red hearts professing faux concern for abortion clinic workers. Every few weeks the cards come from anti-abortionists who want to “love an abortion care worker out of the industry.” While these “anti-abortion” cards don’t include physical threats—and even claim to care about abortion clinic workers—they are still incredibly stigmatizing. Our work is not shameful or wrong, and it is a misguided notion that we want to leave our jobs.

So many of us are proud to be abortion providers. We believe it is our duty to support people’s right to legal medical care. And despite the constant opposition, we will continue the fight for every person’s human right to have autonomy over their own body and future.

Continued: https://www.prismreports.org/article/2021/3/10/what-a-real-love-letter-to-abortion-care-providers-would-say

10.03.2021

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Women who require late-term abortions are being demonised in Australia – again

As South Australia debates a bill to decriminalise abortion, the same misinformation is being peddled

Gina Rushton
Thu 29 Oct 2020

It wouldn’t be a debate about abortion without a flagrant misinformation campaign about terminations after the first trimester.

A bill to decriminalise abortion was this month introduced in South Australia, the last jurisdiction to do so, and opponents of the legislation have already set about claiming if passed it would legalise and in fact encourage “abortion up to birth”, an offensive but ultimately meaningless phrase. It has been the relentless catchphrase of anti-abortion lobbyists, religious leaders and conservative politicians in every single push to modernise abortion laws in this country but it is not uniquely Australian.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/29/women-who-require-late-term-abortions-are-being-demonised-in-australia-again