UK – Health chiefs voice fears over MP’s move to cut abortion limit

Exclusive: President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said they are against any reduction in abortion time limits

Maya Oppenheim, Women’s Correspondent
March 3, 2024

Fears have been raised that proposals to reduce the abortion deadline by two weeks could inflict cruelty on vulnerable women and actually increase the number of pregnancy terminations.

The warnings come after Tory MP Caroline Ansell proposed an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill to decrease the legal limit to have an abortion from the current deadline of 24 weeks to 22 weeks – with MPs set to vote on the proposals in due course.

Continued: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/abortion-laws-cut-limit-24-weeks-b2504825.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

The Pain and Promise of Europe’s Abortion Laws

The continent’s abortion laws are a patchwork of progress and setbacks. And for many, accessing the right care at the right time is still a lottery.

BY GRACE BROWNE
JUN 22, 2023

ON MAY 26, 2018, Irish women spilled onto the streets to celebrate a historic win for reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. The staunchly Catholic country had overwhelmingly voted to scrap the Eighth Amendment of the Irish Constitution, under which abortion was essentially illegal—one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world.

Five years on, the mood has sobered. Under the new laws, those seeking an abortion have to undergo a mandatory waiting period, adhere to strict time limits, and contend with a lack of providers. From 2019 to 2021, 775 people made use of their right to travel freely between the United Kingdom and Ireland to head to Britain to access abortion services. In 2020, despite the pandemic, nearly 200 people still traveled across the Irish Sea to get abortion care in the UK. The Abortion Support Network (ASN), a charity that helps people in Europe access abortion through telemedicine or by supporting travel, says every three days they hear from someone in Ireland looking for help.

Continued: https://www.wired.com/story/europe-abortion-laws/

Today’s Supreme Court Case Makes It Clear: Amy Coney Barrett Will Decide the Future of Abortion Rights in the United States

That, to put it mildly, is not good news for the future of abortion rights

DECEMBER 1, 2021
By DAVID S. COHEN

The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard a Mississippi case that could overturn Roe v. Wade. After almost two hours of oral argument, it’s clear that the fate of nationwide legal abortion is now in the hands of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. That’s not good news for the future of abortion rights.

The case argued today involved a ban on abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy. Roe and subsequent Supreme Court cases had been entirely clear that states could not ban abortion before “viability,” a medical term indicating when a fetus has developed enough that it could survive outside a woman on its own (though with extraordinary medical intervention). For most pregnancies, that’s about 23 or 24 weeks.

Continued: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/abortion-supreme-court-amy-coney-barrett-mississippi-1265450/

What Happens When It’s Too Late to Get an Abortion

Nov. 22, 2021
By Diana Greene Foster
New York Times

On Dec. 1, the Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. If the court decides to uphold the Mississippi law — as it may well do — that would mean American abortion rights would no longer be protected up to the point of fetal viability, or about 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Replacing this viability standard, which has been in place since 1992, with some lower threshold is sometimes framed as a necessary compromise between people who oppose abortion rights and those who support them. The suggestion is that Americans should relinquish the right to abortion in the second trimester to preserve access in the first, which is when about 90 percent of abortions take place.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/opinion/abortion-supreme-court-women-law.html

What U.S. abortion access looks like, in graphics

States are passing more abortion restrictions, which could reshape what abortion access looks like across the country.

July 25, 2021
By Chloe Atkins

The current landscape of abortion access in the United States came into focus in May after the Supreme Court decided to consider the legality of Mississippi's ban on nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Mississippi’s restriction was the first to reach the court from a wave of state laws intended to strike down Roe v. Wade, the decision that established the constitutional right to an abortion nationwide.

The first major abortion case since the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett solidified a conservative majority comes as state legislatures around the country have brought a historic number of laws seeking to tighten abortion access.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/what-u-s-abortion-access-looks-graphics-n1274859

Australia – Here’s why there should be no gestational limits for abortion

Here’s why there should be no gestational limits for abortion

August 12, 2019
Erica Millar

Family planning organisation and abortion provider Marie Stopes today warned that Australian women face a confusing patchwork of state-based laws and service shortages that restrict access to abortions, based on where they live.

At the centre of these inconsistent laws is the gestational cut off – the point where the pregnant person is no longer the primary decision-maker and, instead, specific criteria must be met (generally, two doctors must agree that the abortion is necessary on medical and/or social grounds).

Continued: https://theconversation.com/heres-why-there-should-be-no-gestational-limits-for-abortion-121500