USA – The Least Understood Impact of Abortion Bans

BY MICHELLE OBERMAN
FEB 01, 2024

For the vast majority of Americans who support legal abortion in cases of rape, there is a visceral horror evoked by the news that, in the months since the Supreme Court, in Dobbs, ended the constitutional right to an abortion, rape has led to an estimated 65,000 pregnancies in states where abortion is banned. Part of the horror reflects a gut sense that it would be particularly hard, and therefore cruel, to force someone to continue a pregnancy under those circumstances.

But how does it feel to be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy under “ordinary” circumstances? Forced pregnancy has become commonplace, yet there is almost no research documenting the mental health impact of abortion bans.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/02/abortion-bans-forced-pregnancy-mental-health.html

01.02.2024

Commentary

abortion denial and mental health

abortion for mental health

USA – How to Protect Yourself When Seeking an Abortion. Learn your legal risks.

By
Bindu Bansinath and Katie Heaney
May 23, 2022

The illusion that anti-abortion lawmakers wouldn’t try to criminalize abortion
seekers was shattered this year with the introduction of a Louisiana bill that
would have allowed prosecutors to bring murder charges against them (the bill
was revamped and that section was dropped). Though most abortion restrictions
don’t explicitly penalize pregnant people, Dana Sussman, acting executive
director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, says the organization
has documented “over 1,700 cases from 1973 to 2020 that criminalize pregnant
people” for a number of reasons, from self-managed abortion to stillbirth to
suspected drug use. Prosecutors have also used feticide and child abuse or
neglect statutes to charge women who ended their pregnancies. In 2015, Purvi
Patel was tried on both those counts in Indiana and sentenced to 20 years in
prison after allegedly self-managing her abortion (her conviction was
eventually overturned).

https://www.thecut.com/article/abortion-legal-risks-digital-privacy.html

What Would a Post-Roe America Look Like?

Dec. 10, 2021
By Spencer Bokat-Lindell

In 1973, Americans gained a constitutional right to abortion. In 2022, they may lose it.

Those are the stakes of a case that the Supreme Court heard last week, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, involving a Mississippi law that bans nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/opinion/supreme-court-abortion-roe.html

Brazil’s Abortion Rights Push Could Come To A Screeching Halt After Jair Bolsonaro’s Election

Brazil's Abortion Rights Push Could Come To A Screeching Halt After Jair Bolsonaro's Election

By Caitlin Cruz
Oct 29, 2018

Brazil elected Jair Bolsonaro as president on Sunday, marking a momentous shift to the far-right. His extremist policies and outrageous comments about minority groups have had some people refer to him as the Brazilian version of Donald Trump. And of his many troubling stances, Bolsonaro's decidedly anti-abortion views may impact Brazil's push to expand abortion rights.

As a candidate, Bolsonaro suggested that if he won the presidency, Brazil will adopt a policy similar to the Hyde Amendment, which outlaws American government dollars from funding abortion. (There's also a policy that prohibits American government dollars from going to funding abortion abroad called the Helms Amendment.)

Continued: https://www.bustle.com/p/brazils-abortion-rights-push-could-come-to-a-screeching-halt-after-jair-bolsonaros-election-13026022

When Abortion Is Illegal, Women Rarely Die. But They Still Suffer.

When Abortion Is Illegal, Women Rarely Die. But They Still Suffer.
A look at what happens when abortion is forbidden, from countries where it still is

Olga Khazan
Oct 11, 2018

In August, the Argentine Senate rejected a bill that would have decriminalized abortion in the country within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. Less than a week later, the newspaper Clairín reported that a 34-year-old woman died from septic shock after attempting to terminate her own pregnancy using parsley.

The woman, referred to only as Elizabeth, became one of the 40-some Argentine women who die each year from unsafe abortions. “Illegality forces the poorest women to use the most desperate practices,” one doctor was quoted as saying.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/10/how-many-women-die-illegal-abortions/572638/

Does it Matter if Abortion Is Legal?

Does it Matter if Abortion Is Legal?
A new book warns that even with Roe v. Wade intact, the procedure is still effectively banned in some places.

By Rebecca Grant
November 8, 2017

In 2013, 22-year old Beatriz Garcia found herself in the middle of the global abortion debate, a symbol and a lightning rod for what happens when a woman who lives in a country with a total abortion ban faces a life-threatening pregnancy.
.....
Michelle Oberman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, opens her new book Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion Wars, From El Salvador to Oklahoma, with Beatriz’s story. The case gives grounding to this ambitious book, which looks at the effects of abortion restrictions in Latin America and the United States. Oberman has spent her career studying the murky ethical waters of pregnancy and motherhood. She’s done research about pregnant women who abuse drugs and written two books about mothers who have killed their children. Her mission with this book is not to argue whether or not abortion should be legal, but to interrogate the impact of laws that restrict it.

Continued at source: https://newrepublic.com/article/145700/matter-abortion-legal