After Roe, abortion’s underground railroad gains steam

A network of activists is helping women terminate pregnancies in countries where the procedure is banned.

BY CARLO MARTUSCELLI, EMILY SCHULTHEIS, MANDOLINE RUTKOWSKI AND JAKUB KORUS
OCTOBER 29, 2022

RIGA — If you want to get an abortion in Poland, Kinga Jelinska is happy to help. Legally terminating your pregnancy is almost impossible in the Eastern European country. Abortion is only allowed in the case of rape or incest, or when it threatens the life of the woman.

That’s where Jelinska comes in. She’s the co-founder and executive director of Women Help Women, an Amsterdam-based nonprofit that helps provide women with the pills needed for an at-home medical abortion. The service Jelinska’s group provides falls into a legal grey zone; self-induced abortion is illegal in a number of countries, but in Poland, it’s not explicitly banned.

Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/roe-v-wade-europe-abortion-pill-illegal-underground-network/

How the US scrapping of Roe v Wade threatens the global medical abortion revolution

Medical abortions are a global success story, and not one that will be easily derailed by the legislative backsliding in the US. Time, now, to close the access gaps, report Sally Howard and Geetanjali Krishna

BMJ 2022; 379
doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o2349 (Published 19 October 2022)

Sally Howard, Geetanjali Krishna

In 2021, a 20 year old woman in Hyderabad, India, discovered she was pregnant.
A well educated, city girl, she was nevertheless afraid of the stigma attached
to unmarried pregnancy and did not know if she could legally terminate the
pregnancy. Around the same time, another young couple living together in
Bengaluru were in a similar predicament.

“Both women were not ready for a child but completely clueless about the
options they had, and the gestation period up to which abortion is legally
allowed in India,” says Anusha Pilli, a doctor who practises privately in
Hyderabad. Pilli helped both women to get medical abortions before their first
trimesters ended.

Continued: https://www.bmj.com/content/379/bmj.o2349

Desperate pleas and smuggled pills: A covert abortion network rises after Roe

Amid legal and medical risks, a growing army of activists is funneling pills from Mexico into states that have banned abortion

By Caroline Kitchener
October 18, 2022

Monica had never used Reddit before. But sitting at her desk one afternoon in July — at least 10 weeks into an unwanted pregnancy in a state that had banned abortion — she didn’t know where else to turn.

“I need advice I am not prepared to have a child,” the 25-year-old wrote from her office, once everyone else had left for the day. She titled her post, “PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!”

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/18/illegal-abortion-pill-network/

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

A Post-Roe America

We look at what abortion access would look like.

By David Leonhardt
June 6, 2022

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, more than 20 states — home to roughly half the country’s population — are likely to outlaw nearly all abortions. For women living in Mississippi, the closest place to receive a legal abortion might then be Illinois.

Yet the number of abortions performed in the U.S. would fall by much less than half, experts predict. One widely cited analysis, from Caitlin Myers of Middlebury College, estimates that the decline in legal abortions will be about 13 percent. The number of all abortions — including illegal abortions, like those using medications sent by mail to places with bans — will probably decline by even less.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/06/briefing/roe-v-wade-abortion-access-america.html

USA – How to Have a Medication Abortion. Where to find the pill and what to expect.

By Rebecca Grant and Elizabeth Isadora Gold
May 23, 2022

s conservative states increasingly legislate away clinic-based channels for accessing abortion, unofficial sources for ordering abortion pills online and self-managing at home are becoming a critical lifeline. These online sources, which have grown in popularity, convenience, and sophistication over the past few years, now represent the future of abortion care for much of America. While there are no reliable projections on how many people will self-manage their abortions using pills, the numbers are sure to go up: Research from Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco, found that 7 percent of women will self-manage abortions in their lifetime, and this estimate was made with Roe still in place. “The barriers are going to increase tremendously for people living in one of the estimated 26 states likely to overturn abortion,” said Dr. Daniel Grossman, the director of ANSIRH. “We would anticipate that there will be increased demand for those services.”

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/article/find-abortion-pill-what-to-expect.html

23.05.2022

abortion pills

abortion pills by mail

Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health

online pharmacies for abortion

Rebecca Gomperts

self-managed abortion

telemedicine abortion

Why Do Social Media Platforms Keep Removing Posts About Safe and Legal Abortion Pills?

Access to solid information about how to get ahold of abortion pills is more crucial now than ever.

May 13, 2022
Madison Pauley, Mother Jones

Not all the 39 patients who asked Christie Pitney for abortion pills last week were pregnant. Some had IUDs or were on birth control, and they wanted to have the pills—an extremely safe, FDA-approved regimen that is now the most common way of terminating a pregnancy in the United States—on hand, just in case. “They’re very, very worried and scared about what the future holds,” says Pitney, an advanced practice midwife who prescribes abortion pills virtually to patients.

The patients had found Pitney through Aid Access, an organization that connects people who want medication abortions with telehealth providers who can give them online consultations and order the pills for them.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/05/twitter-instagram-facebook-google-abortion-pills-roe-ban/

A covert network of activists is preparing for the end of Roe

What will the future of abortion in America look like?

By Jessica Bruder
APRIL 4, 2022

One bright afternoon in early January, on a beach in Southern California, a young woman spread what looked like a very strange picnic across an orange polka-dot towel: A mason jar. A rubber stopper with two holes. A syringe without a needle. A coil of aquarium tubing and a one-way valve. A plastic speculum. Several individually wrapped sterile cannulas—thin tubes designed to be inserted into the body—which resembled long soda straws. And, finally, a three-dimensional scale model of the female reproductive system.

The two of us were sitting on the sand. The woman, whom I’ll call Ellie, had suggested that we meet at the beach; she had recently recovered from COVID-19, and proposed the open-air setting for my safety. She also didn’t want to risk revealing where she lives—and asked me to withhold her name—because of concerns about harassment or violence from anti-abortion extremists.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/roe-v-wade-overturn-abortion-rights/629366/

04.04.2022

American Medical Association

Army of Three

Autonomous Pelvic Care

Carol Downer

Choix

Clergy Consultation Service

Danika Severino Wynn

Del-Em device

dilatation and curettage

DIY abortion

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Laurie Bertram Roberts

Letitia James

Lorraine Rothman

lunch-hour abortion

manual vacuum aspiration

Mountain Access Brigade

Plan C

Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood v. Casey

self-managed abortion

Self-managed Abortion Safe and Supported

telemedicine abortion

The End of Roe v. Wade

traveling for abortion

trigger laws

undue burden standard

Out of the Alley

How self-managed abortion looks today.

by Lux Alptraum and Erika Moen, The Nib
APRIL 4, 2022

This comic is not intended as medical advice and was not reviewed by a medical professional. Mifepristone and/or Misoprostol may not be safe and/or effective for all people. Please consult a medical professional prior to an abortion.

Continued: https://thenib.com/self-managed-abortion/

USA – Self-managed abortion could be the future — but it’s very hard to talk about

Especially in conservative states, advocates can’t talk openly about abortion methods that exist outside of the formal health-care system

Caroline Kitchener, The Lily
December 20, 2021

Two hours before the U.S. Supreme Court convened for the case that could make abortion illegal across much of the country, four women gathered on the court’s steps to propose another path forward. With a mifepristone pill in one hand and a loudspeaker in the other, Amelia Bonow started to chant.

“Abortion pills are in our hands and we won’t stop,” yelled the co-founder of the abortion rights organization Shout Your Abortion.

Continued: https://www.thelily.com/self-managed-abortion-could-be-the-future-but-its-very-hard-to-talk-about/