USA – Doctors Have a Moral Obligation to Disobey Abortion Bans

Academic medical centers’ lackluster defense of abortion access is moral malpractice. It’s time for civil disobedience.

By Martin Donohoe , TRUTHOUT
July 9, 2023

It has been more than one year since the United States Supreme Court, in a controversial decision not supported by a majority of Americans, overturned Roe v. Wade, returning authority over abortion’s legality to the states. Since the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 14 states have prohibited abortion and another six have added restrictions on this basic component of reproductive health care. These states’ policies are already the least supportive of mothers and their children, and the U.S. as a whole has the highest maternal and infant mortality in the developed world.

Organized dissent has been surprisingly lacking, even from groups with a long history of promoting comprehensive reproductive health care. A recent New Yorker article called out Planned Parenthood for not supporting independent abortion providers and for focusing more on self-preservation and legal attempts to curb abortion restrictions, attempts unlikely to be broadly successful given the makeup of a relatively young Supreme Court stacked with conservatives — even as the court faces criticism over previously undisclosed levels of influence peddling by private citizens and companies, eroding public trust in a once-respected institution.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/doctors-have-a-moral-obligation-to-disobey-abortion-bans/

09.07.2023

Commentary

civil disobedience

independent abortion providers

Martion Donohue

Planned Parenthood

Roe v. Wade

Women’s Health Protection Act

USA – ‘I Came to Put My Body On the Line’: Both Inside and Outside Hearing, Women Lead Fight Against Kavanaugh Confirmation

'I Came to Put My Body On the Line': Both Inside and Outside Hearing, Women Lead Fight Against Kavanaugh Confirmation
"Many citizens before me have fought for the equal rights of women. I can't be silent when someone is nominated to the Supreme Court who would take our equal rights away."

by Julia Conley, staff writer
Sep 4, 2018

As the Senate Judiciary Committee proceeded with its confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Tuesday—whose appointment Planned Parenthood has said "would determine the health and freedom of countless women's lives"— it was women both inside and outside the hearing who led the charge against Kavanaugh's ascension to the highest court in the land.

NARAL Pro-Choice America shared that its Missouri and Washington chapters' executive directors, Alison Dreith and Tiffany Hankins, were among the more than 30 protesters who were arrested for demonstrating inside the hearing room.

Continued: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/04/i-came-put-my-body-line-both-inside-and-outside-hearing-women-lead-fight-against

USA – When It Comes to Abortion Rights, Civil Disobedience Could Be the Only Option

When It Comes to Abortion Rights, Civil Disobedience Could Be the Only Option
Non-violent protest should be on the table ahead of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing.

Erin Matson
Aug 16, 2018

In this op-ed, Erin Matson, co-founder and co-director of Reproaction, explains why civil disobedience should be on the table when it comes to preserving abortion rights.

For abortion opponents, Brett Kavanaugh is — to borrow the parlance of baseball — somewhat of a closing pitcher. While there have been other justices who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the federal constitutional right to abortion, Kavanaugh’s decisions on reproductive rights have anti-abortion groups strongly supporting his nomination. For that reason, many have noted that he could be the one to shut it all down. Nominated to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, who had been a swing vote in favor of protecting abortion, Kavanaugh would turn the court into an enduring five-vote majority — an all-male majority — opposed to abortion rights. Since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 that made outright abortion bans unconstitutional, the threat to maintaining that decision in the United States has never been this pronounced. Congress can’t be counted on to save us, as we’ve seen legislators fail us before, letting laws critical to our health lapse. As the nomination hearings begin, we need to keep that in mind. That’s why strategic, non-violent civil disobedience needs to be on the table.

Continued: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/when-it-comes-to-abortion-rights-civil-disobedience-could-be-the-only-option