Abortion support group aims to strengthen partnerships to meet heightened need

December 18, 2021
Heard on All Things Considered (7 minute listen)

NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer speaks with Odile Schalit, executive director of the abortion support services group The Brigid Alliance, about how her work has changed since the passage of SB 8.

SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
The fight over SB 8 and abortion rights more broadly continues at the Supreme Court. Last week, the justices issued a ruling that lets abortion providers challenge the restrictive Texas abortion law. Meanwhile, however, the Texas law remains in effect, and that's made it nearly impossible to get an abortion in that state. So what are women who want to end a pregnancy doing? We're going to put that question to a practical support provider. These are individuals or groups that help people seeking abortions with everything from transportation - often out of state - to lodging to child care to funding for the procedure itself. Odile Schalit is executive director of the Brigid Alliance, an organization that supports people who want abortion care. Odile, thank you for talking with us about this.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2021/12/18/1065547264/abortion-support-group-aims-to-strengthen-partnerships-to-meet-heightened-need

‘Two Americas’: Aid groups prepare for more women needing to cross state lines for abortions

Organizations are strategizing for the possibility of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and a future where even more women seek financial and logistical help.

June 26, 2021 By Adam Edelman

Last summer, Crystal Zaragoza drove a 15-year-old patient from her home in rural Georgia to Virginia, the nearest location where the teen could receive the abortion care she needed.

Zaragoza remained with the patient every step of the way, making the 650-mile trip in one, long 12-hour haul and staying with her at a hotel during and after the procedure before driving back.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/two-americas-aid-groups-prepare-more-women-needing-cross-state-n1272133

USA – ‘I see a danger in returning to a pre-Roe world:’ Abortion advocates view coronavirus-era restrictions as a dark sign of what could come

'I see a danger in returning to a pre-Roe world:' Abortion advocates view coronavirus-era restrictions as a dark sign of what could come

Kayla Epstein
May 15, 2020

In non-pandemic times, obtaining an abortion already presented serious legal and logistical challenges for millions of women. For patients who live in certain states, getting care means enduring state-imposed waiting periods, submitting to unnecessary ultrasounds, or rushing to receive care before an arbitrary legal deadline. For patients who already have children, care must be arranged. Those without a car need a ride, especially if the nearest clinic is hours away. Some need flights to more accommodating states. And many, many need funds.

But women seeking abortions since the coronavirus outbreak began faced a new challenge — states' attempts to temporarily limit or ban abortion outright by deeming them "non-essential" procedures, under the pretext of preserving medical supplies for COVID-19 treatment. These restrictions collided with the travel and social distancing restrictions put in place to limit the spread of the virus, leading to an even more precarious situation for abortion care than the one already in place.

Continued: https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-arkansas-abortion-bans-coronavirus-advocates-fear-lack-of-access-2020-5

15.05.2020

Commentary

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abortion access during pandemic

abortion funds

abortion is essential healthcare

American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology

American Civil Liberties Union

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

anti-choice restrictions

Bridget Schilling

Brigid Alliance

Clinical Access Support Network

coronavirus

Covid-19 and abortion

National Abortion Federation

New Orleans Abortion Fund

Odile Schalit

personal protective equipment

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains

pre-Roe laws

Roe v. Wade

traveling for abortion

Very Rev. Katherine Ragsdale

For many women, abortion access was already limited. Then COVID-19 hit

For many women, abortion access was already limited. Then COVID-19 hit
Coronavirus—and restrictions on “elective procedures” in states like Texas—have made accessing reproductive healthcare harder than ever. But providers are getting creative.

04-28-20
By Pavithra Mohanlong Read

On a Thursday in early April, Shanthi Ramesh saw three patients back to back. They were all healthcare workers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. Two of them worked in a local emergency room, while the other was driving up to New York the next day to volunteer at a hospital.

They had another thing in common: All three women had gone to Ramesh’s clinic to get an abortion.

Continued: https://www.fastcompany.com/90496986/for-many-women-abortion-access-was-already-limited-then-covid-19-hit

USA – Abortion Foes Use the Pandemic as an Excuse

Abortion Foes Use the Pandemic as an Excuse
Officials hope to achieve their goal of effectively banning the procedure.

March 26, 2020
Katha Pollitt

Who would have thought COVID-19 would give anti-abortion forces the quick victory they could not win in the courts, in the legislative process, or through the deployment of screaming protesters outside clinics? Claiming abortion is a nonessential service that can be postponed so that the clinics’ medical resources can be used to fight the coronavirus, officials in Texas, Ohio, and Louisiana have moved to severely restrict or cut off abortion services completely; the governor of Mississippi announced his intention this week to do the same. Opponents of women’s reproductive rights hope to achieve, with the stroke of a pen, their dream of making states abortion-free.

For patients at these clinics, the situation is terrifying. “We have patients crying on the phone and staff crying with them,” Kathaleen Pittman, the director of Hope Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana, told me. “This is hard. So hard.” The clinic is open but has postponed all of its appointments. “We’re looking at all our options,” Pittman said.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/abortion-opponents-take-advantage-crisis/608758/

USA – The abortion underground: Groups quietly help women who have to travel to access care

The abortion underground: Groups quietly help women who have to travel to access care
“We're squirting a bottle of water at a building that is on fire. But it is something that people can do ... ," one volunteer said.

Sept. 1, 2019
By Adam Edelman

It was a warm June afternoon when Judith Plaskow got the email reminding her of a guest arriving soon.

The woman staying at Plaskow's Washington Heights apartment was a stranger who needed to be picked up at the Port Authority bus terminal on Manhattan's West Side. She was young — just 19 — and had never been to New York City before. Plaskow guessed she'd be scared.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/abortion-underground-groups-quietly-help-women-who-have-travel-access-n1048126

How Abortion Law in New York Will Change, and How It Won’t

How Abortion Law in New York Will Change, and How It Won’t
The Reproductive Health Act will remove barriers for women seeking to get abortions in New York. But some wish it could have gone further.

By Jia Tolentino
January 19, 2019

In the late spring of 2016, Erika Christensen was thirty-one weeks pregnant, and found out that the baby she was carrying would be unable to survive outside the womb. Her doctor told her that he was “incompatible with life.” Christensen and her husband wanted a child desperately—they called him Spartacus, because of how hard he seemed to be fighting—but she decided, immediately, to terminate the pregnancy: if the child was born, he would suffer, and would not live long; she wanted to minimize his suffering to whatever extent she could.

Christensen lived in New York, a state where, since 2014, an estimated twenty-five to twenty-seven per cent of pregnancies end in abortion.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-abortion-law-in-new-york-will-change-and-how-it-wont