‘It’s Breaking My Heart’: Abortion Providers on Life After Roe

For many abortion providers, working in a clinic isn’t just a job—it’s a calling. But clinics are businesses, too, and in the 15 states that have banned almost all abortions, business has been turbulent.

Carter Sherman, VICE
June 28, 2023

Kathaleen Pittman was too angry to retire.

Pittman had worked at Hope Medical Group, one of the last abortion clinics in Louisiana, for thirty years. She’d started there as a part-time counselor in 1992; by 2022, she was running the place. She’d gone to the Supreme Court to defend her clinic and won, successfully striking down a Louisiana abortion restriction in 2020.

Two years after that victory, she watched as the Supreme Court dismantled her life’s work by overturning Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. She went back to court to try and fend off Louisiana’s cascade of abortion bans, but a month after the overturning, the clinic had to close. Louisiana had outlawed nearly all abortions.

Continued: https://www.rsn.org/001/its-breaking-my-heart-abortion-providers-on-life-after-roe.html

USA – Abortion Clinics Are Dealing with More Arson, Stalking, and Anthrax Threats Now

Abortion providers feared they’d see an increase in harassment and threats if Roe v Wade was overturned. They were right.

By Carter Sherman
May 11, 2023

Dr. Gabrielle Goodrick has provided abortions for 26 years. And up until a few years ago, she never had to deal with protesters at her Phoenix, Arizona clinic.

But in the year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the protests at her clinic have become so large and loud that, for the first time, Goodrick has had to enlist people to help escort patients through the picketers.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7bday/rise-in-abortion-clinic-harassment-after-roe

USA – “In the end we will win”: The faces of the fight for abortion rights

The Supreme Court’s decision to end federal protections for abortion access didn’t just rewind the clock 50 years, it opened a Pandora’s box of confusing, potentially life-threatening legal complications. VF talks with five women on the front lines.

BY ABIGAIL TRACY AND ERIN VANDERHOOF
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DIANA MARKOSIAN AND DRU DONOVAN
OCTOBER 12, 2022

Tattooed on Caitlin Bernard’s left foot is the image of a coat hanger and the words “Trust Women.” The 38-year-old Indiana-based ob-gyn got it years ago; it was intended as a reminder of life before Roe v. Wade. Bernard has long paired her medical career with advocacy. She was a plaintiff in an unsuccessful 2019 American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit to reverse Indiana’s near-total ban on second-trimester abortions. Post-Roe, Indiana became the first state to pass an abortion ban. Now, Bernard is girding for another legal fight—this time against Republican Indiana attorney general Todd Rokita, who she says maligned her practice as Bernard became a lightning rod in one of the most publicized cases after the Dobbs decision stripped federal abortion protections and turned the country into a patchwork of disparate laws.

Continued: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/10/the-fight-for-abortion-rights

Texas advocates file new legal challenge to near-total abortion ban

Lawsuit asks court to rule SB 8 unconstitutional, citing public threats and legal action from anti-abortion activists

Mary Tuma
Tue 19 Apr 2022

Reproductive rights advocates in Texas have filed a new legal challenge to halt a near-total abortion ban that has been in effect for more than half a year.

Senate Bill 8 bars abortion once embryonic cardiac activity is detected – typically as early as six week of pregnancy, which is before most people are aware they are pregnant – and offers no exception for rape or incest. The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, asks a federal court to rule the extreme law unconstitutional. It cites public threats and legal action from anti-abortion activists against Texas abortion funds, groups that have been instrumental in helping patients travel out of state for care, arguing that this conduct has chilled their first amendment rights.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/19/texas-abortion-ban-senate-bill8-legal-challenge

For 48 hours, abortion after 6 weeks was legal in Texas. Getting care still wasn’t easy

Across a major abortion clinic network in Texas, only 10 people over six weeks of pregnancy were able to obtain an abortion.

By Jennifer Gerson, Shefali Luthra
October 14, 2021

For about 48 hours last week, abortions after six weeks were once again legal in Texas.

Reproductive rights advocates hailed that window, the result of a district court ruling that was soon blocked, as a rare, if short-lived victory against Senate Bill 8, which has ended abortion access past six weeks of pregnancy and inspired copycat legislation across the country.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2021/10/for-48-hours-abortion-after-6-weeks-was-legal-in-texas-getting-care-still-wasnt-easy/

14.10.2021

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5th Circuit Court of Appeals

With Abortion Largely Banned in Texas, an Oklahoma Clinic Is Inundated

The new law prohibits abortions after about six weeks, a very early stage of pregnancy. Many women are now traveling out of state for the procedure.

