USA – With telehealth abortion, doctors have to learn to trust and empower patients

January 17, 2023
MARA GORDON

Like many pandemic-era remote workers, Robin Tucker starts her work day sitting on her sofa with a laptop, wearing soft pants and a T-shirt. But the Washington, DC-area nurse practitioner and midwife doesn't have a typical work-from-home job. She provides abortions over the Internet, a service that has only become available in the United States in the last few years.

Her career, she says, has turned out to be very different from what she learned in midwifery school, where she'd spend long shifts in a high-intensity labor and delivery unit, helping patients give birth.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/01/17/1140778856/with-telehealth-abortion-doctors-have-to-learn-to-trust-and-empower-patients

USA – Failing to embed abortion care in mainstream medicine made it politically vulnerable

Actions by the medical profession in the 1970s still reverberate today

By Carole Joffe
Jan 11, 2022

Even before the expected June announcement by the Supreme Court of its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson — a decision many believe will overturn Roe v. Wade — abortion care in America is in trouble, marginalized from the rest of medicine.

Nearly 50 years after legalization nationwide, the majority of obstetrician gynecologists and primary-care doctors do not provide abortions — even though 1 out of 4 American women will have an abortion in her lifetime. Women in the “abortion deserts” of the South and Midwest are forced to travel many hours to reach a clinic. Only 4 percent of abortions take place in a hospital and only 1 percent of abortions take place in private doctors’ offices. The remaining 95 percent occur in free-standing clinics, which offer excellent care, but are largely isolated from other medical institutions. Over 1,000 restrictions, such as mandatory waiting periods, have been passed by state legislatures that make abortion care considerably more difficult for patients and providers alike.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/01/11/failing-embed-abortion-care-mainstream-medicine-made-it-politically-vulnerable/

USA – With the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh, Roe v. Wade is likely dead

With the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh, Roe v. Wade is likely dead
How post-Roe America will look different from pre-Roe America

by Carole Joffe July 10, 2018

Much of the debate over the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to succeed Anthony M. Kennedy on the Supreme Court will center on the fate of Roe v. Wade and the future of abortion rights in America. Nervous champions of the right to choose recall President Trump’s promise to only nominate “pro-life” judges to the court and marked Kavanaugh’s selection with a protest in front of the court.

If Roe is overturned, the legality of abortion will be decided by individual states. How soon this might happen, and how many states would ban abortion, is not clear.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/07/10/with-the-appointment-of-brett-kavanaugh-roe-v-wade-is-likely-dead/?utm_term=.54ca982e2d45