‘Jane Roe’ is anonymous no more. The very public fight against abortion bans in 2023

By Selena Simmons-Duffin, Sarah McCammon, NPR
December 26, 2023

As 2023 comes to a close, so too does the first full year of the post-Roe era in America. Some of the year's developments were expected, like more conservative states enacting abortion restrictions. Others were surprising, like the fact that there were more abortions nationally in the year after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health decision than the previous one.

In the final weeks of the year, the country followed the story of Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two in Texas, as she sought to end a tragic pregnancy to ensure she could have a future one.
Here is the state of play when it comes to abortion heading into 2024.

Continued: https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/npr-news/2023-12-26/jane-roe-is-anonymous-no-more-the-very-public-fight-against-abortion-bans-in-2023

26.12.2023

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Center for Reproductive Rights

Society of Family Planning

Ushma Upadhyay

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Texas Is Still Targeting Kate Cox After Her Historic Abortion Win

BY MARY ZIEGLER
DEC 08, 2023

Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, states required minors seeking abortion without the involvement of their parents to seek a court order. Today, after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Woman’s Health Organization, an adult woman had to do the same thing, even when her life and fertility were at risk. While a judge ruled in her favor on Thursday, issuing a temporary restraining order granting her doctor the right to perform the procedure without facing penalties, the state of Texas is still determined to stop her.

Kate Cox, who is 20 weeks pregnant with her third child, learned that her child had full trisomy 18, a genetic condition that is almost always fatal in utero or the first year after birth. Physicians warned her that continuing the pregnancy put her at high risk of developing gestational diabetes and hypertension—and that a third Cesarean section might also deprive Cox of the ability to have another child. Her physician nevertheless turned away her request for an abortion, concerned about “the loss of her medical license, life in prison, and massive civil fines.”

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/12/texas-targeting-kate-cox-historic-abortion.html

Ohio’s Issue 1: Three women share their pre-Roe abortion experiences

October 24, 2023
BY GINNY RICHARDSON

On Nov. 7, Ohioans will vote on Issue 1, which would establish a state constitutional right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” including decisions about abortion, contraception, fertility treatment, miscarriage care, and continuing pregnancy. Free access to birth control, including abortion when necessary, is a fundamental prerequisite to the emancipation of women and, therefore, all working people.

To contextualize this vote within the history of the struggle for reproductive rights, People’s World has collected three previously unpublished personal stories. Each one addresses an individual woman and her experience in obtaining reproductive care, as well as the impact of the prevailing laws at the time on her decisions and treatment.

Continued: https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/ohios-issue-1-three-women-share-their-pre-roe-abortion-experiences/

Texas Is the Future of Abortion in America

March 6, 2022
By Mary Tuma

For half a year, Roe v. Wade — the 1973 Supreme Court decision that guarantees abortion rights for all Americans — has been effectively moot in the second largest state in the country, home to about 10 percent of the nation’s reproductive-age women.

On Sept. 1, the Supreme Court allowed Texas Senate Bill 8 to go into effect — the most restrictive abortion law to do so in the United States since Roe. There’s a good chance that Texans will not see their reproductive rights restored any time soon — because Roe itself could be overturned or gutted before the fate of S.B. 8 is resolved in the courts.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/opinion/abortion-texas-sb-8-roe-v-wade.html

Sarah Weddington, Texan who argued Roe vs. Wade before the Supreme Court, dies at 76

Weddington’s death comes as the U.S. Supreme Court considers the most serious challenge to the landmark abortion rights case in years.

By BeLynn Hollers, Dallas News
Dec 26, 2021

Sarah Weddington, a trailblazer for women’s rights known for her role arguing the landmark Roe vs. Wade case before the U.S. Supreme Court, died in her sleep Sunday morning. She was 76.

Weddington is best known as the youngest person to argue before the high court at age 26 in 1971 -- in one of the most controversial cases in the court’s history, Roe vs. Wade. The milestone ruling in the case that legalized abortion came in 1973.

