USA – Measuring the long-term cost of restricting abortion access

By Annalisa Merelli
Oct. 17, 2023

When Diana Greene Foster and her team at the University of California, San Francisco, started their study on the lives of women who were denied abortions in 2008, they sought to investigate a rather commonly held view: That having an abortion hurt women’s mental and physical health, including by leading to PTSD and drug and alcohol use disorder.

A series of laws had been passed based on this belief, introducing compulsory counseling and waiting periods for people seeking abortions, thereby adding barriers to accessing the procedure, especially for patients with lower incomes who couldn’t afford repeated time off work, travel, and associated costs such as child care.

Continued: https://www.statnews.com/2023/10/17/harms-from-restricting-abortion-access-research/

17.10.2023

William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Abortion bans fuel a rise in high-risk patients heading to Illinois hospitals

By Kristen Schorsch, WBEZ Chicago
SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

When she was around 22 weeks pregnant, the patient found out that the son she was carrying didn’t have kidneys and his lungs wouldn’t develop. If he survived the birth, he would struggle to breathe and die within hours.

The patient had a crushing decision to make: continue the pregnancy — which could be a risk to her health and her ability to have children in the future — or have an abortion.

Continued: https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/hospital-abortions-npr-partnership/

Abortion bans are fueling a rise in high-risk patients heading to Illinois hospitals

August 23, 2023
By Kristen Schorsch
3-Minute Listen with Transcript

When she was around 22 weeks pregnant, the patient found out that the son she was carrying didn't have kidneys and his lungs wouldn't develop. If he survived the birth, he would struggle to breathe and die within hours.

The patient had a crushing decision to make: continue the pregnancy — which could be a risk to her health and her ability to have children in the future — or have an abortion.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/08/23/1193898181/abortion-bans-are-fueling-a-rise-in-high-risk-patients-heading-to-illinois-hospi

USA – Abortion rates in 2020 increased 8% from 2017, new report finds

Korin Miller
Mon, December 5, 2022

Abortion in the U.S. was on the rise as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, according to a new report from the Guttmacher Institute. The report offers one of the most up-to-date looks at abortion in the country two years before the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that previously guaranteed the right to an abortion for Americans.

For the report, known as the Abortion Provider Census, researchers collected information from all facilities that were known to have provided abortion services in the U.S. in 2019 and 2020. The researchers compared the findings to the 2017 Abortion Provider Census and discovered that, in 2020, there were 930,160 abortions performed — an 8% increase from the number of abortions performed in 2017.

Continued: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/abortion-rates-in-2020-increased-8-from-2017-new-report-finds-231652212.html

05.12.2022

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News

Abortion Provider Census

abortion rates in USA

66 clinics stopped providing abortions in the 100 days since Roe fell

October 6, 2022
Selena Simmons-Duffin

In the 100 days since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, 66 clinics in the U.S. stopped providing abortion. That's according to a new analysis published Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute, assessing abortion access in the 15 states that have banned or severely restricted access to abortion.

"Prior to Roe being overturned, these 15 states had 79 clinics that provided abortion care," says Rachel Jones, a principal research scientist at Guttmacher. "We found that 100 days later, this was down to 13."

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/10/06/1127105378/66-clinics-stopped-providing-abortions-in-the-100-days-since-roe-fell

06.10.2022

White House Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access

New abortion restrictions may push patients to more expensive, complicated care

With longer wait times, patients could be forced into their second trimester.

By Nadine El-Bawab
August 07, 2022

As more states enact near-total bans and restrictions on abortion, providers say many patients are experiencing delayed care which can force them into later stages of pregnancy.

Abortion care options are becoming more limited and complex in some cases, which often means higher costs for patients. For example, medication abortion, which is less costly than other options, is only an option up to 10 weeks into pregnancy.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/abortion-restrictions-push-patients-expensive-complicated-care/story?id=87803769

08.08.2022

USA – Should you keep abortion pills at home, just in case?

With Roe on the brink, more experts are talking about advance provision of mifepristone and misoprostol.

By Rachel M. Cohen
Jun 22, 2022

Medication abortion, or taking a combination of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, is an increasingly common method for ending pregnancies in the United States. Reasons vary and overlap: Some women lack access to in-person abortion clinics; others prefer to end pregnancies in the comfort of their own home. Others seek out the pills because they cost far less than surgical abortion.

With more in-person clinics shuttering and a Supreme Court that’s threatening to overturn Roe v. Wade, a small but growing number of reproductive experts have been encouraging discussion of an idea called “advance provision” — or, more colloquially, stocking up on abortion pills in case one needs them later.

https://www.vox.com/2022/6/22/23170229/abortion-roe-medication-pills-pregnancy-unplanned

USA – How Abortion Has Changed Since 1973

By Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Anna Wiederkehr
Published Jan. 20, 2022

It’s been almost 49 years since the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Roe v. Wade on January 22, 1973. And in the half-century since abortion became a constitutional right, a lot has changed. Clinics have closed, restrictions have mounted and abortion has become one of the most polarizing issues in American politics. At the same time, women are receiving far fewer abortions than they were in the past.

But something else has changed, too: the women who are seeking abortions.

Continued: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-abortion-has-changed-since-1973/

20.01.2022

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Who Gets Abortions in America?

New York Times
By Margot Sanger-Katz, Claire Cain Miller and Quoctrung Bui
Dec. 14, 2021

The portrait of abortion in the United States has changed with society. Today, teenagers are having far fewer abortions, and abortion patients are most likely to already be mothers. Although there’s a lot of debate over gestational cutoffs, nearly half of abortions happen in the first six weeks of pregnancy, and nearly all in the first trimester.

The typical patient, in addition to having children, is poor; is unmarried and in her late 20s; has some college education; and is very early in pregnancy. But in the reproductive lives of women (and transgender and nonbinary people who can become pregnant) across America, abortion is not uncommon. The latest estimate, from the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group that supports abortion rights, found that 25 percent of women will have an abortion by the end of their childbearing years.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/14/upshot/who-gets-abortions-in-america.html

14.12.2021

Commentary

Featured

Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health

Caitlin Knowles Myers

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Chief Justice John Roberts

Guttmacher Institute

Rachel Jones

Ushma Upadhyay

who has abortions in America

More Than Half of Women—but Only a Quarter of Abortion Facilities—Are Located in States Hostile to Abortion Rights

1/28/2021
by SWATHI KELLA

A recent study from Guttmacher Institute found that while almost 60 percent of women who may seek an abortion are located in U.S. states that are hostile to abortion rights, only 26 percent of abortion facilities fall within these states.

The study examined the 808 clinics in the United States that collectively provided 95 percent of abortions in 2017. Central to the study was a map the Guttmacher Institute had produced in 2017 classifying each state as “supportive,” “middle-ground,” “hostile” or “extremely hostile” to abortion rights. The map showed that only 12 states were supportive of abortion rights, while 29 states were either hostile or extremely hostile.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2021/01/28/more-than-half-of-women-but-only-a-quarter-of-abortion-facilities-are-located-in-states-hostile-to-abortion-rights/

28.01.2021