USA – Why anti-abortion groups are backing away from abortion bans

Why anti-abortion groups are backing away from abortion bans
Debate around a Tennessee bill shows a big shift in anti-abortion strategy.

By Anna North
Aug 22, 2019

When legislators in Tennessee debated a bill earlier this month that would ban abortion as soon as a pregnancy can be detected, opposition came from a surprising place: anti-abortion groups.

Though the groups National Right to Life and Tennessee Right to Life oppose abortion, they also oppose the Tennessee ban, because they believe it would never stand up in court. If such a ban were to make it to the Supreme Court, the groups worry it would fail: “There is no objective evidence that we have more than one vote to overturn Roe v. Wade,” said James Bopp, general counsel of the National Right to Life Committee, which describes itself as “the nation’s oldest and largest pro-life organization,” in testimony against the bill.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2019/8/22/20826982/abortion-tennessee-laws-2019-alabama-georgia-ohio

Abortion Bans Based on So-Called “Science” Are Fraudulent

Abortion Bans Based on So-Called “Science” Are Fraudulent
Our silence in the face of new anti-choice laws across the U.S. is deafening

By Nicole M. Baran, Gretchen Goldman, Jane Zelikova
on August 21, 2019

We are scientists, and we believe that evidence, not ideology, should inform health care decisions. The wave of anti-abortion laws across the U.S. is the latest in a long string of attempts to falsely use the language and authority of science to justify denying people their basic human rights and inflict lasting harm. Although abortion is still legal in every state, recent legislation in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio threatens the future of abortion rights in the country. Scientists should, first and foremost, value evidence, and the evidence is clear: abortion bans cause harm. They make abortions less safe and especially harm historically marginalized communities.

Continued: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/abortion-bans-based-on-so-called-science-are-fraudulent/

USA – 7 Days Inside an Anti-Abortion Summer Camp Training the Next Generation of Activists

7 Days Inside an Anti-Abortion Summer Camp Training the Next Generation of Activists

By Carter Sherman
Aug 7, 2019

HOUSTON — The circle of students sat quietly, scribbling down answers to the prompt they’d just been given: “Write down three similarities between the Holocaust and abortion.”

After a minute or two, they launched into discussion. Innocent people were, and are, being killed, they said. The Nazis discriminated against the Jews, just as “the unborn” face discrimination today. Bystanders aren’t doing enough to stand up against injustice.

Continued: https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8j9m/7-days-inside-an-anti-abortion-summer-camp-training-the-next-generation-of-activists

USA – Southern States Funnel Public Money to Fake Abortion Clinics

Southern States Funnel Public Money to Fake Abortion Clinics
"Heartbeat bills" aren't the only effort that legislatures are taking to restrict access to reproductive health care.

By Sarah Moore
Published July 20, 2019

Nine states, six of them in the South, have passed admittedly unconstitutional abortion bans this year with the express aim of challenging the right to terminate a pregnancy as established in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. But “heartbeat bills” aren’t the only effort that legislatures are taking to restrict access to reproductive health care.

Nationwide, 14 states are sending tax dollars to so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs), which pose as legitimate medical facilities offering free pregnancy testing and ultrasounds when in fact their true function is to dissuade people from seeking abortion, often by providing them with false information.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/southern-states-funnel-public-money-to-fake-abortion-clinics/

As States Race to Limit Abortions, Alabama Goes Further, Seeking to Outlaw Most of Them

As States Race to Limit Abortions, Alabama Goes Further, Seeking to Outlaw Most of Them

By Timothy Williams and Alan Blinder
May 8, 2019

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Amid a flurry of new limits on abortion being sought in states around the nation, Alabama is weighing a measure that would go further than all of them — outlawing most abortions almost entirely.

The effort in Alabama, where the State Senate could vote as soon as Thursday, is unfolding as Republicans, emboldened by President Trump and the shifting alignment of the Supreme Court, intensify a long-running campaign to curb abortion access.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/us/abortion-alabama-ban.html

What’s behind the rise of anti-abortion ‘heartbeat bills’?

What's behind the rise of anti-abortion 'heartbeat bills'?

