USA – Why Abortion Stories Matter

July 4, 2023
By Christine Henneberg

Start with a story. It’s the standard advice for any doctor who sets out to write, speak or advocate on behalf of her patients. Stories change minds. They change how people think about issues that can otherwise feel impersonal. Stories matter.

This is why, in the year since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, have been collecting stories from doctors detailing substandard medical care and harm to patients. It is why the obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Caitlin Bernard told the story of a patient of hers, a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio, who, unable to obtain a legal abortion in her home state, was forced to travel to Indiana to seek care. It is why, as an abortion provider in California, a state where abortion remains legal (for now), I collect and publish stories about my work — stories that, for whatever reason, stick with me.

Continued (free article): https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/04/opinion/abortion-dobbs-doctors-story.html

04.07.2023

USA – Malpractice lawsuits over denied abortion care may be on the horizon

Sunday, June 25, 2023
Harris Meyer

A year after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, many physicians and hospitals in the states that have restricted abortion reportedly are refusing to end the pregnancies of women facing health-threatening complications out of fear they might face criminal prosecution or loss of their medical license.

Some experts predict those providers could soon face a new legal threat: medical malpractice lawsuits alleging they harmed patients by failing to provide timely, necessary abortion care.

Continued: https://www.capradio.org/articles/2023/06/25/malpractice-lawsuits-over-denied-abortion-care-may-be-on-the-horizon/

Two days that could shape abortion access and the future of American health care

Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Thu April 20, 2023

The future of a widely used medication to end pregnancies, the health care options of American women and even the viability of US regulatory approvals for routine drugs are all in question as the Supreme Court deliberates on a critical abortion case ahead of a deadline extended to Friday.

Justice Samuel Alito gave the court more time Wednesday, extending a temporary hold on an order by a Texas judge, which would block approval of the mifepristone, and on a subsequent appeals court ruling, which would let the government’s approval of the drug stand but agreed access could be limited. It’s the most important abortion case since the high court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. The extension, until 11:59 p.m. ET Friday, means the drug remains available. But the possibility of health care chaos will not ease over the next 48 hours.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/20/politics/abortion-access-supreme-court-analysis/index.html

Her miscarriage left her bleeding profusely. An Ohio ER sent her home to wait

November 15, 2022
Selena Simmons-Duffin
8-Minute Listen with Transcript

Christina Zielke and her husband were excited when she got pregnant in July. It was her first pregnancy at age 33 – everything was new. But during the ultrasound at her initial prenatal appointment in Washington D.C., there was no heartbeat. Bloodwork taken a few days apart showed her pregnancy hormone levels were dropping.

A doctor from her Ob-Gyn's office called her to confirm that the pregnancy had ended in a miscarriage. They laid out her options: Take medication to make the pregnancy tissue come out faster, have a dilation and curettage or D&C procedure to remove the pregnancy tissue from her uterus, or wait for it to come out on its own.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/15/1135882310/miscarriage-hemorrhage-abortion-law-ohio

Conservatives have pushed infant safe haven laws as an alternative to abortion. But few American women use them

By Isabelle Chapman and Daniel A. Medina
Tue August 9, 2022

As many American women reckon with the sudden loss of their constitutional right to abortion, conservatives have floated an alternative they say makes abortion less necessary: safe haven laws.

The laws, which allow mothers to anonymously abandon infants at hospitals and other designated sites shortly after giving birth, have been in place in all 50 states since 2008.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/09/us/infant-safe-haven-law-abortion-invs/index.html

USA – A Look At Amy Coney Barrett’s Record On Abortion Rights

September 28, 2020
Sarah McCammon

President Trump has made no secret of his intentions regarding the U.S. Supreme Court and abortion rights. During a presidential debate in 2016, Trump vowed to appoint justices who'd vote to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

"That will happen automatically, in my opinion, because I am putting pro-life justices on the court," Trump said. "I will say this: It will go back to the states, and the states will then make a determination."

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/28/917827735/a-look-at-amy-coney-barretts-record-on-abortion-rights

How Abortion Law in New York Will Change, and How It Won’t

How Abortion Law in New York Will Change, and How It Won’t
The Reproductive Health Act will remove barriers for women seeking to get abortions in New York. But some wish it could have gone further.

By Jia Tolentino
January 19, 2019

In the late spring of 2016, Erika Christensen was thirty-one weeks pregnant, and found out that the baby she was carrying would be unable to survive outside the womb. Her doctor told her that he was “incompatible with life.” Christensen and her husband wanted a child desperately—they called him Spartacus, because of how hard he seemed to be fighting—but she decided, immediately, to terminate the pregnancy: if the child was born, he would suffer, and would not live long; she wanted to minimize his suffering to whatever extent she could.

Christensen lived in New York, a state where, since 2014, an estimated twenty-five to twenty-seven per cent of pregnancies end in abortion.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-abortion-law-in-new-york-will-change-and-how-it-wont

U.S.: Abortion Is Found to Have Little Effect on Women’s Mental Health

By PAM BELLUCK, DEC. 14, 2016, New York Times

It’s an idea that has long been used as an argument against abortion — that terminating a pregnancy causes women to experience emotional and psychological trauma.

Some states require women seeking abortions to be counseled that they might develop mental health problems. Now a new study, considered to be the most rigorous to look at the question in the United States, undermines that claim. Researchers followed nearly 1,000 women who sought abortions nationwide for five years and found that those who had the procedure did not experience more depression, anxiety, low self-esteem or dissatisfaction with life than those who were denied it.

[continued at link]
Source: New York Times