Sabrina Tavernise
Sept. 26, 2021

OKLAHOMA CITY — On a windy Tuesday morning, the parking lot outside a small brick building on the Southside of Oklahoma City was filling up fast. The first to arrive, a red truck shortly before 8 a.m., was from Texas. So was the second and the third.

The building houses one of Oklahoma’s four abortion clinics, and at least two-thirds of its scheduled patients now come from Texas. So many, in fact, that it is trying to hire more staff members and doctors to keep up. The increase is the result of a new law in Texas banning abortions after about six weeks, a very early stage of pregnancy. As soon as the measure took effect this month, Texans started traveling elsewhere, and Oklahoma, close to Dallas, has become a major destination.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/26/us/oklahoma-abortion.html

‘We’re seeing shock.’ Texas abortion clinics are now operating as trauma centers

Senate Bill 8 has eroded abortion access in Texas. But desperate patients are still showing up to clinics seeking emotional support — and sometimes, out-of-state options.

Jennifer Gerson
September 20, 2021

Marva Sadler is not used to telling patients “no.” Since Senate Bill 8, Texas’ six-week abortion ban, took effect, she now feels like she’s saying it all day.

Sadler is the director of clinical services at Whole Woman’s Health in Fort Worth. When patients arrive at the clinic, she said, they are aware of the realities of the new law: Abortion past six weeks is now illegal, with no exceptions for rape and incest. Still, they can hardly process that there’s little the clinic can do to help them.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2021/09/texas-abortion-clinics-are-now-trauma-centers/|

67 abortions in 17 hours: Inside a Texas clinic’s race to beat new six-week abortion ban

At Whole Woman’s Health in Fort Worth, it was a race to perform as many abortions as possible until midnight, when a new Texas ban on the procedure became law.

Chabeli Carrazana, Economy Reporter
September 1, 2021

It was 8 p.m. on Tuesday when Marva Sadler looked at the patients waiting in the lobby, at the list of patients waiting to return, at even more patients waiting outside in cars surrounded by protesters — and realized they might not get to everyone. In four hours, a near-total ban on abortions in Texas was set to take effect, and two dozen people were still waiting for the procedure at Whole Woman’s Health in Fort Worth, one of the largest abortion care clinics in the state.

Sadler, the director of clinical services, and her colleagues did the math. They needed to perform eight abortions an hour with only one doctor on duty, an octogenarian who had been working since 7 a.m. It felt impossible.

continued: https://19thnews.org/2021/09/abortion-texas-whole-womans-clinic/

01.09.2021

Lawsuit targets Texas abortion law deputizing citizens to enforce six-week ban

By Ann E. Marimow
July 13, 2021

Abortion rights advocates and providers filed a federal lawsuit in Texas on Tuesday seeking to block a new state law empowering individuals to sue anyone who helps a woman get an abortion, including those who provide financial assistance or drive a patient to a clinic.

A dozen states have passed laws banning abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. But the Texas law, set to take effect in September, goes further by incentivizing private citizens to help enforce the ban — awarding them at least $10,000 if their court challenges are successful. Even religious leaders who counsel a pregnant woman considering an abortion could be liable, according to the lawsuit filed in Austin by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of several other groups.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/texas-abortion-lawsuit/2021/07/13/e0cee10c-e33c-11eb-b722-89ea0dde7771_story.html

Texas Is What the End of Legal Abortion Looks Like

After Texas used the pandemic as a reason to block the procedure, the number of people who fled the state to undergo abortions skyrocketed, as did second-trimester abortions.

By Carter Sherman
6.1.21

With Amy Coney Barrett now on the Supreme Court, the ruling that legalized abortion nationwide decades ago may be on its last legs. But during the coronavirus pandemic, Texas already gave a sneak peek at what could happen if Roe v. Wade collapses.

In late March 2020, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order postponing all abortions that weren’t “immediately, medically necessary”—which his attorney general defined as including nearly all abortions. Supporters of abortion rights promptly sued, but the order—and the legal tussling over it—intermittently cut off access to abortion until the end of April, when it finally expired.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjpwwp/texas-covid-abortions-end-of-roe-v-wade

06.01.2021