The abortion activists who say bringing back Roe is not enough

Abortion rights groups split with mainstream movement over support for former legal framework of ‘viability’

Susan Rinkunas
Sun 21 Jan 2024

Since the devastating loss of Roe v Wade, the abortion rights movement has seen historic levels of support for its cause, particularly through major victories on state ballot initiatives, with more expected this November. But as advocates move to re-enshrine the right to abortion at the state level, a struggle has emerged over whether to reproduce Roe’s legal framework – or go further.

…A number of ballot campaigns slated for November seek to bring back that standard – but a group of advocates is banding together to declare that the broader movement is engaging in harmful compromises when it could instead use the momentum to push for “clean” policies that don’t draw a strict limit to abortion access.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/21/abortion-activists-future-roe-v-wade

Restore Roe, or Go Beyond It? The Question Is Fracturing the Abortion Rights Movement

“We have an opportunity here to build something better, and we’re not even talking about it.”

MADISON PAULY
SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

Not long after Election Day last November, Pamela Merritt joined a call with other abortion-rights activists in Missouri to discuss a daring proposal: sidestepping the state’s ruling Republicans by directly asking voters whether to add abortion rights to their state constitution. The group hoped to capitalize on a recent trend. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June of 2022, pro-choice voters had been showing up to the polls in force, rejecting anti-abortion ballot initiatives in Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana. They went even further in California, Michigan, and Vermont, passing state constitutional amendments to guarantee, among other things, the right to choose abortion.

This unbroken string of victories has energized advocates who see ballot initiatives as a key tool in the post-Roe world, especially in states controlled by Republicans. Even in Missouri, where the anti-abortion movement was so successful that only one clinic remained by 2022, national progressive organizations smell opportunity. “Right now, every single state is dealing with a pro-abortion, riled-up base that wants a Kansas,” Merritt says, referring to the special election about abortion last year that drew greater turnout than any primary in the state’s history. “There’s pressure.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/09/roe-v-wade-abortion-rights-amendment-missouri-pro-choice-ohio-arizona-planned-parenthood-viability-limits/

11.09.2023

Commentary

Abortion Action Missouri

ACLU of Missouri

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Arizona for Abortion Access

ballot initiatives on abortion

Medical Students for Choice

Paitent Forward

Pamela Merritt

Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood Action Fund

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona

Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri

Reproductive Health Act of 2019

USA – The next wave of abortion rights ballot measures looks different from the last

How the tactics and arguments are changing ahead of 2024.

By Rachel M. Cohen
Jul 12, 2023

Last election cycle, abortion rights won in all six states with abortion ballot measures, including in red states like Kentucky and Montana that otherwise elected Republican lawmakers.

Now, this fall and in next year’s election, national liberal groups are planning to invest more heavily in ballot measure campaigns, seeing them as vehicles both to protect access to abortion care and to amplify their broader political message that abortion bans are out of step with voters.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/policy/23784409/abortion-ballot-measure-ohio-reproductive-rights-2024

Abortion providers detail mounting external difficulties, profound rewards of serving patients in post-Roe America

November 16, 2022
By Angelica Ferrara, Postdoctoral Fellow

For some patients and providers, ideologically and politically motivated restrictions on abortion have long been the status quo. But in the months since the Dobbs decision this June, the situation has become fraught with new legal and logistical uncertainties. At this year’s Jing Lyman Lecture, the Stanford community heard from those most intimately acquainted with the status of reproductive justice after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision: what has changed in the post-Roe world, and what has stayed the same?

Continued: https://gender.stanford.edu/news/abortion-providers-detail-mounting-external-difficulties-profound-rewards-serving-patients

16.11.2022

From the Front Lines: Abortion Post-Roe

Katherine Brown

Moira Donegan

Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri

Missouri – The last clinic

There were once 30 clinics performing abortions in Missouri. Now there’s just one. It’s on the front line of a battle to defend a woman’s right to choose.

By US correspondent Kathryn Diss
Foreign Correspondent
Published 4 Aug 2021

Colleen McNicholas is always watching her back. The location of her family home is protected. The perimeter is guarded with security cameras and alarm systems. Her child’s identity is kept secret. As she drives to work, she checks her rear-view mirror to make sure no-one is following. She never takes the same route two days in a row.

It’s not the typical routine for a doctor travelling to their surgery. But in the conservative mid-west state of Missouri, Dr McNicholas’s line of work makes her and her family a target for extremism. She’s a doctor at the state’s last abortion clinic, the only centre still providing safe and legal abortions for a population of 1.1 million women. If the powerful anti-abortion lobby gets its way, it too could soon be shut down.

Continued: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-05/missouris-last-abortion-clinic-dr-colleen-mcnicholas/100342294

USA – Activists Are Now Teaching Women How to Have Abortions at Home

Activists Are Now Teaching Women How to Have Abortions at Home
“So long as we have a safe option that can be accomplished outside of a clinical or medical setting, there’s no reason that shouldn’t also be available.”

by Carter Sherman
Jan 22 2020

COLUMBIA, Missouri — In the Columbia Public Library, just past a room where a Bible study was wrapping up, a group of people gathered in a conference room to learn how to have an abortion at home.

What happens when you self-induce an abortion? one woman asked the panelists, who sat at a table in the front of the room.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/xgqywj/activists-are-now-teaching-women-how-to-have-abortions-at-home

USA – Even if Roe is upheld, abortion opponents are winning

Even if Roe is upheld, abortion opponents are winning
A drip, drip, drip of state restrictions has made abortion harder to obtain.

By RACHANA PRADHAN, RENUKA RAYASAM and MOHANA RAVINDRANATH
05/30/2019

Abortion is still legal in the United States, but for women in vast swaths of the country it’s a right in name only.

Six states are down to only one abortion clinic; a court stepped in Friday to stop Missouri’s sole clinic from closing, at least for now. Some women seeking abortions have to travel long distances, and face mandatory waiting periods or examinations. On top of that, a new wave of restrictive laws, or outright bans, is rippling across GOP-led states like Alabama and Georgia.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/30/abortion-opponents-winning-roe-vs-wade-1488818