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

These Are The Abortion Stories You Don’t Hear After Roe v. Wade

Why telling all kinds of abortion stories — particularly the mundane — is important in helping achieve reproductive justice.

BY DANIELLE CAMPOAMOR
DECEMBER 28, 2023

In the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade, countless stories of people being denied access to abortion care emerged, the majority focusing on instances of fatal fetal abnormality, rape, incest or catastrophic pregnancy complications.

From a woman in Texas being admitted to the ICU and nearly dying, to a 10-year-old girl in Ohio forced to cross state lines to access care after she was raped, to a mother who says she was told to wait in a hospital parking lot until she was closer to death before doctors would treat her, these stories saturated headlines across the country, and for good reason — people with the capacity to get pregnant losing the Constitutional right to bodily autonomy is, it turns out, deadly.

Continued: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/these-are-the-abortion-stories-you-dont-hear-after-roe-v-wade

USA – Fifteen-Week Abortion Bans Are No Compromise The GOP is haggling over when to ban abortion. So are some Democrats.

By Irin Carmon
Oct 5, 2023

The mainline anti-abortion movement has a problem it thinks a 15-week abortion ban can solve. Accomplishing its cherished dream of overturning Roe v. Wade has come at a cost. Many Republicans are squirming away from the anti-abortion cause as politically toxic, to the point that presidential front-runner Donald Trump seems to think he can blow off the movement entirely. Meanwhile, right-wing activists are fretting that abortion is still too accessible, with patients circumventing state bans via interstate travel or abortion pills by mail. New Guttmacher data even suggest the absolute number of legal abortions went up in the first half of this year.

Continued: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/abortion-bans-15-week-debate-republicans-democrats.html

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 – Limits on early abortion drive more women to get them later

Barbara Ortutay, The Associated Press
June 1, 2022

An 18-year-old was undergoing treatment for an eating disorder when she learned she was pregnant, already in the second trimester. A mom of two found out at 20 weeks that her much-wanted baby had no kidneys or bladder. A young woman was raped and couldn't fathom continuing a pregnancy.

Abortions later in pregnancy are relatively rare, even more so now with the availability of medications to terminate early pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/limits-on-early-abortion-drive-more-women-to-get-them-later-1.5929083

USA – As a med student, he saw women nearly die from illegal abortions. At 83, he sees no end to his work

BY MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE, HOUSTON BUREAU CHIEF
Photography by GINA FERAZZI
MARCH 10, 2022

BOULDER, Colo. — Dr. Warren Hern doesn’t have to imagine what could befall many women in America if the Supreme Court strikes down Roe vs. Wade.

In 1963, he was a medical student working nights at Colorado General Hospital in Denver. Women would arrive in septic shock, some probably hours from death. “Nobody talked about why they were there,” Hern recalled.

Continued: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-03-10/abortion-doctor-fears-roes-fall

When these women needed abortion care, they turned to Colorado

Nearby states have enacted abortion restrictions. But Colorado is still a ‘safe haven.’

BY: JULIA FENNELL
NOVEMBER 5, 2021

With states like Texas imposing abortion restrictions, and concern that more will follow, a greater number of out-of-state women are coming to Colorado to seek abortions.

Historically, women have come from all over the country to Colorado, which is sometimes called a “safe haven“ for abortion, to get abortion care.

Continued: https://coloradonewsline.com/2021/11/05/when-these-women-needed-abortion-care-they-turned-to-colorado/

A Voice for Choice : It’s Time for Women to Reclaim the Narrative Around Later Abortions

By Mary Angeles Armstrong
January 1, 2021

It was hard—and it was something I just knew right away," remembers Jenn Chalifoux. She was 18 and on leave from college, at home in Long Island to receive treatment for anorexia, when she realized she was pregnant. Since a common side effect of anorexia is amenorrhea (a cessation of the menstrual cycle), missed periods didn't sound the alarm bell. She was surrounded by doctors, having blood work frequently, and on birth control. "It didn't even occur to me that I might [be pregnant]," she recalls. "My medical team thought my menstrual cycle would return as I progressed in my recovery." When it didn't, months into her treatment, Chalifoux took a pregnancy test at a friend's house. It came back positive and a follow-up appointment with her doctor revealed that she was well into her second trimester. It was a shock.

Continued: https://www.chronogram.com/hudsonvalley/a-voice-for-choice/Content?oid=12035816

01.01.2021

Featured

Opinion

Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health

Mary Angeles Armstrong

Why a NY woman came to Colorado for a 32-week abortion

Why a NY woman came to Colorado for a 32-week abortion
Forty-three states place some restrictions on abortions after a certain point in pregnancy, but Colorado isn’t one of them

By Anna Staver, The Denver Post
PUBLISHED: October 13, 2019

In the spring of 2016, Erika Christensen and her husband walked past a tall, wooden fence that obscured the Boulder office of Dr. Warren Hern from the street and into his waiting room.

Printed signs taped to bulletproof glass told her all electronic devices — even cellphones — were prohibited and asked her to tell someone on staff if she needed to leave for any reason. The only items she could carry through the door were a printed book, her identification card and a check for $10,000.

Continued: https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/13/late-abortion-women-2020/

USA – The First Time Women Shouted Their Abortions

The First Time Women Shouted Their Abortions
Fifty years ago, a group of women stood up in a church and talked about ending their pregnancies. The way they did so still shapes how we discuss the topic today.

By Nona Willis Aronowitz
March 23, 2019

You couldn’t just casually threaten suicide — you had to sound like you meant it, the woman onstage recalled. “You have to go and bring a razor, or whatever: ‘If you don’t tell me I’m going to have an abortion right now, I’m going to go out and jump off the Verrazzano Bridge.’”

The woman was speaking in 1969. Legalized abortion nationwide was still four years away; in New York, so-called therapeutic abortions were legal — but only if a doctor judged you mentally unfit to have a child. And so, the woman explained, she ended up seeing two psychiatrists who, to her relief, deemed her suicide threats real enough to be granted the procedure. The crowd clapped and roared at the absurdity of it all, until the woman explained that after her abortion, she was stuck in the maternity ward to recover — right next to crying babies. The crowd wasn’t laughing anymore.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/opinion/sunday/abortion-speakout-anniversary.html