18 Months After “Dobbs,” Here’s How Abortion Providers and Activists See Things

Abortion funds and logistical support groups are enabling people to travel out of state to obtain abortion care.

By Eleanor J. Bader , TRUTHOUT
December 28, 2023

After the Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs decision eviscerated the already limited federal right to abortion, 14 states — Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia — banned the procedure.

In some of these states, clinics closed. According to The Guardian, 42 U.S. clinics shuttered in 2022, plus 23 more in 2023. But as disturbing as this is, it is not the full story. Despite financial, legal and political obstacles, many clinics in states that have banned abortion have pivoted, continuing to provide essential reproductive health services such as contraceptives, STI testing and treatment, and routine gynecological exams, with some expanding to deliver prenatal and gender-affirming care. In addition, new clinics have opened in states like Wyoming and Maryland where abortion remains legal.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/18-months-after-dobbs-heres-how-abortion-providers-and-activists-see-things/

Texas – These abortion funds and practical support groups are bridging the gap for patients

Without these organizations, low-income and marginalized communities would not be able to access the abortion care they need.

By Rebekah Sager
June 15, 2023

Even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, people sought out abortion funds and practical support groups as stopgap measures to receive abortion care. Today, these groups are essential, particularly for low-income and marginalized pregnant people, covering everything from travel expenses to child care and even the procedure itself.

The Brigid Alliance
Five years ago, the Brigid Alliance, a practical support organization that provides assistance to people who are forced to travel outside of their home states for abortion care, opened its doors when clinics in Texas began to close with the passage of S.B. 8.

Continued: https://americanindependent.com/abortion-funds-texas-practical-support-groups/

North Carolina’s abortion law may make traveling to end a pregnancy impossible for some in the South

Abortion clinics in Virginia expect an influx of patients, but many Southern residents may not have the option to travel such long distances.

May 20, 2023
By Aria Bendix

As lawmakers in North and South Carolina work to impose new restrictions on abortion, options for women seeking to end a pregnancy in the South are diminishing quickly.

In North Carolina, a ban on abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy goes into effect on July 1. Gov. Roy Cooper had vetoed the legislation, but the state's Republican-led Assembly voted Tuesday to override that veto.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/north-carolina-abortion-ban-travel-impossible-for-some-rcna85249

Colombia Decriminalizes Abortion

The decision by the Constitutional Court comes in the wake of similar moves in Mexico and Argentina

Feb. 21, 2022
New York Times

The ruling opens the door for abortion to become widely accessible in the country.

Having an abortion is no longer a crime under Colombian law, the country’s top court on constitutional matters ruled on Monday, in a decision that paves the way for the procedure to become widely available across this historically conservative, Catholic country.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/21/world/colombia-court-abortion

As Abortion Rights Expand, the U.S. Joins a Handful of Telling Exceptions

Recent shifts on access to abortion suggest democracy and women’s rights go hand in hand — and that the inverse might be true as well.

By Max Fisher
Published Sept. 9, 2021

The story of abortion rights in the 21st century can be seen in two world-shaking developments this past week. In the first, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively upheld drastic new abortion restrictions in Texas. A few days later, Mexico’s high court paved the way for nationwide legalization.

It may be tempting to see Mexico’s ruling as the more surprising, catapulting the world’s second most populous Catholic country on a deeply contentious social matter.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/world/abortion-rights-us.html

What Will Become Of Trump’s Anti-Abortion Declaration?

February 10, 2021
by Cassie Ransom
The Organization for World Peace

On the 28th of January, President Biden released a memorandum intended to reverse the harm to women’s reproductive healthcare inflicted by the Trump administration. Among other things, the memorandum ordered the withdrawal of the U.S’s signature and sponsorship of the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a controversial international anti-abortion declaration.

