USA – Researchers call for more abortion studies to be retracted

The criticism of four older studies alleging abortion causes mental illness follows high-profile retractions of studies claiming the abortion pill is dangerous.

BY: SOFIA RESNICK
FEBRUARY 27, 2024

Health and science experts published a commentary in the British Medical Journal on Tuesday calling for the retraction of four older abortion-related studies that, despite documented flaws, have influenced major anti-abortion decisions over the past 20 years, including the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned federal abortion rights.

The commentary comes the same month academic publisher Sage Journals retracted studies calling into question the long-established safety record of the abortion drug mifepristone, which were produced by anti-abortion activists shortly before they sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over the same drug.

Continued: https://kentuckylantern.com/2024/02/27/researchers-call-for-more-abortion-studies-to-be-retracted/


A New Study on Medication Abortion Refutes the Arguments Conservatives Are Taking to the Supreme Court

A study of more than 6,000 medication abortions obtained through telehealth found 98 percent were effective and 99.8 percent were safe.

JULIANNE MCSHANE, Mother Jones
Feb 16, 2024

A key argument from anti-abortion activists bringing a case to the Supreme Court is that medication abortion—which accounts for more than half of all abortions nationwide, according to the Guttmacher Institute—is unsafe and ineffective.

A new study provides even more evidence that this is not true and that medication abortion is just as safe when it’s prescribed virtually as in person. Published Thursday in the journal Nature Medicine, the study examined more than 6,000 medication abortions that people from 20 states and Washington, D.C. obtained from three virtual clinics between April 2021 and January 2022. Researchers found that about 98 percent of them were effective in terminating pregnancies without any additional interventions and that 99.8 percent were safe and “not followed by serious adverse events.”

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/02/a-new-study-on-medication-abortion-refutes-the-arguments-conservatives-are-taking-to-the-supreme-court/


Anti-abortion centers raked in $1.4bn in year Roe fell, including federal money

Exclusive: memo shows anti-abortion pregnancy centers received at least $344m in government money in 2022

Carter Sherman
Wed 14 Feb 2024

Anti-abortion facilities raked in at least $1.4bn in revenue in the 2022 fiscal year, the year Roe v Wade fell – a staggering haul that includes at least $344m in government money, according to a memo analyzing the centers’ tax documents that was compiled by a pro-abortion rights group and shared exclusively with the Guardian.

These facilities, frequently known as anti-abortion pregnancy centers or crisis pregnancy centers, aim to convince people to keep their pregnancies. But in the aftermath of Roe’s demise, the anti-abortion movement has framed anti-abortion pregnancy centers as a key source of aid for desperate women who have lost the legal right to end their pregnancies and been left with little choice but to give birth.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/14/anti-abortion-centers-funding


USA – Anti-Abortion Centers Spent Over $600M in One Year. That’s the Tip of the Iceberg.

Documents reviewed by Rewire News Group suggest the total may have been closer $1 billion. Where is all that "crisis pregnancy center" money going?

AUG 30, 2023
GARNET HENDERSON, Rewire News Group

“Crisis pregnancy centers,” or anti-abortion centers, are known for deceiving and manipulating people seeking information about abortion. They often pose as legitimate abortion clinics, intentionally obscuring their real purpose. They promote dangerous medical misinformation such as abortion pill “reversal.” They also discourage safer sex practices, and because few of them are actual medical facilities, they don’t adhere to medical standards for confidentiality and safety.

For example, a Massachusetts woman sued a CPC in June for failing to diagnose her ectopic pregnancy, which resulted in an emergency surgery and the loss of her fallopian tube. Months earlier, a Kentucky nurse came forward to reveal that a CPC where she had volunteered was failing to properly sterilize its transvaginal ultrasound equipment.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2023/08/30/anti-abortion-centers-spent-over-600m-in-one-year-thats-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/


Anti-Abortion Groups Are Coming for Birth Control—Just as Reproductive Rights Activists Warned

Dark money anti-abortion and pay-to-play groups are predictably responding to the FDA’s over-the-counter birth control pill decision with disinformation.

8/17/2023
by ANSEV DEMIRHAN

In July, the FDA approved the first over-the-counter contraceptive pill, Opill (norgestrel). Opill is expected to be available for purchase online, in pharmacies, and convenience and grocery stores, without a prescription in early 2024.

