The right to abortion in Colorado is now guaranteed under state law

April 5, 2022
JOE HERNANDEZ

Colorado just enacted a law that enshrines the right to have an abortion in the state, the latest left-leaning state that's taken action to protect reproductive rights as the practice faces renewed efforts by conservatives to restrict its access.

The so-called Reproductive Health Equity Act affirms that pregnant people in Colorado have the right to continue a pregnancy and give birth or have an abortion, and it blocks public entities from denying or restricting that right.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2022/04/05/1091041608/colorado-abortion-law


USA – The States Poised to Be the New Abortion Battlegrounds

MAR. 19, 2022
By Ed Kilgore

It’s likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will reverse or severely curtail federal constitutional abortion rights in its upcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization this spring or early summer. In that event, some states are already poised to enact new laws (some of it “trigger” legislation that goes into effect automatically) that severely curtail reproductive rights. These state actions could help mobilize Americans on both sides of the abortion-policy barricades for the November midterms. But the biggest political battles are likely to break out in states where lawmakers hell-bent on banning some, if not all, abortions collide with constituencies in which a majority favor maintaining the status quo.

At Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Louis Jacobson endeavored to identify such abortion battlefields, choosing states with four criteria:

Continued: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/states-new-abortion-battlegrounds.html


States move to front lines in battle over abortion rights with Supreme Court decision looming

BY MELISSA QUINN
JANUARY 20, 2022 / CBS NEWS

Washington — With the Supreme Court poised to issue a decision in the coming months that could reshape the landscape for abortion care in the country, state lawmakers returning to their capitals this month are moving to the front lines in the fight over reproductive rights.

Republican-led legislatures are preparing to impose more restrictions on abortions or ban the procedure outright, while Democrat-controlled state houses are moving to enshrine the right to an abortion into state law. But the future of abortion access is less predictable in states with divided governance, where activists are pursuing a multi-pronged offensive to protect abortion rights in their states.

Continued: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/abortion-rights-supreme-court-state-legislatures/


State legislatures in U.S. poised to act on abortion rights

Wilson Ring, The Associated Press
Published Tuesday, December 28, 2021

MONTPELIER, VT. -- Early in the new year, the Vermont House of Representatives is due to begin debate on an amendment that would enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution and send the question to voters in the fall.

Because the process began two years ago, it's a coincidence that Vermont lawmakers will be considering the Reproductive Liberty Amendment while the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case that could severely erode a right that has stood for half a century.

Continued: https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/state-legislatures-in-u-s-poised-to-act-on-abortion-rights-1.5721182


State Policy Trends at Midyear 2021: Already the Worst Legislative Year Ever for U.S. Abortion Rights

Elizabeth Nash, Guttmacher Institute
Sophia Naide, Guttmacher Institute
First published online: July 1, 2021

In the first six months of the year, many state legislatures engaged in an assault on many civil rights, including abortion, voting and transgender rights. More abortion restrictions—90—have already been enacted in 2021 than in any year since the Roe v. Wade decision was handed down in 1973. Many of these actions took place in the beginning of the year, despite the need for state legislatures to address critical issues ranging from racial equity to the COVID-19 response and pandemic-related health care.

In addition to their relentless attacks on abortion, several state legislatures have focused on measures that target transgender youth by banning gender-affirming care or restricting their participation in sports. These laws are part of a new wave of restrictions that build on transphobic legislation from previous years, including “bathroom bills” that require individuals to use the bathroom that corresponds to their sex as assigned at birth and bills to ban puberty blockers, which give young people time to make a decision about transitioning.

