UK – ‘Deeply sinister’: Police testing women who have miscarriages for abortion drugs

Maya Oppenheim, Women’s Correspondent
Nov 2, 2023

Police are testing “distressed” women who have suffered miscarriages for abortion drugs, healthcare providers have warned. Medical professionals argue it is “deeply sinister” to test women who have endured a miscarriage who are suspected of illegal abortions for the drugs – arguing it adds to the guilt and stigma women routinely experience after pregnancy loss.

In one document, seen by The Independent, a bodily fluid sample was sent to a forensics lab to be analysed for a range of drugs – including the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol. Another reveals a woman who agreed to allow police to have access to samples of her bodily fluids taken by NHS staff.

Continued: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-testing-abortion-drugs-miscarriage-b2439733.html

British police testing women for abortion drugs

Forensic reports seen by Tortoise show police requesting tests for mifepristone and misoprostol

Monday 30 October 2023
Phoebe Davis, Tortoise Media

British police are testing women for abortion drugs and requesting data from menstrual tracking apps after unexplained pregnancy losses.

Tortoise has seen forensic reports in which police have requested a mass spectrometry test, which can detect the presence of the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol in the urine, blood and placenta of women under investigation.

Other reports include requests for “data related to menstruation tracking applications” as part of the police’s investigations.

Continued: https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2023/10/30/british-police-testing-women-for-abortion-drugs/

There Are Now Tests That Can Detect If Someone Took Abortion Pills

The chilling development comes out of Poland, where prosecutors have already used the tests to investigate pregnancy outcomes, reports the New York Times.

By Susan Rinkunas, Jezebel
Sept 14, 2023

Scientists in Poland have reportedly developed lab tests that can detect whether people have taken abortion pills—and those tests are already being used to investigate pregnancy outcomes under the country’s abortion ban. This is an alarming development, to say the least, and unfortunately, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before a U.S. state replicates the effort.

According to a bone-chilling piece in the New York Times, Polish scientists have developed tests that can identify both mifepristone and misoprostol, the drugs typically used in a medication abortion. (Though some people do use misoprostol alone.) The studies were part of a research project funded by the Polish government where researchers were able to find evidence of misoprostol in the placenta and mifepristone in a woman’s blood sample. A spokesperson for a prosecutor’s office in Wroclaw confirmed to the Times that Polish authorities have already used the tests to investigate pregnancy outcomes.

Continued; https://jezebel.com/there-are-now-tests-that-can-detect-if-someone-took-abo-1850839647

Another Risk in Overturning Roe

The decision rejects the idea of fetal personhood—which anti-abortion groups have been pushing on state legislatures.

By Jia Tolentino, New Yorker
February 20, 2022

January 22nd marked the forty-ninth anniversary of Roe v. Wade—and, likely, the last year that its protections will remain standing. In December, during oral arguments, the Supreme Court’s six conservative Justices signalled their intention to uphold a Mississippi law that, in banning almost all abortions after fifteen weeks of pregnancy, defies Roe’s protections. Most of those Justices seemed prepared to overturn Roe entirely. Without Roe, which prohibits states from banning abortion before fetal viability—at twenty-eight weeks when the law was decided, and closer to twenty-two weeks now—abortion could become mostly inaccessible and illegal in at least twenty states.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/02/28/another-risk-in-overturning-roe-v-wade-abortion

USA – A Woman’s Rights

More and more laws are treating a fetus as a person, and a woman as less of one, as states charge pregnant women with crimes...

Opinion
A Woman’s Rights
By The Editorial Board
Photographs by Damon Winter

DEC. 28, 2018

You might be surprised to learn that in the United States a woman coping with the heartbreak of losing her pregnancy might also find herself facing jail time. Say she got in a car accident in New York or gave birth to a stillborn in Indiana: In such cases, women have been charged with manslaughter.

In fact, a fetus need not die for the state to charge a pregnant woman with a crime. Women who fell down the stairs, who ate a poppy seed bagel and failed a drug test or who took legal drugs during pregnancy — drugs prescribed by their doctors — all have been accused of endangering their children.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/28/opinion/pregnancy-women-pro-life-abortion.html

USA: Health of pregnant women being jeopardized by punitive laws

USA Health of pregnant women being jeopardized by punitive laws
23 May 2017

A set of US laws which claim to promote maternal and infant health are in fact driving pregnant women away from vital health services, jeopardizing their wellbeing and violating their right to health, according to a new report published by Amnesty International today.

Criminalizing Pregnancy: Policing Pregnant Women Who Use Drugs in the USA, highlights the impact of pregnancy criminalization laws, especially those which are used to arrest and prosecute women who use drugs based on a belief that they are harming their fetuses. Fear of these laws is deterring pregnant women from accessing healthcare, prenatal care and even drug treatment.

“Across the USA, the heavy-handed policing of pregnant women’s behaviour is shattering patient trust in health services with devastating consequences. These laws put pregnant women in a double bind, forcing them to choose between risking their health and risking punishment,” said Carrie Eisert, Policy Adviser at Amnesty International, who authored the report.

Continued at source: Amnesty International: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/05/usa-health-of-pregnant-women-being-jeopardized-by-punitive-laws/