‘A generational struggle’: abortion rights pioneer offers insights to the post-Roe US

Merle Hoffman opened an abortion center two years before 1973’s Roe decision; after its fall, she takes stock of the fight for abortion in the US

Ramon Antonio Vargas
Sun 24 Dec 2023

The battle to bring back the federal right to abortion in the US hinges on much more than just the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, and winning will require proponents to be as organized and steadfast as their opponents, at least as one of the reproductive freedom movement’s most veteran voices sees it.

Invoking scenes that played out all across the country after the supreme court’s Dobbs decision eliminated nationwide abortion rights, Merle Hoffman recently said: “It looks like thousands of people marching in the streets all over the country … [But] you can’t just do one action.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/24/merle-hoffman-abortion-rights-pioneer-post-roe-united-states


USA – ’Abject failure’: Abortion rights movement fractures over post-Roe future

By James Oliphant

WASHINGTON, June 24 (Reuters) - Badly stung by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday, the abortion rights movement finds itself splintered, demoralized and faced with a startling landscape in which the procedure may be outlawed in half the country.

Angry grassroots activists are calling past efforts an “abject failure." They say national abortion rights advocacy groups were so consumed with winning federal elections they allowed conservatives to chip away at abortion rights through state-level legislation over decades.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/abject-failure-abortion-rights-movement-fractures-over-post-roe-future-2022-06-24/


USA – COVID-19: An Opportunistic Attack on Reproductive Health

By: Alyssa Fisher
Aug 23, 2020

Entering her 50th year at Choices Women’s Medical Center, founder Merle Hoffman has witnessed a lot. Imagine launching a reproductive health center providing abortions two years before Roe v. Wade legalized it in 1973.

But it’s the COVID-19 pandemic, she says, that has been “one of the most, most challenging times that we’ve faced, I’ve faced.”

Continued: https://womensenews.org/2020/08/covid-19-an-opportunistic-attack-on-reproductive-health/


Trump abortion ‘gag rule’ leaves poor patients ‘with nowhere to go’ in US

Trump abortion ‘gag rule’ leaves poor patients ‘with nowhere to go’ in US
Impact will vary greatly from state to state after Planned Parenthood withdraws from federal funding program over abortion referral bans

Miranda Bryant
Thu 22 Aug 2019

Last year alone, 37,000 low-income patients in Utah received subsidized family planning under Title X, the federal program which distributes grants to clinics.

But as of Monday, when Planned Parenthood withdrew from the longstanding scheme over new Trump administration rule banning clinics from referring patients for abortions, the US non-profit’s Utah branch must now look elsewhere for the $2m annual grant it used to depend on to provide essential services like birth control, STD and breast and cervical cancer tests to poor women.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/22/planned-parenthood-trump-abortion-gag-rule-harms-patients


Women fear strict U.S. laws will increase unsafe abortions and deaths

Women fear strict U.S. laws will increase unsafe abortions and deaths
Nine states have passed strict laws restricting abortion access this year, seen as part of a multistate effort to have the high court reconsider Roe v. Wade ruling

by Ellen Wulfhorst, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Wednesday, 5 June 2019

VANCOUVER, Canada, June 5 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - New laws restricting abortion access in the United States raise the specter of women ending unwanted pregnancies with coat hangers and knitting needles in unsafe, back-alley procedures, reproductive rights experts said on Wednesday.

Women now may get medical abortions using pills, which is considered very safe, and find information online on handling unwanted pregnancies, delegates said this week at Women Deliver, the world's largest conference on gender equality.

Continued: http://news.trust.org/item/20190605212116-boccy/


New York abortion law: Why are so many people talking about it?

New York abortion law: Why are so many people talking about it?

By George Pierpoint BBC News, Washington
28 January 2019

On the 46th anniversary of the landmark US ruling that made abortion legal, New York state signed into law a new abortion rights bill. Why is it so controversial?

The Reproductive Health Act (RHA) has been seen by some as a necessary move to safeguard abortion rights should the Supreme Court overturn the ruling, known as Roe v Wade.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46994583


USA – Federal Judge Sides With New York Anti-Choice Protesters, Dismissing Clinic Workers’ Testimony as ‘Unreliable’

Federal Judge Sides With New York Anti-Choice Protesters, Dismissing Clinic Workers’ Testimony as ‘Unreliable’
Federal Judge Carol Bagley Amon "diminished, she negated, she threw under the bus every lived experience of the staff, myself, and the escorts," said clinic founder Merle Hoffman.

Jul 25, 2018
Auditi Guha

A federal district court judge last week denied a preliminary injunction to prevent anti-choice protesters from demonstrating outside a clinic in Queens, New York, saying they did not “harass, annoy, or alarm” people during Saturday protests that have become routine since 2012.

Protesters outside the Choices Women’s Medical Center have for years blocked the sidewalk with large posters of dismembered fetuses, preaching loudly, forcibly handing out fliers, and issuing veiled death threats, according to testimony in the anti-harassment federal lawsuit brought by former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2018/07/25/federal-judge-sides-with-new-york-anti-choice-protesters-dismissing-clinic-workers-testimony-as-unreliable/


USA – Fed. Judge Finds Abortion Protesters in Queens Did Not Violate Clinic-Access Laws

Fed. Judge Finds Abortion Protesters in Queens Did Not Violate Clinic-Access Laws
A federal judge found that a group of anti-abortion protesters who keep a regular presence outside the front door of a clinic in Queens did not run afoul of federal and state statutes intended to protect access to clinics.

By Andrew Denney
July 23, 2018

A federal judge found that a group of anti-abortion protesters who keep a regular presence outside the front door of a clinic in Queens did not run afoul of federal and state statutes intended to protect access to clinics.

The case pertains to clashes that have raged every Saturday for the last six years between anti-abortion protesters who are a regular presence outside Choices Women’s Medical Center in Jamaica, Queens, and escorts who walk with patients to the entrance and shield them from the protesters.

Continued: https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2018/07/23/fed-judge-finds-abortion-protesters-in-queens-did-not-violate-clinic-access-laws/?slreturn=20180625174235