USA – Fifteen-Week Abortion Bans Are No Compromise The GOP is haggling over when to ban abortion. So are some Democrats.

By Irin Carmon
Oct 5, 2023

The mainline anti-abortion movement has a problem it thinks a 15-week abortion ban can solve. Accomplishing its cherished dream of overturning Roe v. Wade has come at a cost. Many Republicans are squirming away from the anti-abortion cause as politically toxic, to the point that presidential front-runner Donald Trump seems to think he can blow off the movement entirely. Meanwhile, right-wing activists are fretting that abortion is still too accessible, with patients circumventing state bans via interstate travel or abortion pills by mail. New Guttmacher data even suggest the absolute number of legal abortions went up in the first half of this year.

Continued: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/abortion-bans-15-week-debate-republicans-democrats.html


Majority of Americans oppose bans of medication abortion drugs, poll finds

Majority of Americans also don’t believe federal judges should be able to overturn FDA approval of a prescription drug, poll shows

Sam Levine in New York
Mon 24 Apr 2023

A significant majority of Americans do not support laws that would prohibit access to drugs used in medication abortions, and confidence in the US supreme court is at a new low, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released on Monday.

A majority of Americans also do not believe federal judges should be able to overturn the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of a prescription drug, the poll found.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/24/medication-abortion-pill-poll-public-support


How Ginsburg’s death and Kavanaugh’s maneuvering shaped the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade and abortion rights

By Joan Biskupic, CNN Senior Supreme Court Analyst
Thu March 23, 2023

Editor’s Note: Adapted from “NINE BLACK ROBES: Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences,” by Joan Biskupic, to be published April 4 by William Morrow.

Within days of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s memorial service in late September 2020, boxes of her files and other office possessions were moved down to a dark, windowless theater on the Supreme Court’s ground floor, where – before the ongoing pandemic – tourists could watch a film about court operations.

Grieving aides to the justice who’d served 27 years and become a cultural icon known as the “Notorious RBG” sorted through the chambers’ contents there.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/23/politics/supreme-court-abortion-joan-biskupic-nine-black-robes/index.html


As millions were stripped of abortion rights, mainstream outlets uplifted these five anti-choice leaders behind Roe’s reversal

WRITTEN BY JASMINE GEONZON
PUBLISHED 01/09/23

2022 marked an unprecedented assault on abortion rights, as the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June and multiple states quickly moved to restrict or outright ban abortion and other reproductive care. While millions of Americans navigated under these new harsh abortion restrictions, the largest newsrooms in the country gave their platforms to the leading figures behind the effort to reverse Roe and demonize abortion care.

Marjorie Dannenfelser (Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America)
As the president of anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Marjorie Dannenfelser has been key in backing anti-choice political candidates and supporting the passage of legal restrictions against reproductive rights. Late last year, for example, Dannenfelser stood alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) when he introduced legislation to implement a 15-week national abortion ban.

Continued; https://www.mediamatters.org/health-care/millions-were-stripped-abortion-rights-mainstream-outlets-uplifted-these-five-anti


USA – Abortion Bans Will Result in More Women Dying

Pregnancy carries risks, including death. Without abortion access, more women will die.

Elyssa Spitzer, Tracy Weitz, Maggie Jo Buchanan
Nov 2, 2022

Four months after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, the dire health consequences of banning abortion care have become even more apparent. Eighteen states, home to more than 25 million women of reproductive age, have banned some or all access to abortion care, with only spare exceptions that are nearly impossible to implement. Already, thousands of people are finding it impossible to obtain a needed abortion.

Horrifying stories from the states that have banned abortion demonstrate the medical crisis that now grips nearly half the country. A woman in Wisconsin experiencing a miscarriage was turned away from the hospital and sent home to bleed without medical supervision. In Arizona, a 14-year-old, caught in the crosshairs of abortion restrictions, was denied medically indicated medication she had taken for years. A woman in Texas had to drive 18 hours to receive care for an ectopic pregnancy. And doctors across the country have been put in the untenable position of navigating their medical training and professional ethical obligations amid a lack of clarity about what is allowable under the law.

continued: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/abortion-bans-will-result-in-more-women-dying/


USA – “We Believe That Access to Abortion Is a Basic Human Right”

The gutting of Roe is a galvanizing moment in American history—and one that urgently requires men to speak up. The Roe Project gathers the diverse perspectives of men united in the belief that access to reproductive health care is essential. We hope that by sharing their experiences and their points of view, we can mobilize more men to fight for abortion access.

