USA – Fearing Legal Threats, Doctors Are Performing C-Sections in Lieu of Abortions

Some physicians are doing unnecessary and invasive surgery on pregnant patients “to preserve the appearance of not doing an abortion.”

MARY TUMA
April 17, 2024

When news that Lizelle Gonzalez was suing the local prosecutor’s office for more than $1 million in damages, after being falsely imprisoned for murder over an attempted self-managed abortion in 2022, reproductive rights advocates cheered the move as a pathway to justice for the wrongfully charged southern Texas woman. However, a revelation in the lawsuit gave them pause: At the same hospital that reported her self-induced abortion to authorities, Gonzalez underwent a “classical C-section” for the delivery of her stillborn child, instead of abortion care. Major invasive surgery, Cesarean sections carry much higher risk for health complications, like hemorrhaging, compared with D&E abortion, and can jeopardize subsequent pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/c-sections-abortions-terrifying-new-reality/

18.04.2024

Commentary

Abortion on Our Own Terms

Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health

American Association of Pro-Life OB-GYNs

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Association of American Medical Colleges

Center for Reproductive Rights

Charlotte Lozier Institute

Dr. Daniel Grossman

Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi

Dr. Michele Heisler

Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act

forced C-sections

forced cesarean sections

Physicians for human Rights

Physicians for Reproductive Health

Reproductive Health Impact

Abortion-ban states pour millions into pregnancy centers with little medical care

Louisiana offers up to $5 million in tax credits a year for donations to anti-abortion operations

BY: ANNA CLAIRE VOLLERS
AUGUST 24, 2023

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, Louisiana Republican state Sen. Beth Mizell looked for a way to address her state’s abysmal record on infant and maternal mortality, preterm births and low birth weight. Louisiana has one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

Mizell and her colleagues borrowed an idea from neighboring Mississippi: a state tax credit program that sends millions each year to nonprofit pregnancy resource centers, also called crisis pregnancy centers. They’re private anti-abortion organizations, often religiously affiliated, that typically offer free pregnancy tests, parenting classes and baby supplies. They are not usually staffed by doctors or nurses, though some offer limited ultrasounds or testing for sexually transmitted infections.

Continued: https://lailluminator.com/2023/08/24/abortion-ban-states-pour-millions-into-pregnancy-centers-with-little-medical-care/

Her unborn baby was developing without a skull. She had to leave Louisiana to get an abortion.

BY ASHLEY WHITE
June 13, 2023

The day before Mardi Gras, Brittany and Chris Vidrine got exciting news — Brittany was pregnant. They would be adding a third child to their family.

But when she went in for a 16-week checkup, Brittany Vidrine learned her baby had anencephaly, a fetal abnormality in which a baby’s skull does not form. There is no known cure or treatment. It causes almost all babies to die shortly after birth, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Continued: https://www.theadvocate.com/acadiana/news/louisiana-abortion-laws-prevent-healthcare-access-baby-forming-without-skull/article_ed2dcee2-096c-11ee-8321-5b7163addb32.html

13.06.2023

How US abortion organisers are learning from Honduran activistsc

As networks, some clandestine, form to help women access abortion in the US, they look to Central America for a road map – and a warning.

By Delaney Nolan
Published On 19 Feb 2023

New Orleans, United States – The half dozen women gathered in the backyard pause for a moment to listen to the television next door. The neighbour is playing a football game at high volume. It’s loud. That’s good – it gives them cover.

“I couldn’t hear anything from the sidewalk,” says Ana,* referring to the women’s conversation. “I think we’re OK,” says another. The rest are reassured.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/2/19/how-us-abortion-organisers-are-learning-from-honduran-activists

Bleeding and in pain, she couldn’t get 2 Louisiana ERs to answer: Is it a miscarriage?

December 29, 2022
ROSEMARY WESTWOOD
7-Minute Listen with transcript

BATON ROUGE, La. – When Kaitlyn Joshua found out she was pregnant in mid-August, she and her husband, Landon Joshua, were excited to have a second baby on the way. They have a 4-year-old daughter, and thought that was just the right age to help out with a younger sibling.