With barriers to reproductive healthcare increasing—especially for Black, Latino and poor people—and more than 19 million women in the U.S. living in “contraceptive deserts” without easy access to reproductive health clinics, Opill will be a vital tool in the fight for reproductive justice.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/08/17/anti-abortion-pro-life-over-the-counter-birth-control-women/


TESTIFYING AGAINST TEXAS, WOMEN DENIED ABORTIONS RELIVE THE PREGNANCIES THAT ALMOST KILLED THEM

One plaintiff vomited while recounting her ordeal. The case marks the first time patients denied abortions have sued a state since Roe was overturned.

Mary Tuma
July 21 2023

WHEN SAMANTHA CASIANO learned she was pregnant last year, she and her husband felt excitement. The 29-year-old mother of four and lifelong Texas resident began collecting baby toys and a bassinet for her fifth child. During a routine ultrasound at 20 weeks, she was chatting up the technician when the room suddenly grew silent. Casiano’s doctor delivered grim news: Her baby had anencephaly, a lethal condition in which the skull and brain fail to develop.

“My first thought was, maybe surgery can fix this, but I was told, ‘Sorry, your daughter is incompatible with life, she will be born without a skull,’” Casiano said in a Texas district court hearing on Wednesday. “She was going to die inside or outside of my womb.”

Continued: https://theintercept.com/2023/07/21/texas-abortion-zurawski-lawsuit/


A First-Of-Its-Kind Abortion Lawsuit Just Held Hearings. Here’s What You Need to Know.

While the first day of hearings focused on women’s emotional testimony, the second featured legal fireworks.

By Carter Sherman
July 21, 2023

AUSTIN, Texas — When Dr. Austin Dennard went to an ultrasound appointment for her pregnancy last year, she promised herself she would close her eyes and listen for a fetal heartbeat. The Texas OB-GYN and mother of two had recently miscarried, and she desperately did not want to go through that pain again.

Sure enough, there was a heartbeat. But when Dennard opened her eyes and looked at the ultrasound image, she knew immediately that something was wrong. “I knew then this was never gonna be a brother or sister for my children,” Dennard said.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en/article/93kqk5/abortion-lawsuit-texas


USA – You Cannot Hear These 13 Women’s Stories and Believe the Anti-Abortion Narrative

May 22, 2023
By Michelle Goldberg

It’s increasingly clear that it’s not safe to be pregnant in states with total abortion bans. Since the end of Roe v. Wade, there has been a barrage of gutting stories about women in prohibition states denied care for miscarriages or forced to continue nonviable pregnancies.

Though some in the anti-abortion movement publicly justify this sort of treatment, others have responded with a combination of denial, deflection and conspiracy theorizing. Some activists have blamed the pro-choice movement for spooking doctors into not intervening when pregnancies go horribly wrong. “Abortion advocates are spreading the dangerous lie that lifesaving care is not or may not be permitted in these states, leading to provider confusion and poor outcomes for women,” said a report by the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/opinion/abortion-law-texas-lawsuit.html


Are Abortion Pills Safe? Here’s the Evidence.

By Amy Schoenfeld Walker, Jonathan Corum, Malika Khurana and Ashley Wu
April 1, 2023

More than 100 scientific studies, spanning continents and decades, have examined the effectiveness and safety of mifepristone and misoprostol, the abortion pills that are commonly used in the United States. All conclude that the pills are a safe method for terminating a pregnancy.

In consultation with medical researchers, The New York Times reviewed these 101 studies, which together covered more than 124,000 abortions in the first trimester.

Unlocked: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/01/health/abortion-pill-safety.html


Inside the Post-Roe Scramble to Count Abortions

The end of Roe reshaped abortion access across the U.S. What does it take to track those changes?

By Rebecca Grant
March 22, 2023

On May 2, 2022 at 8:32 p.m., when Politico published a leaked draft of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Jennifer Pepper was standing on Main Street in Disney World. Pepper is president and CEO of the Choices Center for Reproductive Health, a reproductive health clinic in Memphis, Tennessee, that began providing abortion care in 1974. She had traveled to Orlando to give a presentation at a conference and visited Disney World that evening to watch the fireworks. The air was warm and humid, the sun had just set, and Pepper was staring at Cinderella’s Castle when her phone erupted with messages and alerts.

“I remember kneeling down and feeling like I’d been gut punched,” Pepper said. “We knew it was going to happen, but seeing those words in black and white shattered any little bit of hope that maybe we had gotten it wrong.”

Continued: https://undark.org/2023/03/22/inside-the-post-roe-scramble-to-count-abortions/