Abortion Shield Laws: A New War Between the States

Doctors in six states where abortion is legal are using new laws to send abortion pills to tens of thousands of women in states where it is illegal.

By Pam Belluck
Feb. 22, 2024

Behind an unmarked door in a boxy brick building outside Boston, a quiet rebellion is taking place. Here, in a 7-by-12-foot room, abortion is being made available to thousands of women in states where it is illegal.

The patients do not have to travel here to terminate their pregnancies, and they do not have to wait weeks to receive abortion medication from overseas.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/health/abortion-shield-laws-telemedicine.html

Abortion advocacy group Plan C informs people how to get abortion pills in every state

Plan C has been a resource for those seeking abortion medication information online since before Roe v. Wade was overturned.

By Rebekah Sager
July 11, 2023

Since its founding in 2014, the Plan C network has been determined to make sure that the comprehensive information on its website continues to help those seeking abortion medication — particularly in states where abortion care has been restricted or banned.

Plan C offers current and updated information about how to access at-home abortion medication. It lists all of the options available, depending on where a person lives: telehealth services, local community support networks offering free or generic pills, and a list of websites that sell the pills. The site additionally lists the costs and the number of days it takes for at-home delivery.

Continued: https://americanindependent.com/abortion-advocacy-group-plan-c-medication-states-bans/

11.07.2023

‘Plan C’ Review: Timely Documentary Examines Abortion Solutions in a Post-Roe America

Tracy Droz Tragos' no-frills film centers on the healthcare professionals and volunteers seeking to ensure easy access to abortion pills for pregnant people in restrictive U.S. states.

By Guy Lodge
Feb 16, 2023

Even before last year’s Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade, a recent international surge in films about abortion rights and the endangerment thereof — from period pieces like “Happening” to present-day portraits like “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” — almost seemed to anticipate such a devastating blow. In America in particular, where talk of abortion access has always been snarled up in extreme religious rhetoric and eternal red-blue division, it has never been a subject to be treated complacently. Urgent and unvarnished, Tracy Droz Tragos’ documentary “Plan C” is an early entry in what might be considered post-Roe cinema, focusing less on pro-choice ideology than on the practicalities of ensuring choice in a system increasingly stacked against the idea.

Continued: https://variety.com/2023/film/reviews/plan-c-review-1235524927/

16.02.2023

Film, Art, Books

Abortion: Stories Women Tell

What Does an At-Home Abortion Look Like in 2021?

The practice is often assumed to be dangerous, but Abigail Aiken’s data suggest that ordering abortion pills online, and inducing a miscarriage at home, is as safe as going to a clinic.

By Lizzie Widdicombe
November 11, 2021

It was the year 2000 in Derry, the second-largest city in Northern Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement had gone into effect two years earlier, bringing the Troubles to an end. The city seemed to be full of hope. But Abigail Aiken was full of dread. An academic star, she should have been focussed on the G.C.S.E.s, a set of exams that determine whether a sixteen-year-old in the U.K. will advance on a university track or end her education in high school. But as the exam date approached, Aiken’s mind kept wandering to something else: her period, which was more than a week late. Recently, her long-distance boyfriend had come to town for a weeklong visit, which had resulted in an unplanned romantic incident. Could she have gotten pregnant after her first time? That would be just her luck. She wanted to know, one way or the other, but this was Derry, a place where everyone knew everyone else’s business. What was she supposed to do, walk into the pharmacy and ask for a pregnancy test?

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-does-an-at-home-abortion-look-like-in-2021

USA – What if You Had Abortion Pills in Your Medicine Cabinet?

Oct. 13, 2021
By Patrick Adams

In 2018, the Austria-based nonprofit Aid Access began offering Americans a new service: For the first time, pregnant people could obtain abortion pills by mail, with a prescription from a licensed physician, without ever visiting a clinic. For years, the group’s founder, Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, had been doing similar work overseas. But as abortion rights were steadily eroded by Republican-controlled legislatures, Dr. Gomperts found herself inundated with requests from the United States and decided to act.

