Library archives uncover long-lost history of Colorado women dying trying to get an abortion before it was legal

By John Daley
Mar. 7, 2024

Abortion access — some states have outlawed it, others have seen scores of patients from out of state — has been in the news since the U.S. Supreme Court repealed the Constitutional right to an abortion two years ago. But looking back through history shows that unplanned pregnancies and access to abortions have been in the news for a long, long time.

More than a century ago, readers of the Rocky Mountain News learned about the death of a young woman who worked in a shop named Maude, who was trying to terminate a pregnancy. A woman named Mrs. Proctor, the wife of the manager of a “remedy company,” was charged with manslaughter in Maude’s death.

Continued: https://www.cpr.org/2024/03/07/denver-public-library-history-of-abortion-access-in-colorado/

It’s taking longer to get an abortion in the US. Doctors fear riskier, more complex procedures

BY LAURA UNGAR
December 9, 2023

A woman whose fetus was unlikely to survive called more than a dozen abortion clinics before finding one that would take her, only to be put on weekslong waiting lists. A teen waited seven weeks for an abortion because it took her mother that long to get her an appointment. Others seeking the procedure faced waits because they struggled to travel hundreds of miles for care.

Such obstacles have grown more common since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, doctors and researchers say, causing delays that can lead to abortions that are more complex, costly and in some cases riskier — especially as pregnancies get further along.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-care-wait-times-us-roe-dobbs-7b0a328bb34b0acb3d37e359a63712fc

Abortions increased in the US overall in the year post-Dobbs, but there are stark inequalities state-to-state

By Deidre McPhillips, CNN
Tue October 24, 2023

In the year following the Supreme Court Dobbs decision, the abortion landscape in the United States became more fractured than ever.

Abortions increased nationwide, according to a new report from #WeCount, a research project led by the Society of Family Planning — the average monthly change in the 12 months post-Dobbs compared to the two months pre-Dobbs adds up to about 2,200 more abortions over the course of a year.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/24/health/abortion-access-inequality-one-year-post-dobbs-wecount/index.html

USA – Out-of-staters are flocking to places where abortions are easier to get

April 16, 2023
By Mallika Seshadri

When Mara Pliskin started working at Planned Parenthood Illinois, she didn't expect to feel like a travel agent.

Now, the abortion navigation program manager and her co-workers joke that that's half the job — booking flight, train and bus tickets for out-of-state abortion seekers, arranging hotel stays and giving them money for food and gas.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/16/1168695321/out-of-staters-flocking-to-places-where-abortions-are-easier-to-get

16.04.2023

Planned Parenthood Illinois

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains

United States

Health

Human Rights

USA – Despite dangerous pregnancy complications, many abortions are being denied

Health News Florida | By Associated Press
November 25, 2022

Increasing numbers of physicians and families nationwide say a post-Roe fear has come to pass: Pregnant women with dangerous medical conditions are showing up in hospitals and doctors’ offices and being denied the abortions that could help treat them.

Weeks after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Dr. Grace Ferguson treated a woman whose water had broken halfway through pregnancy. The baby would never survive, and the patient’s chance of developing a potentially life-threatening infection grew with every hour.

Continued: https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/politics-issues/2022-11-25/despite-dangerous-pregnancy-complications-many-abortions-are-being-denied

Despite dangerous pregnancy complications, abortions denied in U.S.

Laura Ungar And Heather Hollingsworth, The Associated Press
Published Nov. 20, 2022

Weeks after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Dr. Grace Ferguson treated a woman whose water had broken halfway through pregnancy. The baby would never survive, and the patient's chance of developing a potentially life-threatening infection grew with every hour.

By the time she made it to Pittsburgh to see Ferguson, the woman had spent two days in a West Virginia hospital, unable to have an abortion because of a state ban. The law makes an exception for medical emergencies, but the patient's life wasn't in danger at that moment.

Continued: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/despite-dangerous-pregnancy-complications-abortions-denied-1.6161102

Frontline abortion workers in the US west are fatigued. Midterm results may make things worse

While Colorado remains a precarious sanctuary in the midwest, the west coast states have rallied to protect abortion rights

Claire Wang in Los Angeles
Fri 4 Nov 2022

States across the western US have seen a surge in women traveling for days and spending thousands of dollars to access abortion care in the five months since the supreme court overtuned Roe v Wade.

Providers and advocates are coping with the influx through a patchwork of groups providing financial and practical assistance to patients from the south, midwest and south-west, where more than a dozen states have banned or restricted abortion access.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/03/abortion-workers-fatigue-midterm-us-west

USA – It Can Already Take Weeks To Get An Abortion

And the Supreme Court could soon make it take even longer.

By Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux
Data Analysis by Holly Fuong
Charts by Elena Mejía
Published Apr. 18, 2022

Last week, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a law outlawing abortion in the state. If it isn’t blocked by the courts, the legislation — which has no exceptions for rape or incest — would be one of the harshest measures to become law at a time when anti-abortion lawmakers are all but competing with each other to pass new restrictions.

But in a sense, Oklahoma legislators who want to end
abortion don’t have much more to do in their state. New data exclusively
analyzed by FiveThirtyEight shows that it’s already very difficult to get an
abortion appointment in Oklahoma — and it has nothing to do with the state’s
new ban. Ever since the Supreme Court allowed a highly restrictive abortion law
to go into effect in Texas last September, Oklahoma’s four abortion clinics
have been overrun with demand from out-of-state patients. When a team of
academic researchers posed as pregnant people and called the Oklahoma clinics
at the beginning of March, all four told the callers they couldn’t schedule
them for an appointment.

Continued: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/it-can-already-take-weeks-to-get-an-abortion/

In a surprise move, Oklahoma approves bill to make abortion illegal

If signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt, the bill could take effect as soon as this summer.

Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
April 5, 2022

Oklahoma’s legislature has voted to ban all abortions, with narrow exceptions if the abortion is necessary to save the pregnant person’s life.

The bill now heads to the desk of Gov. Kevin Stitt, who has previously vowed to sign all anti-abortion bills. If signed, it would take effect in late August, 90 days after the legislature has adjourned.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2022/04/in-a-surprise-move-oklahoma-approves-bill-to-make-abortion-illegal/

Most Women Denied Abortions by Texas Law Got Them Another Way

New data suggests overall abortions declined much less than previously known, because women traveled out of state or ordered pills online.

By Margot Sanger-Katz, Claire Cain Miller and Quoctrung Bui
March 6, 2022

The impact of the Texas abortion law was partly offset by trips to out-of-state clinics, and by abortion pills

In the months after Texas banned all but the earliest
abortions in September, the number of legal abortions in the state fell by
about half. But two new studies suggest the total number among Texas women fell
by far less — around 10 percent — because of large increases in the number of
Texans who traveled to a clinic in a nearby state or ordered abortion pills online.

Two groups of researchers at the University of Texas at Austin counted the
number of women using these alternative options. They found that while the
Texas law — which prohibits abortion after fetal cardiac activity can be
detected, or around six weeks — lowered the number of abortions, it did so much
more modestly than earlier measurements suggested.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/upshot/texas-abortion-women-data.html