At about six weeks pregnant, Joshua, 30, called a physicians' group in Baton Rouge. She wanted to make her first prenatal appointment there for around the eight-week mark, as she had in her first pregnancy. But Joshua says the woman on the line told her she was going to have to wait over a month.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/12/29/1143823727/bleeding-and-in-pain-she-couldnt-get-2-louisiana-ers-to-answer-is-it-a-miscarria

USA – Biden’s efforts to protect abortion access hit roadblocks

The Biden administration is actively searching for ways to safeguard abortion access for millions of women

By AMANDA SEITZ and COLLEEN LONG, Associated Press
December 6, 2022

WASHINGTON -- The Biden administration is still actively searching for ways to safeguard abortion access for millions of women, even as it bumps up against a complex web of strict new state laws enacted in the months after the Supreme Court stripped the constitutional right.

Looking to seize on momentum following a midterm election where voters widely rebuked tougher abortion restrictions, there’s a renewed push at the White House to find ways to help women in states that have virtually outlawed or limited the treatment, and to keep the issue top of mind for voters.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/bidens-efforts-protect-abortion-access-hit-roadblocks-94545376

USA – As abortion access shrinks in the South, tax dollars flow to fake clinics

By Elisha Brown
October 14, 2022

Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to an abortion in its Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling in June, at least 66 clinics in 15 states have stopped offering abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research and policy organization. In the South, 22 clinics have closed across eight states.

As options for abortion care shrink, pregnant people may encounter so-called "crisis pregnancy centers," or CPCs: anti-abortion organizations that have proliferated in recent years.

Continued: https://www.facingsouth.org/states-funding-anti-abortion-crisis-pregnancy-centers

USA – Long uncertain, young people’s access to abortion is more complicated than ever

Megan Burbank | NPR
August 13th, 2022

For
decades, young people have faced major barriers to abortion because of state
laws requiring parental involvement in the decision to terminate a pregnancy.
But now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s
Health Organization — and the federal right to an abortion is gone — access is
even more complex for adolescents.

In states where abortion is heavily restricted, advocates are fighting back:
They’re shoring up legal support for young women seeking abortion and taking to
social media platforms like TikTok to counter misinformation.
https://www.wabe.org/long-uncertain-young-peoples-access-to-abortion-is-more-complicated-than-ever

Uncertainty overwhelms abortion clinics in Louisiana

PBS, Nation
Dec 13, 2021

NEW ORLEANS – Before Texas enacted the nation’s strictest abortion law this fall, sending hundreds over the Louisiana border to seek care, those in need of abortion services could get medical attention in a matter of days. But the possibility of an imminent Supreme Court decision allowing states to further restrict access has pushed the wait for people seeking abortions in Louisiana to weeks, said Kathaleen Pittman, the clinical administrator at Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport.

The stress is overwhelming clinics in Louisiana, already among the most restrictive states for abortion in the nation.

Continued: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/uncertainty-overwhelms-abortion-clinics-in-louisiana

A Judge Allowed a Louisiana Teen to Get an Abortion. So Her Mom Sued the State.

Advocates say this judicial bypass case is a grim look at how anti-abortion activists use their connections with state lawmakers to advance their agenda.

Nov 9, 2021
Caroline Reilly, Rewire News

In October, a Louisiana teen asked a state judge to be allowed to have an abortion. She was seeking a judicial bypass—the procedure in which young people who cannot involve a parent in their abortion decision can be granted permission by a judge.

Her mother sued the state to stop it.

Despite the constitutionality of judicial bypass, which must exist in the states that require parental involvement for minors’ abortions, the Louisiana mother’s challenge was enough for a judge to grant a temporary restraining order, blocking all judicial bypasses in the state.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2021/11/09/a-judge-allowed-a-louisiana-teen-to-get-an-abortion-so-her-mom-sued-the-state/