How Hobby Lobby Could Be Trump’s Reproductive Rights Wrecking Ball

The 2014 Supreme Court ruling is even more consequential as we stare down the possibility of Trump’s reelection—and a revival of the Comstock Act.

Susan Rinkunas
March 25, 2024

When Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion in Hobby Lobby v. Burwell 10 years ago, he provided answers to questions that no one had asked—at least, officially. The plaintiffs, two businesses owned by Christians, objected to a mandate in the Affordable Care Act requiring health insurance providers to cover types of birth control known as emergency contraception, or E.C. Colloquially known as the “morning-after pill,” E.C. works after sex to prevent pregnancy by blocking sperm from fertilizing an egg or by preventing the release of an egg in the first place. But anti-abortion activists believe that morning-after pills and IUDs prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus, which they say is tantamount to an abortion.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/179622/hobby-lobby-comstock-alito-contraception

‘Cruel’: the supreme court could send one-time abortion deserts like Hawaii back in time

States in which abortion is legal but was long inaccessible have benefitted from the FDA’s expansion of a key abortion drug

Carter Sherman
Sun 24 Mar 2024

They treated a patient who had wanted to get pregnant, but decided to get an abortion rather than have a child with her abusive partner. They treated patients who had lost their houses in the 2023 Maui fires, found themselves homeless and pregnant, and wanted abortions. They treated patients who got pregnant after someone tampered with their birth control and patients who could not afford to take time off work to have an abortion.

Colleen Bass and Sharon Offley, two certified nurse midwives from Hawaii, were able to do all of that because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decided, over the last decade, to expand the availability of a common abortion pill.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/24/hawaii-mifepristone-abortion-pill

Many people now rely on telehealth to access abortion pills — but the Supreme Court could change that

Next week, the court will hear arguments in a case that could restrict the use of mifepristone, which a growing number of Americans get without an in-person appointment.

Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
March 20, 2024

A Supreme Court battle that will play out next week over how patients access mifepristone — one of the two drugs used in a medication abortion — could have sweeping consequences for Americans, regardless of their state’s abortion laws.

In recent years, Americans seeking to terminate their pregnancies have come to increasingly rely on the pills, with medication now making up a majority of all abortions.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2024/03/telehealth-abortion-pill-access-supreme-court/

USA – Coronavirus crisis magnifies existing challenges to abortion access

Coronavirus crisis magnifies existing challenges to abortion access

May 07, 2020
Carole Joffe

In our recent book, Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America, David Cohen and I detail the considerable difficulties many people have in accessing abortion care. The relative scarcity of clinics means long travel for many; that abortion patients are disproportionately low-income women of color means hardship in paying for the procedure, particularly since the majority of states do not allow Medicaid funds to be used for abortion; the onerous waiting periods in many states often mean women have to stay overnight in a distant city, leading to the additional costs of lodging and more days of lost wages; confrontations with protestors at the clinic sites themselves can often be deeply upsetting. All these barriers have increased exponentially with the coming of COVID-19, and some new problems have been added as well.

Continued: https://womensmediacenter.com/news-features/coronavirus-crisis-magnifies-existing-challenges-to-abortion-access

Canada: Doctor calls for stop of ‘demeaning’ practice of watching women swallow Mifegymiso ‘abortion pill’

Doctor calls for stop of 'demeaning' practice of watching women swallow Mifegymiso 'abortion pill'
Not required in Canada, but doctors at Regina General Hospital still do it

By Stephanie Taylor, CBC News
Posted: Aug 11, 2017

Doctors should stop the "demeaning" practice of supervising a woman while she swallows the Mifegymiso abortion pill, a professor says.

Dr. Wendy Norman teaches at the University of British Columbia and chairs family planning research for the Public Health Agency of Canada and Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

She said a myth exists that physicians are required to watch a patient ingest mifepristone — one of a two-drug combination packed together as Mifegymiso, for medical abortions.

Continued: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/mifegymiso-regina-doctors-abortion-pill-supervision-1.4243642

11.08.2017