Are Blue States Ready To Relax Their Bans On Later Abortions?

By Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux
JAN. 30, 2023

You hear people say the term “third rail” all the time in politics, usually in reference to an issue that is too volatile — too charged — to touch. For decades, abortion later in pregnancy has been one of those issues. As recently as four years ago, a proposal to loosen restrictions on third-trimester abortions went down in flames in Virginia after Republicans accused Democratic lawmakers of advocating for infanticide — an attack that was misleading but effective.

But the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, has changed the current running through the abortion debate. And now Democratic legislators may have new opportunities to try and expand abortion rights — including abortions in the late second and early third trimester of pregnancy.

Continued: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-blue-states-ready-to-relax-their-bans-on-later-abortions/

South Africa: One Second-Trimester Public Abortion Facility in the Entire Eastern Cape Is Not Good Enough

1 APRIL 2022
By Sibusisiwe Ndlela, Khanyisa Mapipa and Thokozile Mtsolongo

Second-trimester abortions, which occur between the beginning of the 13th and the end of the 20th week of pregnancy, are difficult to access in the public sector. This is mainly due to the lack of designated abortion facilities and the unavailability of abortion providers to provide the service.

Based on our work in the Eastern Cape, we found that these issues prevent women from accessing a second-trimester abortion in the public health system. Out of sheer desperation, some vulnerable women carrying unwanted pregnancies may resort to unsafe and illegal abortion providers.

Continued: https://allafrica.com/stories/202204010233.html

Texas Can Ban Common Form of Second-Trimester Abortion, Appeals Court Rules

The lower court “committed numerous, reversible legal and factual errors,” according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

By Azi
Paybarah

Published
Aug. 18, 2021

A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a Texas law banning the most common
form of second-trimester abortion, ruling that a lower court had erred in
finding that the law imposed “an undue burden on a large fraction of women.”

At issue is a Texas law that was passed in 2017 but has not yet been in effect
because of legal battles. The law, known as Senate Bill 8, prohibits a
dilation-and-evacuation abortion method and requires doctors to use alternative
abortion methods, according to Wednesday’s decision by the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/us/abortion-texas-ruling.html

USA – Supreme Court Rejects Alabama Bid to Bar Common Abortion Method

Supreme Court Rejects Alabama Bid to Bar Common Abortion Method

By Greg Stohr
June 28, 2019

The U.S. Supreme Court steered clear of the nation’s fractious abortion debate, refusing to consider Alabama’s effort to ban the most common method used for women in their second trimester of pregnancy.

The state was seeking to revive a ban on a method, known as dilation and evacuation, that involves dismembering the fetus and then removing it from the uterus. Alabama called the procedure a “particularly gruesome type of abortion” that states have the power to prohibit.

Continued: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/supreme-court-rejects-alabama-bid-to-bar-common-abortion-method?utm_source=google&utm_medium=bd&cmpId=google

UK – A 12 week abortion limit would be a disaster for vulnerable women

A 12 week abortion limit would be a disaster for vulnerable women

Rebecca Reid
Monday 10 Jun 2019

I’ve tried to avoid as much of the Tory party leadership nonsense as I can. I don’t care if one of them took coke in the 90s. I don’t really care if one of them smoked a magic pipe of pixie dust in a forest, with a wizard.

However I do care that men like Jeremy Hunt are taking this opportunity to make edicts about how they see the future of women’s rights.

Continued: https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/10/a-12-week-abortion-limit-would-be-a-disaster-for-vulnerable-women-9881905/

10.06.2019

second-trimester abortion

USA – Study Links Restrictive Abortion Laws to Increase in Late-Term Abortions

Study Links Restrictive Abortion Laws to Increase in Late-Term Abortions

ZawnVillines
Thursday March 14, 2019

Restrictive abortion laws increase the number of second trimester abortions, according to a new study published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. The study is part of a mounting pile of research suggesting that abortion restrictions may not lower the abortion rate. Figures from Latin America, where the abortion rate is three times higher than in the U.S. but abortion is banned or heavily restricted, suggest that abortion bans may even increase the abortion rate. Other data points to the role of abortion restrictions in higher maternal mortality. In El Salvador, abortion bans are correlated with an increase in suicide by pregnant women and girls.

The study looked at abortion rates in Texas before and after the enactment of House Bill 2. The legislation, which the Supreme Court eventually struck down, required doctors at Texas abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. It also required women using abortion pills to do so in the presence of a doctor, and banned abortions after 20 weeks.

Continued: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/3/14/1842047/-Study-Links-Restrictive-Abortion-Laws-to-Increase-in-Late-Term-Abortions?utm_campaign=recent

14.03.2019

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A Texas abortion procedure ban is unnecessary, full of theatrics and harmful to women

A Texas abortion procedure ban is unnecessary, full of theatrics and harmful to women

By The Times Editorial Board
Nov 12, 2018

No matter how often a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion is upheld by federal courts, there’s a state legislature somewhere trying to make it impossible for her to have one. The assaults on abortion rights have come in waves, as state legislatures dominated by anti-abortion lawmakers simultaneously pursue the same new legal gambits until blocked by a federal judge, at which point they change tactics and try again.

Most recently, abortion opponents have shifted from seeking restrictions ostensibly designed to protect the health of a pregnant woman — such as requiring abortion clinics to be outfitted like outpatient surgery centers, or requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital — to ones that focus on the fetus. For example, Texas and a number of other states slapped tough new restrictions on the dilation and evacuation procedure, or D&E, the safest and most common second-trimester abortion, calling it a “dismemberment abortion” and describing the procedure in ghoulish detail.

Continued: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-texas-ban-second-trimester-abortion-20181112-story.html