Three years later, American abortion rights are more threatened than ever, with the fate of Roe v. Wade resting on several Supreme Court justices appointed by Donald Trump. In response, Aid Access has introduced a service that offers a possible path forward for doctors adapting to the changing abortion landscape and reckoning with their role in gate-keeping a politically fraught drug: prescribing abortion pills in advance, to be kept on hand in the event of a future unwanted pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/opinion/abortion-pills-texas-prescription-doctors.html

USA – Abortion Pill Effective for Treating Fibroids, But Anti-Abortion Politics Stymie Access

7/26/2021
by CARRIE N. BAKER, Ms. Magazine

In 2000, the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approved mifepristone for abortion during the first seven weeks of pregnancy, later extending allowable use to ten weeks in 2016. While widely known as an abortion pill, mifepristone is very effective for treating fibroids and may also be effective for treating endometriosis and depression.

Yet the drug is not available to use for these serious conditions because the FDA tightly restricts the medication due to intense anti-abortion pressure. The politicization around mifepristone has made research on its usefulness in treating these conditions difficult to conduct, preventing its development for treatments that could significantly enhance women’s health.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2021/07/26/mifepristone-abortion-pill-fibroids-endometriosis-depression-fda-rems-biden/

USA – No-Test Medication Abortion Increases Safety and Access During COVID-19

No-Test Medication Abortion Increases Safety and Access During COVID-19
A new study proposes an innovative, no-test medication abortion protocol that would enable clinicians to safely administer medication abortion to patients without any preliminary tests or in-person encounters

5/13/2020
by Carrie N. Baker

Imagine a world where women could access safe and supported abortion health care without ever leaving their homes. In this world, after a phone call or video conference with a health care professional, women could receive the abortion pill in the mail, which they could take safely in the privacy of their own homes under the supervision of a clinician.

No invasive, time-consuming pelvic exams or blood tests. No state-mandated ultrasounds or waiting periods requiring multiple visits. No walking past lines of screaming anti-abortion protesters. No driving long distances, having to find and pay for child care, or taking time off from work. No exposure to COVID-19.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2020/05/13/no-test-medication-abortion-increases-safety-and-access-during-covid-19/

USA – Amid Covid-19, a Call for M.D.s to Mail the Abortion Pill

Amid Covid-19, a Call for M.D.s to Mail the Abortion Pill
For decades, the consensus has been that F.D.A. regulations require that the abortion pill be obtained in a clinic. But that’s changing.

By Patrick Adams
May 12, 2020

Last fall, months before America’s first outbreak of the coronavirus, Francine Coeytaux and Elisa Wells, co-founders of the abortion rights advocacy group Plan C, were reaching out to doctors with a question they said was urgent:

“Would you be willing to mail the ‘abortion pills’ to women in their homes?”

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/opinion/covid-abortion-pill.html

Some US women are taking reproductive matters into their own hands: They’re ordering abortion pills by mail

Some US women are taking reproductive matters into their own hands: They're ordering abortion pills by mail

USA TODAY
June 25, 2019

In Aid Access' first year of operation, 21,000 U.S. women reached out to the online organization launched in March 2018 that offers abortion pills internationally. Requests came from all over the country ⁠– especially states where abortion is tightly restricted.

After a string of states passed bans or limits in recent weeks, pushing the abortion debate in the USA to a fever pitch, abortion rights advocates said those numbers could climb.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/06/25/abortion-by-mail-foothold-limit-ban-states-access/1512470001/

U.S.: In today’s movement toward home abortions, echoes of past cultural battles

In today's movement toward home abortions, echoes of past cultural battles

'The cultural atmosphere [today is] way worse than the atmosphere that the underground service worked in during the ‘68 to ‘73 period,' says a former 'Jane,' who helped women obtain abortions before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion.

Jessica Mendoza, Staff writer
July 5, 2017

Los Angeles — In the fall of 1970, a schoolteacher named Judith Arcana walked into a meeting held at a church a few blocks from her Chicago apartment. She emerged hours later a newly minted member of Jane, an underground collective that counseled women through – and later performed – thousands of illegal abortions between 1968 and 1973.

To Ms. Arcana, then 27, the idea of providing women with safe, dignified abortions dovetailed with her interest in reproductive justice and the burgeoning women’s liberation movement. “It seemed so right,” she recalls. “I was energized spiritually and politically, as well as intellectually.”

Continued at source: Christian Science Monitor: https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2017/0705/In-today-s-movement-toward-home-abortions-echoes-of-past-cultural-battles