USA – Why an ulcer drug could be the last option for many abortion patients

February 24, 2023
Sarah McCammon
3-Minute Listen with Transcript

A federal judge in Texas could rule as soon as today on whether to cut off access to a key medication abortion protocol, giving lawyers until day's end to submit additional arguments. Fearing another major blow to abortion access, some providers are already considering alternatives.

At the Trust Women clinic in Wichita, Kansas, it's already been crisis mode for months. And now clinic Director Ashley Brink says the staff is bracing for another — maybe even bigger — wave of uncertainty.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1159075709/abortion-drug-mifepristone-misoprotol-texas-case

USA – How Abortion Providers Are Planning for a Ruling That Could Force Mifepristone Off the Market

2/21/2023
by PHOEBE KOLBERT, Ms. Magazine

The ruling in a lawsuit out of Texas seeking to reverse FDA approval of mifepristone is expected as soon as this week. If Trump-appointed District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk rules in favor of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the far-right group bringing suit, mifepristone would be forced off the market and clinics’ capacities could significantly fall.

The Trust Women clinic in Wichita, Kansas—where abortion is currently legal up to 21 weeks—already gets more than 16,000 calls a day and is booking out weeks ahead. If the clinic is forced to stop providing medication abortions, its capacity will be greatly reduced. Aspiration abortions must be performed in person, with specialized equipment, and appointments can be more than three hours long—three times that of medication abortion appointments. Ashley Brink, the clinic director of Trust Women, said the clinic would only be able to serve a fraction of their current patient load if they could only provide aspiration abortions.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/02/21/texas-mifepristone-lawsuit-criminalize-abortion/

‘Hot mess’: Abortion pills at pharmacies could face legal quagmires, especially in restrictive states

By Sarah Owermohle
Jan. 19, 2023

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators’ green light for pharmacists to dispense abortion pills is crashing into legal questions and simmering court battles.

The Food and Drug Administration earlier this month removed a longtime restriction that only doctors could dispense mifepristone, which is approved for abortions up to 10 weeks. The move opens the door for pharmacists to supply the drugs and shores up protections for mail orders, which have become an important channel for abortion access in the wake of Roe’s overturn last summer.

Continued: https://www.statnews.com/2023/01/19/abortion-pills-at-pharmacies-legal-quagmires/

How the Supreme Court’s Abortion Decision Left Many Youth Behind

BY ALEX BERG
DECEMBER 20, 2022

After having an abortion two years ago, B (whose name is withheld for privacy) didn’t think much about her experience with the procedure. As a 17 year-old at the time with a couple of months to go before her high school graduation, she “put it out of sight.” That was until June 24, 2022, the day the Supreme Court issued a decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion in the United States.

“It really snapped me back into reality from it,” B, now 19, tells Teen Vogue.

Continued: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/how-the-supreme-courts-abortion-decision-left-many-youth-behind

USA – Anti-abortion pregnancy centers are deceiving patients – and getting away with it

One Florida case shows just how little authorities are doing to hold pregnancy centers accountable, even when the risks to women – and evidence – are significant

Laura C Morel for Reveal
Thu 15 Dec 2022

Patricia Henderson stood in the parking lot next to the Florida Women’s center in Jacksonville, wearing a white lab coat and greeting patients as they emerged from their cars. Their abortion appointments, she told them, were in the flat-roofed building across the road.

Once inside, Henderson handed them three pages of paperwork to fill out – questions about everything from their highest level of education to the date of their last period. State investigative documents lay out what clients say happened next: she led them to a pink-walled ultrasound room, where she would reveal their pregnancies in grainy images that, according to leading medical groups, only a licensed physician or a specially trained advanced practice nurse should interpret.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/15/us-anti-abortion-pregnancy-centers

USA – Abortion bans are barring people from life-saving pregnancy care, medical groups warn

In a report shared first with The 19th, major medical organizations uniformly told lawmakers that the overturning of Roe v. Wade will also worsen racial inequality and create barriers to critical medical treatment.

Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
November 1, 2022

Major medical groups say that the loss of federal abortion protections has diminished access to pregnancy care such as treatment for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages. The groups are sounding the alarm that racial gaps in pregnancy-related deaths will be exacerbated, according to a new Senate report first shared with The 19th.

The analysis comes on the heels of preliminary data suggesting that in the first two months since the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — a case that eliminated federal abortion rights and opened the door for states to ban abortions entirely — abortions fell by about 6 percent, or about 10,000 abortions, across the country.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2022/11/abortion-bans-restrict-critical-pregnancy-care-senate-report/

USA – Label change for mifepristone could reduce barriers to care for miscarriages, advocates say in petition to FDA

Regulations around mifepristone, a common drug used for medication abortion, make it difficult for miscarrying patients to access it. A new petition to the FDA asks for a label change to make it easier to obtain.

Jennifer Gerson
October 4, 2022

Over 40 medical and advocacy groups submitted a petition to the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) asking for miscarriage management to be added as a use
case for mifepristone, a drug commonly used in medical abortions, and ease the
restrictions around who can prescribe it.

Groups including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
(ACOG), SisterReach, Physicians for Reproductive Health and the Expanding
Medication Abortion Access (EMAA) Project were behind the petition. The changes
they asked for Tuesday would make the drug easier to access for people
experiencing miscarriages as some doctors and pharmacies have become more
reluctant to distribute it after the end of Roe v. Wade.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2022/10/mifepristone-miscarriage-label-change-fda-petition/

‘Abortion absolutely is health care,’ U.S. House panel told as GOP pursues nationwide ban

By John L. Micek
September 29, 2022

A nationwide abortion ban would widen disparities in health care and drive up the maternal mortality rate, particularly among Black women, physicians and advocates told a U.S. House panel on Thursday.

“Women’s progress has always been inextricably linked with the ability to control our own bodies,” Jocelyn Frye, the president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, told members of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform during a three-hour-plus hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building.

Continued: https://www.marylandmatters.org/2022/09/29/abortion-absolutely-is-health-care-u-s-house-panel-told-as-gop-pursues-nationwide-ban/

How Texas’ abortion laws turned a heartbreaking fetal diagnosis into a cross-country journey

“It was just a matter of time before the baby died, or maybe I’d have to go through the trauma of carrying to term knowing I wasn’t bringing a baby home,” said 27-year-old Lauren Hall. “I couldn’t do that.”

BY ELEANOR KLIBANOFF
SEPT. 20, 2022

The protesters outside the Seattle abortion clinic waved pictures of bloody fetuses, shouting that she was a “baby killer” and begging her to choose life.
Lauren Hall, 27, fought the urge to scream back and tell them just how badly she wished life was a choice she could have made.

Continued: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/20/texas-abortion-ban-complicated-pregnancy/

Challenges increase for immigrants accessing abortion after Roe reversal

From language to travel barriers, immigrants are left with few options.

By Amanda Su
July 17, 2022

After Texas' Senate Bill 8, which banned any abortions after the detection of embryonic cardiac activity, was allowed to go into effect last year, Dr. Bhavik Kumar, a physician at Planned Parenthood Center for Choice in Houston, said interstate travel was often the only recourse he could suggest for patients seeking to terminate their pregnancy.

But for one patient, that wasn't possible. Due to her pending immigration case, the patient could not travel more than 70 miles or would risk jeopardizing both her ability to remain in the country and the security of her two children, he said.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/challenges-increase-immigrants-accessing-abortion-roe-reversal/story?id=86404717

18.07.2022