Disabled Texans face more barriers to accessing abortion

Few organizations track the number of disabled individuals trying to access abortion, but abortion providers and groups that help assist Texans obtain out-of-state abortions say they are falling through the cracks.

BY NEELAM BOHRA, Texas Tribune
FEB. 20, 2024

When disabled Texans used to visit abortion clinics, staffers would remember them. They may have needed in-clinic accommodations or American Sign Language Interpreters, and they appeared infrequently. Still, they came.

But more than a year since performing abortions became illegal in the state of Texas, disabled people have become a “missing population” at the clinics still providing abortions out of state, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion provider.

Continued: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/02/20/texas-abortion-disabled/


Local groups in Nigeria lead the way for inclusive abortion care

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2024
Ipas

In Nigeria, getting a safe abortion is already an uphill battle. But for women with disabilities, it can be nearly impossible. With support from the Ipas Collaborative Fund, the locally based SAIF Advocacy Foundation is paving the way to ensure that everyone, regardless of ability, can access the quality abortion care they have a right to.

Abortion is only legal in Nigeria to save a woman’s life, and factors like stigma, cost, and lack of trained health providers make it difficult for women to access abortion even when their lives are at risk. Not surprisingly, many people resort to abortion with unsafe methods. Some die, and many suffer injuries. Ipas has long worked in Nigeria to ensure that high-quality treatment for complications of unsafe abortion (often called postabortion care) is widely available, but barriers remain.

Continued:   https://www.ipas.org/news/local-groups-in-nigeria-lead-the-way-for-inclusive-abortion-care/


Why Aren’t Disabled Stories Included in Abortion Ban Conversations?

Disabled people exist beyond a long list of inequitably impacted communities, but our needs are largely being ignored in the reproductive rights space.

SEP 13, 2023
KELSEY RHODES

Disabled people are inequitably impacted by abortion bans. It’s a fact. But the realities of disabled communities accessing abortion care in a post-Roe environment are not the stories we hear about or learn from. To be frank, they weren’t the stories we heard about or learned from before the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right abortion, either.

In a world that continues to be rocked by COVID-19’s long-term health impacts, why aren’t the stories of disabled people accessing abortion being told? Why aren’t disabled voices being centered in media coverage of the impact since the Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization?

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2023/09/13/beyond-a-talking-point-why-arent-disabled-stories-included-in-abortion-ban-converations/


Disability & Abortion: The Hardest Choice review – this intelligent documentary deserved two episodes

It’s a moving and nuanced exploration of the law on terminating pregnancies involving foetal abnormalities. But this show needed another instalment to really do justice to its topic

Frances Ryan
Mon 22 Aug 2022

In the opening scenes of Disability and Abortion: The Hardest Choice (Channel 4) we are getting to know our hosts, the actors Ruth Madeley and Ruben Reuter. Reuter, who has Down’s syndrome, is loved up with his girlfriend and enjoying his own flat. Madeley, who has spina bifida, goes for cocktails with the girls and has a Bafta nomination. The purpose is clear: any viewer who believes that the lives of disabled people are not worth living should re-evaluate their prejudice. It is an important, albeit simplified, point and in many ways sums up the challenge ahead for the film-makers: boiling a highly complex ethical debate into a one-hour mainstream vehicle.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/aug/22/disability-abortion-the-hardest-choice-review-this-intelligent-documentary-deserved-two-episodes


Leave My Disability Out of Your Anti-Abortion Propaganda

July 31, 2022
By Kendall Ciesemier

Thirty years ago, when my mother was pregnant, an ultrasound revealed troubling abnormalities: the fetus’s organs were misarranged. This condition, she was told by her doctor, correlated with a wide variety of disabilities that could cause the baby to die at birth. The doctor told my mother that she could seek an abortion. She wanted her to know her options.

My parents had good health insurance, a steady income and a strong support system. They chose to proceed with the pregnancy. A few months later, I was born to a crowd of doctors waiting to assess and treat my condition. I had my first of many major surgeries at 8 weeks old. My parents went to sleep every night praying I’d see another birthday.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/31/opinion/disability-rights-anti-abortion.html


UK – Heidi Carter should not judge pregnant women’s decisions

Aborting a fetus with Down’s syndrome says nothing about how society views disabled people. It is a matter of choice.

