A new abortion study is a stunning indictment of Dobbs’ consequences

Criminalization is ineffective because it fails to address the reasons one would consider abortion in the first place.

Oct. 26, 2023
By Mary Ziegler

A study released this week confirmed a surprising fact: The national abortion rate has risen slightly in the year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The study, released by WeCount, a project of the Society of Family Planning, relied on data from more than 80% of the nation’s providers, along with historical trends and state data. The report matches earlier findings released last month by the Guttmacher Institute, which likewise found abortions had remained steady or even increased since Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health.

With abortion rates not decreasing, opponents will pursue increasingly complex and constitutionally dubious ways to shut down access in and travel to progressive states. The outcome of this ratcheting up of penalties will be just as predictable. While criminalization makes pregnancy far more dangerous, it is ineffective because it fails to address the reasons one would consider abortion in the first place.

Continued: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/abortion-rates-study-dobbs-roe-republicans-rcna122324

The unconstitutional plan to stop women from traveling out of state for an abortion, explained

The age of travel bans is now upon us.

By Ian Millhiser

Sep 12, 2023

More than a year ago, anti-abortion activists appeared eager to prohibit anyone seeking an abortion in a state where it is banned from traveling to another state where it is legal. Indeed, many lawmakers appeared so eager to enact such travel bans that Justice Brett Kavanaugh, of all people, attempted to cut off these laws before they could be enacted.

“May a State bar a resident of that State from traveling to another State to obtain an abortion?” Kavanaugh asked in his concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), the decision overruling Roe v. Wade. “In my view, the answer is no,” Kavanaugh replied to his own question, “based on the constitutional right to interstate travel.” The Constitution has long been understood to allow US citizens to travel among the states.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/23868962/texas-abortion-travel-ban-unconstitutional

Ireland – Amy Dunne on her lonely, harrowing abortion fight: ‘I was told I would be done for murder’

Amy Dunne on her lonely, harrowing abortion fight: 'I was told I would be done for murder'
At 17, Dunne was pregnant with a baby who had a fatal abnormality. She was given a pseudonym and became the focus of a landmark Irish legal case – but now she is reclaiming her story

Rory Carroll
Thu 5 Dec 2019

The week Amy Dunne turned 17, she was several months pregnant and made two discoveries – one devastating and the other incomprehensible. A hospital scan showed something badly wrong in her womb. The foetus had anencephaly, a fatal abnormality. Doctors said the baby, a girl, would die soon after birth.

Although she was living in foster care and still a child herself, Dunne had looked forward to becoming a mother and building a new life with her boyfriend. Distraught, she shared the news with her social workers and said she needed to travel to Britain from Ireland for an abortion. That’s when Dunne discovered something badly wrong in her country.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/dec/05/amy-dunne-miss-d-abortion-told-would-be-done-for

Ireland’s abortion debates through the years

Ireland's abortion debates through the years

Friday, 27 Apr 2018
By David McCullagh

With four weeks to go until Ireland votes on the referendum on the Eighth Amendment on Friday 25 May, David McCullagh looks back on the contentious debates over Ireland's abortion legislation.

1861
Offences Against the Person Act makes it an offence unlawfully to administer poison or to use an instrument on any woman with intent to procure her miscarriage.

1967
British Abortion Act is passed legalising abortion up to 28 weeks’ gestation.

Continued: https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2018/0424/956963-abortion-timeline/