This Southern State Just Repealed Decades of Abortion Restrictions

This Southern State Just Repealed Decades of Abortion Restrictions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Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/akwnq8/virginia-just-repealed-decades-of-abortion-laws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 – Senate Republicans Want to Protect Babies ‘Born Alive’ After an Abortion. That Doesn’t Happen.

Senate Republicans Want to Protect Babies ‘Born Alive’ After an Abortion. That Doesn’t Happen.
The U.S. Senate will vote on the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act” in the coming weeks. Here's what that means.

by Carter Sherman
Feb 15 2020

Abortion politics are, to put it lightly, contentious. But in the coming weeks, the Senate will vote on what may be their third rail: abortions that occur late in pregnancy.

On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set up votes for a 20-week ban on abortions and a bill known as the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act.” While neither are expected to hit the 60-vote threshold they’d need to pass, the vote on the “Born-Alive” bill is red meat for conservatives — and the legions of anti-abortion voters they’re hoping to galvanize ahead of the 2020 elections.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/g5xdgb/senate-republicans-want-to-protect-babies-born-alive-after-an-abortion-that-doesnt-happen

America’s abortion debate is being defined by Fox News

America’s abortion debate is being defined by Fox News
A new study shows how the network dominates coverage of abortion — and sets the agenda other networks follow.

By Anna North
Sep 23, 2019

Something strange happened to the abortion debate earlier this year.

Politicians, media outlets, and ordinary people began talking about “post-birth” or “fourth-trimester” abortion, claiming that doctors in America are killing babies after they’re born. This would be murder, not abortion, and it’s already illegal in every state. No abortion-rights group supports this.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2019/9/23/20875531/fox-news-abortion-cnn-msnbc-virginia

USA – What’s missing from the conversation about late abortions, explained by a doctor

What’s missing from the conversation about late abortions, explained by a doctor
Abortion opponents are accusing doctors of infanticide. Here’s the reality of abortion late in pregnancy, according to a doctor.

By Anna North Updated
Apr 29, 2019

President Trump on Saturday yet again claimed that doctors in America are executing babies. “The baby is born,” Trump said at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin. “The mother meets with the doctor. They take care of the baby. They wrap the baby beautifully, and then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby.”

Trump’s inflammatory words are part of a larger movement. At an especially contentious time in the abortion debate, opponents of the procedure have focused their attention on abortions that happen late in pregnancy. In some cases, they’re implying that laws allowing l

continued: https://www.vox.com/2019/3/11/18246702/trump-abortion-ralph-northam-virginia-green-bay

What’s missing from the conversation about late abortions, explained by a doctor

By Anna North
Mar 12, 2019

The Senate voted last week on a bill to put in place requirements for the care of babies born after attempted abortions.

It failed, but debate around the issue continues. At an especially contentious time in the abortion debate, opponents of the procedure have focused their attention on abortions that happen late in pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2019/3/11/18246702/born-alive-abortion-survivors-bill-virginia-2019

USA – At least 20 abortion cases are in the pipeline to the Supreme Court. Any one could gut Roe v. Wade.

At least 20 abortion cases are in the pipeline to the Supreme Court. Any one could gut Roe v. Wade.
Today’s emotional rhetoric has parallels to another politically volatile period in the early 1990s.

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
February 15, 2019

The Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 vote this month to block a restrictive Louisiana abortion law from taking effect provided some measure of consolation to reproductive rights advocates who feared the court’s new conservative majority would act immediately to restrict access to the procedure.

But that relief is likely to be short lived. In the pipeline are at least 20 lawsuits, in various stages of judicial review, that have the potential to be decided in ways that could significantly change the rights laid out in the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, and refined almost two decades later in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The 1992 decision said a state may place restrictions on abortion as long as it does not create an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to abortion.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/02/15/least-abortion-cases-are-steps-us-supreme-court-any-one-could-gut-roe-v-wade/

USA – Abortion Debate Reignited as Divisive Issue for 2020 Campaigns

Abortion Debate Reignited as Divisive Issue for 2020 Campaigns

By Anna Edgerton and Sahil Kapur
February 9, 2019

The acrimonious debate over abortion that’s divided the country for generations is being reignited for the 2020 election with the Supreme Court’s tilt to the right and Democratic-led states moving to lift some restrictions on the procedure.

New York has eased some restrictions on late-term abortions, and lawmakers in Virginia have proposed to do so. That has given anti-abortion advocates fresh arguments and targets. Both sides in the debate, at the same time, expect the Supreme Court with two conservative justices appointed by President Donald Trump to narrow abortion rights.

Continued: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-09/abortion-debate-reignited-as-divisive-issue-for-2020-campaigns

Why Trump spent so much time criticizing abortion during the State of the Union

Why Trump spent so much time criticizing abortion during the State of the Union
He may see it as a winning issue for 2020.

By Anna North
Feb 5, 2019

“Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life,” said President Donald Trump during his State of the Union speech on Tuesday night. “And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth: All children — born and unborn — are made in the holy image of God.”

In uncharacteristically extensive comments on the subject, Trump criticized efforts to loosen abortion restrictions in New York and Virginia. He also called for federal anti-abortion legislation.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/5/18212521/state-of-the-union-trump-abortion-northam

USA – It’s Both Difficult and Incredibly Important to Make the Case for Third-Trimester Abortions

It’s Both Difficult and Incredibly Important to Make the Case for Third-Trimester Abortions

By Christina Cauterucci
Feb 01, 2019

Conservative politicians and right-wing activists have targeted a Virginia state legislator this week and in the process reignited a nationwide debate about third-trimester abortions. Delegate Kathy Tran’s bill, which was tabled by a House of Delegates subcommittee this week, would have loosened some restrictions on second- and third-trimester abortions, which are legal in the state under specific circumstances. Though the legislation has been proposed in previous sessions—and though it never made it to the House floor for a vote this go-round—anti-abortion advocates are using it to paint pro-choice Democrats as supporters of, as Sen. Marco Rubio put it in a tweet, “legal infanticide.”

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/02/virginia-abortion-third-trimester-law-kathy-tran.html