Abortion in S. Korea: neither illegal nor legal

Despite 2019 Constitutional Court order, revision of abortion laws remains pending in National Assembly

By Lee Jaeeun
March 7, 2024

A 33-year-old woman surnamed Kim, living in Seoul, was taken by surprise when she found out she was pregnant late last year.

With no intention of getting married or having a child on her own, she began searching for hospitals that would terminate the pregnancy for her. While searching online, Kim encountered numerous advertisements and blogs listing prices for abortions by vacuum aspiration. The prices varied according to the stage of pregnancy: 600,000 won ($450) before week 7 and 900,000 won before week 10.

Continued: https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240307050821

Abortion Shield Laws: A New War Between the States

Doctors in six states where abortion is legal are using new laws to send abortion pills to tens of thousands of women in states where it is illegal.

By Pam Belluck
Feb. 22, 2024

Behind an unmarked door in a boxy brick building outside Boston, a quiet rebellion is taking place. Here, in a 7-by-12-foot room, abortion is being made available to thousands of women in states where it is illegal.

The patients do not have to travel here to terminate their pregnancies, and they do not have to wait weeks to receive abortion medication from overseas.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/health/abortion-shield-laws-telemedicine.html

The Zombie Law Trump Wants to Use to Ban Abortion Nationwide

Members of the former president’s inner circle are worried that he’ll blab about their plan to gut what remains of our reproductive freedoms.

Melissa Gira Grant
February 20, 2024

Donald Trump’s lawyer really, really hopes that Donald Trump doesn’t blow up their plan to ban abortion nationally by talking about it publicly before the election—at least according to the aforementioned Trump lawyer, speaking to The New York Times. Why Jonathan Mitchell, the conservative attorney from Texas, would boast in a national newspaper about a plan that he also supposedly hopes doesn’t become a campaign issue is unclear. Why he is using an open media channel to muse about what his client may or may not know is equally strange and confusing. But the headline here seems to be “Donald Trump backs a national abortion ban,” though possibly for reasons of which he’s yet to be apprised.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/179137/trump-comstock-national-abortion-ban

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/

16.02.2024

Commentary

Charlotte Lozier Institute

Dana Johnson

Food and Drug Administration

Ibis Reproductive Health

medication abortion

mifepristone

retractions of anti-choice studies

safety of abortion pills

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

15.02.2024

safety of abortion pills

telehealth abortion

telemedicine abortion

USA – Dozens of ‘friend of the court’ briefs backing abortion pill access arrive at Supreme Court

BY: JENNIFER SHUTT
FEBRUARY 2, 2024

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court has been inundated with dozens of organizations seeking to weigh in on the future of the abortion pill by filing “friend of the court” briefs.

The groups include governors, attorneys general, state lawmakers and members of Congress as well as medical organizations, civil rights groups and pharmaceutical companies — all of whom argue the justices’ ruling will have significant effects on American society and health care.

“Turning back the clock to reimpose unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone will exacerbate existing inequities in maternal health for women of color, low-income women, and those living in rural areas,” wrote a group of more than 16 medical organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and The American Medical Association.

Continued: https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2024/02/02/dozens-of-friend-of-the-court-briefs-backing-abortion-pill-access-arrive-at-supreme-court/

02.02.2024

News

American College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians

American Medical Association

Catholics for Choice

Food and Drug Administration

mifepristone

NAACP Legal Defense Fund

Reproductive Freedom Alliance

Retired military officials: Protecting abortion care keeps America safe

By Louis Caldera, Ray Mabus and Deborah James
February 1, 2024

The tragic attack on our troops at Tower 22 in Jordan is a stark reminder of how those in uniform might give their lives at any moment in service to our country. Two of the three soldiers killed were women. They lost their lives for a country that is moving to restrict the rights of all women — including those in uniform.

While it might not seem to be a military issue, the Supreme Court will soon decide a case that will affect the armed forces and hundreds of thousands of women who serve in uniform — as well as those civilians we need to recruit. The question before the court is whether to severely limit access to mifepristone, one of two drugs used for medication abortions up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. Medication abortions make up over half of the cases in the United States.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/01/supreme-court-abortion-pill-mifepristone/

01.02.2024

U.S. military and abortion

Supreme Court mifepristone case will affect millions. Don’t base ruling off junk science.

Access to safe and effective medications like mifepristone should be based on rigorous scientific research and the medical community consensus – not the fringe opinions of a few extremists.

Julia Kaye
Jan 31, 2024

Overturning Roe v. Wade was just the beginning.

In Idaho v. United States, the question is whether states can disregard longstanding federal protections and bar doctors from providing abortions to patients experiencing medical emergencies.

The second case, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. Food and Drug Administration, targets access to mifepristone, a safe and effective medication used in most abortions in this country and for miscarriage management. Since its FDA approval a quarter century ago, mifepristone has been safely used by more than 5 million people.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2024/01/31/supreme-court-abortion-pill-mifepristone-junk-science/72370445007/

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/

Stories of safe abortion care in Mozambique

29 JAN 2024
Médecins Sans Frontières

In every country, women from all walks of life may seek out an abortion at some time of their lives due to many reasons. Where safe abortion care is too difficult to access, people with an unwanted pregnancy often have no choice but to resort to unsafe abortion, one of the leading causes of maternal mortality globally.

To reduce the high number of women dying from unsafe abortion, Mozambique in 2014 legalised abortion up to 12 weeks and beyond in cases of rape, incest, and severe foetal anomalies such as heart defects. This essential care is provided free of charge. But even though abortion is free and legal, other barriers including stigma and misinformation can still make it difficult to access safe care.

Continued: https://msf.org.au/article/stories-patients-staff/stories-safe-abortion-care-mozambique