Despite bans in some states, more than a million abortions were provided in 2023

MARCH 19, 2024
Selena Simmons-Duffin, NPR

More than a million abortions were provided in the U.S. in 2023. That's a major finding from a report published Tuesday by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports access to abortion.

To be precise, researchers estimate there were 1,026,700 abortions in 2023. "That's the highest number in over a decade, [and] the first time there have been over a million abortions provided in the U.S. formal health care system since 2012," explains Isaac Maddow-Zimet, a data scientist with Guttmacher.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/03/19/1238293143/abortion-data-how-many-us-2023


A New Study on Medication Abortion Refutes the Arguments Conservatives Are Taking to the Supreme Court

A study of more than 6,000 medication abortions obtained through telehealth found 98 percent were effective and 99.8 percent were safe.

JULIANNE MCSHANE, Mother Jones
Feb 16, 2024

A key argument from anti-abortion activists bringing a case to the Supreme Court is that medication abortion—which accounts for more than half of all abortions nationwide, according to the Guttmacher Institute—is unsafe and ineffective.

A new study provides even more evidence that this is not true and that medication abortion is just as safe when it’s prescribed virtually as in person. Published Thursday in the journal Nature Medicine, the study examined more than 6,000 medication abortions that people from 20 states and Washington, D.C. obtained from three virtual clinics between April 2021 and January 2022. Researchers found that about 98 percent of them were effective in terminating pregnancies without any additional interventions and that 99.8 percent were safe and “not followed by serious adverse events.”

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/02/a-new-study-on-medication-abortion-refutes-the-arguments-conservatives-are-taking-to-the-supreme-court/


USA – Medication abortion via telehealth is just as safe and effective as with a clinic visit, study shows

By Jen Christensen, CNN
Thu February 15, 2024

Research has long found that medication abortion is safe and effective, but a new study shows that to be true even when the patient gets the medicine through a telehealth appointment.

Medication abortion, also known as medical abortion, is the method by which someone ends their pregnancy using pills rather than a surgical procedure. It’s the most common form of abortion in the United States.

Continued; https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/15/health/medication-abortion-telehealth/index.html


California Universities Are Required To Offer Students Abortion Pills. A Lot Just Don’t Mention It

One year after California became the first state to require that its public universities provide the abortion pill to students, LAist found that basic information on where or how students can obtain the medication is lacking and, often, nonexistent.

By Jackie Fortiér  and Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
Jan 31, 2024

When Deanna Gomez found out she was pregnant in September 2023, it turned her world on end.
She was a college senior in San Bernardino and didn’t feel ready to have a baby. She was working two jobs, doing well in her classes, and she was on track to graduate in December.

She used birth control. Motherhood was not in the plan. Not yet.

Continued: https://laist.com/news/education/abortion-pill-california-universities-students-unaware-sb-24


Making Abortion Safe Outside of the Legal System: A Q&A on Self-Managed Abortion

Sociologist Naomi Braine’s new book on the global feminist movement for self-managed abortion took her to Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Europe to study activists’ work there.

FELICIA KORNBLUH
Jan 30, 2024

From 2017 to 2019, sociologist Naomi Braine, a professor at Brooklyn College, traveled in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Europe to study what she terms a global feminist movement for self-managed abortion (SMA). The result is her new book, Abortion Beyond the Law: Building a Global Feminist Movement for Self-Managed Abortion (Verso, 2023).

The story of self-managed abortion starts from the fact that, according to the Guttmacher Institute, at least half of all abortions around the world in 2017 were medication abortions, in which people used drugs to end their pregnancies. (The ambiguous legal status of abortion in many countries means that the data is incomplete.) This contrasts with the common image of so-called “procedural” abortion, which occurs under professional medical care and mostly or entirely in a clinic or hospital.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/self-managed-abortion-naomi-braine/


Access to abortion pills has grown since Dobbs

How activists, clinicians, and businesses are getting abortion medication to all 50 states.

By Rachel M. Cohen
Dec 27, 2023

Eighteen months after the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, and with a new Supreme Court challenge pending against the abortion medication mifepristone, confusion abounds about access to reproductive health care in America.

Since the June 2022 decision, abortion rates in states with restrictions have plummeted, and researchers estimated last month that the Dobbs decision led to “approximately 32,000 additional annual births resulting from bans.” Journalists profiled women who carried to term since Dobbs because they couldn’t afford to travel out of their restrictive state.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/12/27/24015092/abortion-pills-mifepristone-roe-reproductive-misoprostol


Abortion Pills Go Global: Reproductive Freedom Across Borders

By Rose Aguilar, Sarah Lai Stirland
December 21, 2023
50-minute podcast

On this edition of Your Call, social scientist Sydney Calkin discusses her new book, Abortion Pills Go Global: Reproductive Freedom Across Borders.

Calkin examines how the global flow of these pills is changing the politics of abortion in countries with restrictive abortion laws. Here in the United States, women used abortion pills to end more than half of unwanted pregnancies in recent years.

Continued: https://www.kalw.org/show/your-call/2023-12-21/abortion-pills-go-global-reproductive-freedom-across-borders


Queensland introduces Australian-first law to allow midwives and nurses to prescribe abortion pills

Exclusive: Legislation hailed as big step towards providing fair access to terminations across state

Eden Gillespie
Thu 30 Nov 2023

Queensland will become Australia’s first jurisdiction to introduce a law to allow nurses and midwives to dispense pregnancy termination medication in a move expected to improve access in the state’s “huge abortion deserts”.

In August the Therapeutic Goods Administration scrapped restrictions on the prescription of medical abortion pills, known as MS-2 Step, to be used in the early stages of pregnancy. But it is up to individual jurisdictions to determine the specific healthcare practitioner and the appropriate qualifications for prescribing.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/30/queensland-law-abortion-pills-midwives-nurses-prescribed-details


Abortion Pills Go Global

Regardless of the law, women can now access their own safe and effective abortion procedures in the form of these pills.

November 10, 2023

After Ohio’s recent vote to enshrine the right to have an abortion into the state’s constitution, host Robert Scheer dives deeper into one of the underappreciated and underreported aspects of the fight for abortion rights on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast.

Sydney Calkin, a senior lecturer in the School of Geography at Queen Mary University of London, discusses her newest book, “Abortion Pills Go Global: Reproductive Freedom Across Borders,” and breaks down the myths and misconceptions about one of the biggest tools for bringing women’s reproductive rights to the forefront.

Continued: https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/10/abortion-pills-go-global/


Women’s lives, like mine, hang in the balance if medication abortion is banned

Emma Burns
OCTOBER 18, 2023

This week, Vice President Kamala Harris visited my alma mater, Northern Arizona University, as part of her “Fight for Our Freedoms” college tour to discuss key issues that disproportionately impact young people across America, including reproductive freedom. This issue is deeply personal to me, which is why I’m sharing my story of how receiving an abortion while I was a student at NAU saved my life. Without access to a medication abortion, I would not have lived to see the end of my sophomore year, let alone my college graduation. The fight for our reproductive freedom is as important as ever now that access to this life-saving form of health care is under attack.

As a 19-year-old college student already struggling, finding out you’re pregnant with twins is akin to submerging underwater. The world falls silent, and your only thought is of survival. I knew the only way for me to move forward would be to terminate my pregnancy. But due to Arizona’s restrictive abortion laws and lack of access to care, I was almost unable to make this decision for myself.

Continued: https://www.azmirror.com/2023/10/18/womens-lives-like-mine-hang-in-the-balance-if-medication-abortion-is-banned/