National Organization for Women

National Women’s Strike for Equality

Roe v. Wade

Socialist Alternative

women’s liberation movement

USA – How the first abortion speak-out revolutionized activism

Fifty years ago, under the banner of a group known as Redstockings, women gathered in a West Village basement to share their abortion stories, a radical act that ripples through movements today.

BY JOY PRESS
OCTOBER 19, 2022

“I can tell you the psychological and sociological effect the law has had on me: It’s made me angry!” a woman yelled across the crowded auditorium of the New York City Health Department.

It was February 13, 1969, and a phalanx of female protesters had dramatically interrupted the staid proceedings of New York State’s Joint Legislative Committee on the Problems of Public Health. The issue under discussion was whether or not to liberalize the state’s 86-year-old criminal abortion statute and allow for legal abortion in cases where a woman’s physical or mental health was at risk, or when she was a victim of rape or incest.

Continued: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/10/abortion-stories-speakout

19.10.2022

Abortion: Tell It Like It Is

Abramowicz v. Lefkowitz

Barbara Kaminsky

Center for Constitutional Rights

Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion

history of abortion activism

New Yorkers for Abortion Law Repeal

New York Radical Women

Redstockings

Redstockings abortion stories

The personal is political

Thomas Laverne

women's abortion stories

‘I became the abortion lady of Mississippi’: the mother of seven who devoted her life to the pro-choice cause

Raised a fundamentalist Christian, Laurie Bertram Roberts grew up believing abortion was evil. Then a pregnancy put her life at risk – and she was denied the termination she desperately needed

Emine Saner
Thu 12 May 2022

When Laurie Bertram Roberts was 17, she was sent home from hospital and almost bled to death. Pregnant and experiencing bleeding, she had gone to the emergency department of her nearest hospital in Indiana twice, and was told she was miscarrying, but, because a scan showed the foetus still had a heartbeat, she was also told there was nothing they could do. What she needed, in order to end a pregnancy that was ending anyway, was an abortion – but she says the Catholic hospital would not provide one. “They had the power to end my pregnancy right there, when I was already bleeding fairly heavily, in a tremendous amount of pain. Instead, they sent my scared 17-year-old self, a mother of two already, home.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/may/12/abortion-lady-mississippi-mother-seven-pro-choice-christian-laurie-bertram-roberts-pregnancy

12.05.2022

Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund

Laurie Bertram Roberts

self-managed abortion

USA – As a med student, he saw women nearly die from illegal abortions. At 83, he sees no end to his work

BY MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE, HOUSTON BUREAU CHIEF
Photography by GINA FERAZZI
MARCH 10, 2022

BOULDER, Colo. — Dr. Warren Hern doesn’t have to imagine what could befall many women in America if the Supreme Court strikes down Roe vs. Wade.

In 1963, he was a medical student working nights at Colorado General Hospital in Denver. Women would arrive in septic shock, some probably hours from death. “Nobody talked about why they were there,” Hern recalled.

Continued: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-03-10/abortion-doctor-fears-roes-fall

How Black Feminists Defined Abortion Rights

As liberation movements bloomed, they offered a vision of reproductive justice that was about equality, not just “choice.”

By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
February 22, 2022

It will probably be months before the Supreme Court decides, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, whether to overturn Roe v. Wade. But, in this latest round of attacks on Roe, a novel line of argument has emerged: that forced pregnancy and parenthood no longer constitute a hardship for women. Lawyers representing Mississippi, the appellant in the lawsuit, describe a world that has fundamentally changed over the past fifty years, in which the burdens of parenting have been lifted and women have been empowered to have it all—to assume a career while still raising families. As for those women who would prefer not to parent, they now have the option to simply terminate their parental rights.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/how-black-feminists-defined-abortion-rights

22.02.2022

Combahee River Collective

adoption and abortion

black maternal mortality

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Dick Gregory

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Dorothy Roberts

forced sterilizations

Frances Beal

Hyde Amendment

Jackson Women’s Health Organization

Justice Harry Blackmun

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Lynn Fitch

maternal deaths

Medicaid funding of abortion

National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Law

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/abortion-rights-activists-fight-back-with-mutual-aid-and-direct-action-in-2022/

Abortion Rights Activists Fight Back With Mutual Aid and Direct Action in 2022

BY Michelle Farber, Truthout
January 5, 2022

It is difficult not to feel an overwhelming sense of defeat and fear for the year ahead in reproductive health and abortion rights as the Supreme Court deliberates on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case. Brought against Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which runs the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, this case could reshape abortion law countrywide. Among the many restrictions being challenged, the one abortion advocates are watching the closest is a 15-week ban. If upheld, this 15-week restriction would represent the first pre-viability abortion ban upheld by the Supreme Court. The landmark Roe v. Wade case set the precedent that states could not outlaw abortion prior to the viability line, which currently sits around 23 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. Should the court uphold this ban, dozens of states would be in position to unleash similar, or possibly even more restrictive laws.

05.01.2022

Abortion Rights Preservation Act

15-week abortion ban

abortion clinic defense

abortion funds

Amelia Bonow

Anne Rumberger

Benita Ulisano

Chicago for Abortion Rights

Clinic Vest Project

Democratic Socialists of America

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Everett Clinic Defense

Feminists for Life

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act

Hayley Archer

Illinois Choice Action Team

Jackson Women’s Health Organization

Naral Pro-Choice America

New York City For Abortion Rights

Advocates Challenge Arizona Court Ruling Medical Use of Marijuana During Pregnancy is Child Neglect

8/21/2021
by CARRIE N. BAKER

Reproductive rights advocates have come out in force to support Lindsay R., an Arizona woman whom the state of Arizona has branded a child abuser because she used medical marijuana while she was pregnant. National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) and 45 leading health organizations, doctors, ethicists, scientific and medical experts, and advocates have filed a brief asking an Arizona Court of Appeals to overturn the state’s action.

When Lindsay was pregnant, she had a life-threatening condition called hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), which caused constant nausea and vomiting. Her condition was so severe she was hospitalized twice during her pregnancy.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2021/08/21/arizona-medical-marijuana-pregnancy-child-neglect/

USA – The Women the Pro-Choice Movement Left Behind

By MARY HARRIS
OCT 26, 2020

As we watch the Senate rush to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court this week, many people are worried about what her seating on the court will mean for Roe v. Wade and the right to abortion. But reproductive justice activist Laurie Bertram Roberts says we should have already been worried, like, 20 years ago. “I’m serious. We should have been worrying in the ’90s,” Roberts told me on Monday’s episode of What Next.

Laurie Bertram Roberts wasn’t always on this side of the issue. She was raised fundamentalist, but after suffering a miscarriage and later needing an abortion herself (one she was unable to obtain), she became a champion for reproductive rights. She’s spent much of her life straddling the poverty line as a working mother.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/pro-choice-abortion-roe-v-wade-women-left-behind.html

26.10.2020

Laurie Bertram Roberts

Mary Harris