Continued: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2021/12/26/roe-vs-wade-lawyer-sarah-weddington-passes-away/

Sarah Weddington, attorney who won Roe v Wade abortion case, dies aged 76

Texan lawyer and Linda Coffee won landmark 1973 case, safeguarding right now under threat from US supreme court

Martin Pengelly in New York
Sun 26 Dec 2021

Sarah Weddington, an attorney who argued and won the Roe v Wade supreme court case which established the right to abortion in the US, has died aged 76.

Susan Hays, a Democratic candidate for Texas agriculture commissioner, announced the news on Twitter on Sunday and the Dallas Morning News confirmed it.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/26/sarah-weddington-attorney-who-won-roe-v-wade-abortion-case-dies-aged-76

‘We’re not backing down’: the Texas church fighting for abortion rights

In the face of a draconian abortion ban in effect for more than three months, the mission has only grown stronger for a progressive congregation

Mary Tuma in Austin
Mon 20 Dec 2021

In the late 60s, the burgeoning movement to legalize US abortion state by state found an unlikely yet loyal ally – a contingent of women at the First Unitarian Universalist church in Dallas, Texas.

In lieu of knitting sessions and bake sales, the church’s Women’s Alliance advocated for abortion rights and even had a hand in legally supporting Roe v Wade, the pivotal US supreme court case that protects abortion care in the US as a constitutional right.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/20/texas-church-fighting-abortion-rights

Texas Has Turned Citizen Against Citizen Over Abortion. How Did We Get Here?

Oct. 29, 2021
By Joshua Prager

Before the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that abortion was legal in all 50 states, the case did nothing for the women of Texas, where it began. A federal panel in Dallas ruled that Texas’ anti-abortion laws were unconstitutional. But the panel was concerned about interfering in state affairs. And so although it granted doctors and women the legal right to perform and have abortions, they could still be prosecuted.

“Apparently, we’re free to try them,” Dallas County’s District Attorney Henry Wade told the press, “so we’ll still do that.” Fearing the consequences, a hospital refused to abort the pregnancy of a 15-year-old girl who said she had been raped by her father.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/opinion/roe-v-wade-texas-abortion-law.html

How the Real Jane Roe Shaped the Abortion Wars

The all-too-human plaintiff of Roe v. Wade captured the messy contradictions hidden by a polarizing debate.

By Margaret Talbot
September 13, 2021

Roe v. Wade may be the rare Supreme Court decision that most Americans can name, but it’s also one of the few that many volubly disparage—and not just anti-abortion activists who want to get rid of it altogether. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a staunch advocate of access to abortion but an open critic of the reasoning behind Roe. She thought the rationale should have centered on preventing sex discrimination rather than on preserving a right to privacy. “The image you get from reading the Roe v. Wade opinion is it’s mostly a doctor’s-rights case—a doctor’s right to prescribe what he thinks his patient needs,” Ginsburg told the legal writer and scholar Jeffrey Rosen, in 2019. “My idea of how choice should have developed was not a privacy notion, not a doctor’s-right notion, but a woman’s right to control her own destiny, to be able to make choices without a Big Brother state telling her what she can and cannot do.”

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/20/how-the-real-jane-roe-shaped-the-abortion-wars

‘Roe baby’ whose conception sparked landmark abortion ruling comes forward to share her name — and her story

Shelley Lynn Thornton was publicly identified in an excerpt published from an upcoming book

Timothy Bella
September 9, 2021

The child of “Jane Roe,” whose conception brought about the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade on a woman’s legal right to an abortion, came forward for the first time Thursday after decades of secrecy where she was known only as the “Roe baby.”

Shelley Lynn Thornton was publicly identified in an excerpt published in the Atlantic of journalist Joshua Prager’s upcoming book “The Family Roe: An American Story,” which explores those connected to the landmark 1973 case. In the excerpt, Thornton, 51, of Tucson, opened up about her life and the complex family history connected to the “Roe baby” over the last half-century.

Continued: https://www.thelily.com/roe-baby-whose-conception-sparked-landmark-abortion-ruling-comes-forward-to-share-her-name-and-her-story/

09.09.2021