How Canada Factors Into the Post-Roe Landscape

While Canadian clinics are able to serve American women seeking abortions, experts say the country isn’t a ‘silver bullet’ solution.

By Zoya Wazir
July 28, 2022

Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the United States, people in states with restrictive abortion laws are looking for resources beyond their local clinics – including even across the country’s northern border.

But while some Americans might be turning to Canada for a solution to some of the rollbacks on abortion rights in the U.S., seeking abortions in the country may not be the most accessible answer. Canada has had abortion decriminalized since 1988, but traveling across the border to seek care in Canadian abortion clinics remains out of reach for many abortion-seekers in the U.S., experts say.

Continued: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2022-07-28/could-canada-help-u-s-abortion-seekers-post-roe

28.07.2022

traveling for abortion

traveling to Canada for abortion

Canada

United States

Human Rights

USA – When a Right Becomes a Privilege

The main difference between the women who will make it to an abortion provider in a post-Roe world and those who won’t? Money.

By Melissa Jeltsen, The Atlantic
May 15, 2022

When New York legalized abortion in 1970—three years before the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade—a shrewd entrepreneur named Martin Mitchell saw an opportunity. The 31-year-old Detroit-area man chartered a tiny private plane and began advertising frequent flights from Michigan, where elective abortion was illegal, to Niagara Falls, New York, where it was not. For $400, a woman got transportation, an abortion by a licensed doctor at a clinic near the airport, and lunch, before being flown home the same day.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/05/roe-v-wade-abortion-access-poor-women/629858/

USA – It Can Already Take Weeks To Get An Abortion

And the Supreme Court could soon make it take even longer.

By Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux
Data Analysis by Holly Fuong
Charts by Elena Mejía
Published Apr. 18, 2022

Last week, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a law outlawing abortion in the state. If it isn’t blocked by the courts, the legislation — which has no exceptions for rape or incest — would be one of the harshest measures to become law at a time when anti-abortion lawmakers are all but competing with each other to pass new restrictions.

But in a sense, Oklahoma legislators who want to end
abortion don’t have much more to do in their state. New data exclusively
analyzed by FiveThirtyEight shows that it’s already very difficult to get an
abortion appointment in Oklahoma — and it has nothing to do with the state’s
new ban. Ever since the Supreme Court allowed a highly restrictive abortion law
to go into effect in Texas last September, Oklahoma’s four abortion clinics
have been overrun with demand from out-of-state patients. When a team of
academic researchers posed as pregnant people and called the Oklahoma clinics
at the beginning of March, all four told the callers they couldn’t schedule
them for an appointment.

Continued: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/it-can-already-take-weeks-to-get-an-abortion/

Mail-order abortion pills become next US reproductive rights battleground

The FDA has dropped a requirement for the abortion drug mifepristone to be picked up in person – but some Republicans states are clamping down

Adrienne Matei
Thu 7 Apr 2022

On Tuesday, Oklahoma became the latest state to pass a bill to make performing an abortion a felony, punishable, in this case, by 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine. The bill is expected to be signed into law by the governor, creating an even larger group of people – about 7.7 million between Texas and Oklahoma – who will have to leave their home state if they want an abortion.

Republican legislators are passing restrictions and bans on abortion, in expectation of a supreme court decision in a crucial abortion rights case expected in June. Until then, abortion remains legal, albeit severely restricted in some cases, across the US.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/07/us-mail-order-abortions-oklahoma

USA – Escaping an Abortion Desert Isn’t as Simple as Crossing State Lines

Ella Ceron, Bloomberg News
Apr 6, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- As states like Texas and Oklahoma restrict abortion access ahead of a pivotal Supreme Court decision, Americans are being forced to travel farther from home to access care. But leaving town to escape restrictive laws is neither an easy solution nor an equitable one.

Texas is a case in point. Following the signing of a law that bans abortion after about six weeks, an average of 1,400 Texans a month are traveling outside the state for abortions, according to a March study from the University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Policy Evaluation Project. The majority head for New Mexico or Oklahoma — a plan that has now been complicated by the Oklahoma legislature’s April 5th passage of a total abortion ban.

Continued: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/escaping-an-abortion-desert-isn-t-as-simple-as-crossing-state-lines-1.1748626

Being Denied an Abortion Has Lasting Impacts on Health and Finances

A landmark study of women seeking abortions shows the harms of being unable to end an unwanted pregnancy

By Mariana Lenharo, Scientific American
December 22, 2021

As the Supreme Court decides the future of abortion laws in the U.S., a key question to be considered is whether access to the procedure has positive or negative consequences for the people who get an abortion, and for society in general.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization concerns the constitutionality of a new Mississippi law that would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The case challenges the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, a precedent that protects abortion access before fetal viability—a point at around 24 weeks of gestation, when a fetus is considered able to survive outside the uterus.

Continued: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/being-denied-an-abortion-has-lasting-impacts-on-health-and-finances/

Colorado voters reject 22-week ban on abortion

The state remains one of seven with no gestational limits on the procedure.

By Anna North

Nov 3, 2020

Colorado voters just rejected a measure that would have banned abortion in the
state after 22 weeks’ gestation, according to the New York Times and the
Associated Press.

The measure, Proposition 115, was backed by the anti-abortion group Due Date
Too Late, which argued that abortions after 22 weeks were inhumane. But
supporters of abortion rights were concerned about the impact of the measure on
pregnant people, not just in Colorado, but around the country.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2020/11/3/21534681/colorado-abortion-prop-115-fails-results

DIY abortion attempts three times as prevalent in Texas as other states, study finds

DIY abortion attempts three times as prevalent in Texas as other states, study finds

Andrea Zelinski
Jan. 9, 2020

AUSTIN — Using home remedies such as herbs, teas and vitamins or a prescription drug obtained from Mexico, Texas women have tried to end their pregnancies themselves three times more often than women in other states, a new study finds.

The Texas Policy Evaluation Project at The University of Texas at Austin found 6.9 percent percent of 721 patients seeking abortion tried to end their pregnancies on their own before going to an abortion clinic, compared to 2.2 percent nationally. The results of the study were released Thursday morning.

Continued: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/texas/article/DIY-abortion-attempts-three-times-as-prevalent-in-14962685.php

Inside the Battle to Save Abortion Rights in Puerto Rico

Inside the Battle to Save Abortion Rights in Puerto Rico
Providers on the island say access has been hindered by Hurricane Maria and threatened by legislation.

Emily Shugerman
Nov 10, 2018

The most aggressive attempt to restrict abortion access in Puerto Rico in decades came to a dramatic end this week when the bill’s author pulled it from consideration on the very last day of the legislative session. But women’s rights activists say the failed legislation is just the first of many threats to abortion access on the island.

The bill, written by Puerto Rico Sen. Nayda Venegas Brown, would have instituted a mandatory 48-hour waiting period for women seeking abortions, required parental consent for minors, and banned the procedure outright after 20 weeks gestation—restrictions that are common in many states in the continental U.S., but unheard of in Puerto Rico.

Continued: https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-battle-to-save-abortion-rights-in-puerto-rico