ANN FUREDI, Spiked
9th July 2021

Heidi Carter is a talented and able young woman. She also has Down’s syndrome. This week she launched a legal challenge which, if successful, would lower the time limit for abortions when there is a high risk of serious disability. Carter believes that it is morally wrong for any woman to decide to end her pregnancy to avoid the birth of a child with disabilities or genetic conditions.

In 2020, almost 300 women who had abortions stated Down’s syndrome as the primary reason. For these women, and for others where a serious fetal anomaly is indicated, there is no time limit. Heidi Carter believes this is offensive to people with disabilities – and she is entitled to hold that view. As a person with a disability she has insight into what it feels like to have that disability. But it gives her no authority to stand in judgement on pregnant women’s decisions.

Continued: https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/07/09/heidi-carter-should-not-judge-pregnant-womens-decisions/


UK – Disabilities activists are waging war on women’s freedom

Heidi Carter's attempt to change the Abortion Act threatens women's reproductive rights.

Ella Whelan, Spiked
7th July 2021

Heidi Carter is a 24-year-old woman with Down’s syndrome. She is currently taking the UK health secretary Sajid Javid to court in an effort to change the 1967 Abortion Act.

Carter and her team want to take away the option women currently have to abort a pregnancy after 24 weeks in cases of non-fatal disabilities. Her supporters are framing this as a battle for the rights of disabled people. This is misleading. It should be understood as an attempt to limit the choice and freedoms of 34million women.

Continued: https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/07/07/disabilities-activists-are-waging-war-on-womens-freedom/


UK – Woman with Down’s syndrome leads challenge to ‘discriminatory’ law on abortion

'I will not tolerate it,’ says Heidi Carter, 24, whose team is demanding an end to terminations up to delivery

Sian Griffiths, Education Editor
Sunday July 04 2021

Heidi Carter will celebrate her first wedding anniversary today. She can tell you the birthdate of any celebrity and has called her Facebook page Living the Dream. Her mother, Liz Crowter, describes her as “an absolute joy”.

But when Crowter gave birth to Heidi, the third of her four children, she was initially upset to learn that her baby had Down’s syndrome. “We really struggled to accept the diagnosis and to love Heidi as we did the others,” said Crowter, 55. “We were told when she was being treated in hospital in the early weeks that she would not survive. It was at those times we realised we did love her and wanted her to come home with us. Now we can’t imagine life without her.”

Continued: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/woman-with-downs-syndrome-leads-challenge-to-discriminatory-law-on-abortion-jm90tprbv


UK – The ethical case against sex-selective abortion isn’t simple

The ethical case against sex-selective abortion isn’t simple

September 25, 2018
Jeremy Williams

A key theme in public debate over abortion in many countries over the last few years has been the morality and legality of sex-selective terminations. Now the use of an early prenatal testing technique in the UK has led to further concerns.

The Non-Invasive Prenatal Test (NIPT) is being fully introduced on the NHS this year, as a safe method of detecting Down’s Syndrome and other genetic conditions. But it has been internationally available from private providers for a number of years, and, as a 2017 report noted, is often offered as a sex-determination test. This has raised concerns that the test may be used to facilitate sex-selective abortion – particularly within communities where women can be subject to strong cultural and familial pressure not to have girls. The current legal status of this practice in the UK is a matter of some controversy.

Continued: http://theconversation.com/the-ethical-case-against-sex-selective-abortion-isnt-simple-103806


The moment a baby’s brain starts to function, and other scientific answers on abortion

The moment a baby’s brain starts to function, and other scientific answers on abortion

May 24, 2018
Tomás Ryan

There are not two views on abortion in Ireland. There are 4,803,748 different perspectives. In the weeks leading up to polling day, the Irish people have started from the ground up and the debate is now firmly in the parameters of “under what circumstances should abortion be available?”

Scientists are generally a stroppy sort of people. We are trained to question absolutely everything, and we have a deep scepticism of authority or unjustified assertion. We make individual conclusions based on an objective assessment of the evidence and – beyond the core accepted scientific facts – we disagree with each other constantly.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/abortion-referendum/the-moment-a-baby-s-brain-starts-to-function-and-other-scientific-answers-on-abortion-1.3506968