BY THE EDITORS OF GQ
September 29, 2022

In June, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion in America. Since the initial ruling, trigger laws have gone into effect in many parts of the country, criminalizing the procedure for millions. Senator Lindsey Graham introduced a bill this month that would fully ban abortion after 15 weeks on a federal level. In the wake of the Supreme Court decision, I heard from women who pointed out that most men weren't affirming support or otherwise acknowledging that this was their problem too. And as we approach the midterm elections, the stakes are high. I took that feedback seriously. We always talk about GQ as a community platform—a platform that we invite others to stand on so that they have the opportunity to be heard. The Roe Project is our way of giving the men in our community the opportunity to speak out in support of abortion rights.

Continued: https://www.gq.com/story/the-roe-project


‘Abortion absolutely is health care,’ U.S. House panel told as GOP pursues nationwide ban

By John L. Micek
September 29, 2022

A nationwide abortion ban would widen disparities in health care and drive up the maternal mortality rate, particularly among Black women, physicians and advocates told a U.S. House panel on Thursday.

“Women’s progress has always been inextricably linked with the ability to control our own bodies,” Jocelyn Frye, the president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, told members of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform during a three-hour-plus hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building.

Continued: https://www.marylandmatters.org/2022/09/29/abortion-absolutely-is-health-care-u-s-house-panel-told-as-gop-pursues-nationwide-ban/


White House says GOP’s abortion ban proposal could lead to a nationwide crisis

By Colleen Long, Associated Press
Sep 22, 2022

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say a Republican-led proposal to ban abortion nationwide after 15 weeks would endanger the health of women and have severe consequences for physicians.

“If passed and enacted, this bill would create a nationwide health crisis, imperiling the health and lives of women in all 50 states,” according to a preliminary analysis of the bill by Jennifer Klein, the White House Gender Policy Council chairwoman, that was obtained by The Associated Press. “It would transform the practice of medicine, opening the door to doctors being thrown in jail if they fulfill their duty of care to patients according to their best medical judgment.”

continued: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/white-house-says-gops-abortion-ban-proposal-could-lead-to-a-nationwide-crisis


‘I can’t stay silent’: Roe reversal powers new generation to sign up and vote

Huge bloc of women expected to turn out in November midterms to protect abortion rights – could it alter the election outcome?

Poppy Noor
Sun 18 Sep 2022

Sonya Koenig is scared. A 19-year-old student from Kalamazoo, Michigan, Koenig often stays up until 2am thinking. Sometimes she paces up and down the hall, or speaks to her roommate about nightmare scenarios in which she ends up pregnant and in need of an abortion.

“Being in college, I hear stories all the time of women getting drugged at parties, or just walking down the street, and something unfortunate can happen,” says Koenig, a freshman at Michigan State University. “A guy can walk away, but [these abortion bans] mean the woman has to choose: ‘Do I want to give this baby up … or raise this child with no help from anybody?’ That’s a really hard decision.”

continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/18/roe-v-wade-abortion-us-politics-november-midterms


Graham’s abortion ban stuns Senate GOP

His past, less conservative pitch won him some Democratic votes. But most Republicans stiff-armed him Tuesday as they face abortion-rights backers ascendant after Roe's reversal.

By BURGESS EVERETT, MARIANNE LEVINE and SARAH FERRIS
09/13/2022

Lindsey Graham’s anti-abortion legislation once unified the Republican Party. The 15-week abortion ban he pitched Tuesday had the exact opposite effect. The South Carolina senator chose a uniquely tense moment to unveil his party’s first bill limiting abortion access since this summer’s watershed reversal of Roe v. Wade. It was designed as a nod to anti-abortion activists who have never felt more emboldened. Yet Graham’s bill also attempted to skate past a Republican Party that’s divided over whether Congress should even be legislating on abortion after the Supreme Court struck down a nationwide right to terminate pregnancies.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/13/grahams-abortion-ban-senate-gop-00056423