Continued: https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2021/07/state-policy-trends-midyear-2021-already-worst-legislative-year-ever-us-abortion


USA – State Actions Undermining Abortion Rights in 2020

By Nora Ellmann 
August 27, 2020

So far in 2020, there have been a number of important wins for abortion rights in the courts. In the U.S. Supreme Court, Louisiana’s unconstitutional admitting privileges law was struck down in June Medical Services v. Russo.1 In the lower courts, a federal district court in Maryland ruled that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration must suspend enforcement of a medically unnecessary restriction on access to medication abortion until 30 days after the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency.2 Also in Maryland, a district court vacated and enjoined a Trump administration rule that would have required separate insurance payments for abortion care and all other health care for people insured by certain plans under the Affordable Care Act.3 And a district court in Georgia struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban, which would have banned abortion at a point before most people even know they are pregnant.4

Continued: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2020/08/27/489786/state-actions-undermining-abortion-rights-2020/


This Southern State Just Repealed Decades of Abortion Restrictions

This Southern State Just Repealed Decades of Abortion Restrictions
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is expected to sign a bill overturning several anti-abortion laws. That's good news for people across the South.

by Amelia Harnish
Feb 28 2020

When Rachel Scruggs, 25, found out she was pregnant last fall, she knew immediately she would need an abortion. Just weeks prior, she had extricated herself from an emotionally abusive relationship, and she already had a 5-year-old son to look after. Scruggs, who works as a waitress in Manassas, Virginia, took the day off and found a ride to the nearest abortion provider in Falls Church.

At her appointment, Scruggs learned she was seven weeks along, meaning she could have a medication abortion using the drug Mifeprex. Although major medical groups agree that medication abortion can be safely prescribed by midlevel providers like nurse practitioners and physicians’ assistants and administered at home, Virginia law requires that a physician prescribe it and and FDA rules mandate that it be administered in the office.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/akwnq8/virginia-just-repealed-decades-of-abortion-laws


USA – The Real Challenges of Exercising the Right to an Abortion—and What You Can Do About It

The Real Challenges of Exercising the Right to an Abortion—and What You Can Do About It

2/27/2020
by Carole Joffe and David S. Cohen

For almost half a century, every American woman has had the constitutional right to an abortion.

But—as U.C. San Francisco sociologist Carole Joffe and Drexel law professor David S. Cohen show in their new book, Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America—the reality of exercising one’s reproductive rights is riddled with hurdles designed by anti-abortion activists and politicians.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2020/02/27/the-real-challenges-of-exercising-the-right-to-an-abortion-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/


USA – There’s a New Playbook for Securing Abortion Access

There’s a New Playbook for Securing Abortion Access
Recent wins suggest that we are more effective when we proudly proclaim our support for abortion access for all—and defend that position when the attacks come.

By Andrea Miller
Jan 22, 2020

Since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion nationwide 47 years ago today, anti-choice lawmakers have passed more than 1,200 legal restrictions on abortion at the state level, each more manipulative and deceptive than the last. Anti-abortion extremists have been hailed as master strategists for their focus on seating anti-abortion ideologues in state legislatures across the country. From 2010 to 2017, Republican control of state legislatures grew from 14 states to 32; during those years alone, anti-choice lawmakers passed more than 400 restrictions on abortion. Anti-abortion hysteria reached a fever pitch in 2019, as states across the South and Midwest passed abortion bans, including six-week bans in Georgia and Ohio and a total ban on abortion in Alabama and the far right—from Donald Trump down to state legislators—adopted a strategy of lies to buoy their extreme agenda.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/abortion-democrats-roe-anniversary/


USA – Gestational Age Bans: Harmful at Any Stage of Pregnancy

Gestational Age Bans: Harmful at Any Stage of Pregnancy

Megan K. Donovan, Guttmacher Institute
First published online: January 9, 2020

HIGHLIGHTS

Efforts to ban abortion by gestational age surged in 2019, helping to expose antiabortion lawmakers’ true agenda to eliminate abortion rights entirely.
Using gestational age as a legal cutoff for abortion care is harmful at any point in pregnancy.
States such as Oregon and Vermont are leading the way in enacting laws that prohibit government interference in abortion care throughout pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2020/01/gestational-age-bans-harmful-any-stage-pregnancy