USA – Abortion Fight Evolves, Overshadowed in 2020 but With Huge Stakes

Anti-abortion groups hope to keep Americans voting Republican despite anger at leaders’ handling of the coronavirus, race and the economy. Abortion-rights groups say the issues are all linked.

By Maggie Astor
Aug. 18, 2020

It would be difficult to overstate the significance of this year’s elections for the future of abortion in America. The results could eventually determine whether Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court or codified by Congress.

Normally, stakes that high would make abortion a primary focus of the 2020 campaign. But normally, the country wouldn’t be experiencing a pandemic, a recession and a civil rights movement all at once. On Night 1 of the Democratic National Convention, the sum total of the attention abortion received was the second it took Kamala Harris to say “reproductive justice” in a video montage.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/politics/abortion-2020-election.html


The fight over Texas’ abortion ban during the COVID-19 pandemic is over, but what did it all mean?

The fight over Texas’ abortion ban during the COVID-19 pandemic is over, but what did it all mean?
Abortion rights advocates are rushing to help women as another federal legal fight looms over them.

By María Méndez
Apr 28, 2020

AUSTIN -- A lawsuit over whether Texas can halt abortions under coronavirus executive orders ping-ponged back and forth between federal courts, resulting in periods of little to no access, over the last month.

The heated legal fight, which at one point appeared to be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, dwindled last week under a new gubernatorial order that eased restrictions on elective medical procedures, allowing abortions to resume.

Continued: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/04/28/the-fight-over-texas-abortion-ban-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-is-over-but-what-did-it-all-mean/


Texas abortion ban can go back into effect, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rules

Texas abortion ban can go back into effect, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rules

By Kate Smith
March 31, 2020 / CBS News

Texas will again be allowed to implement its temporary ban on abortion, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday afternoon. Per the order, any abortion "not medically necessary to preserve the life or health" of the patient must be halted as part of the state's directive suspending "non-essential" medical procedures amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The ban was briefly lifted on Monday evening when a lower court ruled the suspension of abortion services was unconstitutional and in violation of Supreme Court precedent, including Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

Continued: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-abortion-halted-united-states-court-of-appeals-fifth-circuit/


USA – The #MeToo Case That Divided the Abortion-Rights Movement

The #MeToo Case That Divided the Abortion-Rights Movement
When an activist accused one of the most respected physicians in the movement of sexually assaulting her, everyone quickly took sides.

Story by Maggie Bullock
March 2020 Issue, Atlantic Magazine
(Posted Feb 21, 2020)

On a 92-degree morning in September, three clinic escorts gathered in the meager shade of a tree outside the Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives. They arrive here at 8:30 a.m. on the dot, regular as clock-punchers, on the three days a week the Huntsville clinic is open to perform abortions. The women and girls arrive dressed for comfort in sweatpants and shower slides, carrying pillows from home or holding the hand of a partner or friend. The escorts, meanwhile, wear brightly colored vests and wield giant umbrellas to block the incoming patients from the sight, if not the sound, of the other group that comes here like clockwork: the protesters.

Sometimes there are as many as a dozen. This day there were four: one woman, three men, all white. Four doesn’t sound like that many until you’re downwind of them maniacally hollering: Mommy, don’t kill me! You’re lynching your black baby! They rip their arms and legs off! They suffer! They torture them!

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-abortion-doctor-and-his-accuser/605578/


Texas bill would make it possible to put women to death for having abortions

A Texas bill would make it possible to put women to death for having abortions

By Isaac Stanley-Becker
April 10, 2019

Men and women, young and old, native Texans and immigrants, they rose to ask lawmakers to protect life, describing a “genocide” and foreseeing the arrival of “God’s wrath.”

The act of public atonement they are seeking is passage of a bill that would criminalize abortion without exception, and make it possible to convict women who undergo the procedure of homicide, which can carry the death penalty in Texas. Though it faces steep odds of becoming law, the measure earned a hearing this week amid a larger legislative push in GOP-controlled states to curtail abortion rights, in a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/04/10/texas-bill-would-make-it-possible-put-women-death-having-abortions/?utm_term=.f9b0b0b36a0b


How the handmaid became an international protest symbol

How the handmaid became an international protest symbol

By Chris Bell BBC News
27 July 2018

Dozens of women march in silence through a rainy cityscape. Heads bowed, dressed in red cloaks and white bonnets, it looks like a scene from Gilead, the theocratic patriarchy Margaret Atwood created in dystopian 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale.

But this is Buenos Aires. It is Wednesday, and the women involved are calling for abortion to be decriminalised in a country where complications arising from illegal abortion are a leading cause of maternal death.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-44965210