By Ritu Prasad, BBC News, Washington
24 April 2019

A slew of states have introduced new anti-abortion legislation that would ban the procedure as soon as a foetal heartbeat can be detected. What's behind the push - and the backlash - for these bills and what exactly do they mean for women?

In the first months of this year, nearly 30 states introduced some form of an abortion ban in their legislature. Fifteen have specifically been working with so-called "heartbeat bills", that would ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47940659

How States Are Preparing For A Potential Roe v. Wade Challenge

How States Are Preparing For A Potential Roe v. Wade Challenge

April 23, 2019
by Priyanka Boghani

Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s ascent to the Supreme Court last year brought the future of abortion access into question. Lawmakers and activists on both sides of the debate saw his confirmation — and a shift to a conservative-leaning court — as a step toward overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the U.S.

Ahead of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, warned that the Supreme Court would “take away and criminalize women’s reproductive freedom.” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, laid out his hopes for Kavanaugh: “If there’s a case before him that challenges Roe v. Wade [I hope] that he would listen to both sides of the story, apply a test to overturn precedent.”

Continued: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-states-are-preparing-for-a-potential-roe-v-wade-challenge/

Trump’s anti-abortion agenda emboldened an all-out war on women’s rights in dozens of states

Trump's anti-abortion agenda emboldened an all-out war on women's rights in dozens of states
Pro-lifers think they now have the Supreme Court votes to overturn Roe v. Wade. And they're setting up the legal fights to get there.

April 15, 2019
By Jill Filipovic

It’s been a rough two years for reproductive rights. Since Donald Trump took office, a series of attacks on both abortion and contraception have come from the state and federal levels. A re-emboldened anti-abortion movement has emerged, and they’re gunning for major legal changes — and, they hope, a Supreme Court that would overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion broadly legal across the United States.

What triggered this shift? Trump’s Supreme Court judges — including, most recently, Brett Kavanaugh. How appropriate that opponents of a woman’s right to decide what happens to her body have decided that their best hope is in a Supreme Court made more conservative by a judge accused of sexual assault.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-anti-abortion-agenda-emboldened-all-out-war-women-ncna994661

USA – How Six-Week Abortion Bans Are Fueling a ‘Radical’ Year for Abortion Law

How Six-Week Abortion Bans Are Fueling a 'Radical' Year for Abortion Law
The bans mark an unprecedented year for abortion legislation—and a potential political turning point.

Rosemary Westwood
Apr 12, 2019

The projected political reckoning of abortion rights has arrived. Abortion bills, as expected, dominated state legislatures in early 2019, pushing the issue ever closer to the United States Supreme Court.

Among the 28 states considering abortion bans in the first four months of the year, a handful of the most conservative are aiming to ban abortion at just six weeks' gestation—when an embryonic "heartbeat" (doctors use the term cardiac activity, and embryos don't have hearts so much as tissues that will become the heart) can be detected. Abortion rights groups say the measures are so extreme that they effectively amount to outright abortion bans, since few women who want abortions would be able to access them before the cut-off, or perhaps even know they're pregnant.

Continued: https://psmag.com/social-justice/how-six-week-abortion-bans-are-fueling-a-radical-year-for-abortion-law

USA – The two sides are growing further apart on abortion. We can thank Donald Trump.

The two sides are growing further apart on abortion. We can thank Donald Trump.
Why states are adopting more extreme abortion policies.

By Mary Ziegler
April 1, 2019

In recent weeks, Republican lawmakers nationwide seemed to have upped the ante when it comes to abortion, passing “heartbeat bills” — laws prohibiting abortion when doctors can detect a fetal heartbeat, usually around the sixth week of pregnancy — and triggering legislation that will criminalize abortions as soon as the Supreme Court gives the green light.

What is going on? The New York Times editorial board recently suggested that state legislatures had run out of other restrictions to pass. But antiabortion lawyers have never had a problem coming up with new incremental laws. Understood in historical context, the complete story behind the rise of heartbeat laws is more complex and tells us how much the politics of abortion have changed in the past few years.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/04/01/two-sides-are-growing-further-apart-abortion-we-can-thank-donald-trump/?utm_term=.5740db8d04fc