The declaration was unveiled in October of 2020 by the then-Director of the U.S Central Intelligence Agency Mike Pompeo. It claims to “improve and secure access to health and development gains for women, including sexual and reproductive health, which must always promote optimal health, the highest attainable standard of health” as well as protect the health of the family and affirm women’s fundamental human rights. The central tenet of the document, however, is the assertion that “the child… needs special safeguards and care… before as well as after birth” and “there is no international right to abortion, nor any international obligation on the part of States to finance or facilitate abortion.”

Continued: https://theowp.org/reports/what-will-become-of-trumps-anti-abortion-declaration/

Will Trump’s anti-abortion Geneva Consensus fall apart?

The pro-choice Biden administration is very unlikely to support the declaration, signed just two weeks before the 2020 US elections.

Kerry Cullinan
25 January 2021

The anti-abortion Geneva Consensus Declaration, signed two weeks before the 2020 presidential elections, brings together some of the most authoritarian and anti-women regimes in the world – reflecting who President Trump counted as his international allies by the end of his four-year reign.

The declaration claims that “there is no international right to abortion, nor any international obligation on the part of states to finance or facilitate abortion”. It declares that the ‘traditional family’ – meaning a married, heterosexual couple and their biological children – is the “fundamental group unit of society”, and each country has “the sovereign right” to make their own laws on abortion.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/will-trumps-anti-abortion-geneva-consensus-fall-apart/

USA – It’s past time to be rid of the legacy of Jesse Helms

by Anu Kumar and Serra Sippel
08/07/20

You’ve likely never heard of the Helms Amendment, or perhaps not until now that Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), along with Reps. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), Barbara Lee(D-Texas), Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) and Norma Torres (D-Calif.), have introduced legislation to repeal it. But our guess is you’ve heard of the late North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms.

In 1973, Helms, an outspoken opponent of civil rights — really, he opposed rights for anyone not white, male, heterosexual, American and Christian — introduced the Helms Amendment. The policy prohibits any U.S. foreign assistance funds from being used for “the performance of abortion as a method of family planning.” As written, the Helms Amendment allows for the provision of abortion information and counseling in cases of rape, incest and if a woman’s life is in danger. But in effect, it has been interpreted as a total ban on abortion-related services and information in developing countries.

Continued: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/511037-its-past-time-to-be-rid-of-the-legacy-of-jesse-helms

US asks for abortion references to be removed from UN pandemic response plan

US asks for abortion references to be removed from UN pandemic response plan

By Kylie Atwood, CNN
Tue May 19, 2020

Washington (CNN)The Trump administration is urging the United Nations secretary general to remove any references to reproductive health, including abortions, from the UN's humanitarian response plan to the coronavirus pandemic to "avoid creating controversy."

"The United States stands with nations that have pledged to protect the unborn," acting Administrator of USAID John Barsa wrote in a letter to UN Secretary General António Guterres on Monday. "To achieve global unity toward this goal, it is essential that the UN's response to the pandemic avoid creating controversy. Therefore, I ask that you remove references to 'sexual and reproductive health,' and its derivatives from the Global HRP, and drop the provision of abortion as an essential component of the UN's priorities to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic."

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/19/politics/us-abortion-un-pandemic-response/index.html

Abortion is a human right. A pandemic doesn’t change that

Abortion is a human right. A pandemic doesn't change that

Opinion by Serra Sippel and Akila Radhakrishnan
Sat March 28, 2020

(CNN) Access to abortion is an essential service and a fundamental human right. Period. The denial of it, including in times of global crisis like the Covid-19 pandemic, constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

In the United States, the Trump administration's colossal failure to help keep people healthy and to slow the pandemic-driven implosion of the economy shouldn't come as a surprise to much of the public. He has delayed acknowledging the severity of Covid-19, prematurely hinted at an end to social distancing and over the course of his term in office, attempted to slash funding for the WHO, the CDC, and other preparedness agencies that are tasked with the monitoring of such epidemics. The list goes on and on.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/28/opinions/covid-19-abortion-access-human-right-sippel-radhakrishnan/index.html