‘No one wants to get sued’: Some abortion providers have stopped working in Texas

Nearly half of the doctors at one of the state’s biggest providers stopped working after Texas’ new law went into effect. The law has created a chilling effect for some abortion care services.

Jennifer Gerson
September 15, 2021

On August 31, there were 17 abortion providers serving at the four locations of the Whole Woman’s Health clinics in Texas. On September 1 — the day that the nation’s most restrictive active abortion law went into effect, there were just eight.

Senate Bill 8 not only bans the procedure past six weeks of pregnancy, but allows private citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” abortion care past that point. Clinics have told The 19th they are fully complying with the new law. It is why Whole Woman’s Health in Fort Worth raced to perform as many abortions as possible before SB 8 went into effect, battling against the clock. It’s why, in mid-August, Planned Parenthoods across the state stopped taking appointments related to the procedure if it would be performed past six weeks of pregnancy.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2021/09/abortion-providers-texas-stopped-working-under-threat-sued/

There has never been an antiabortion law like the one just passed in Texas

The state is seen as a ‘testing ground’ for new kinds of antiabortion bills

Caroline Kitchener, The Lily
May 25, 2021

AUSTIN — As John Seago looked up at the Texas Capitol, he smiled. For 12 years, he has walked across the manicured lawns, schmoozing with legislators in the limestone halls. He has always urged lawmakers to “be bold." In a state as antiabortion as Texas, he’d tell them, “there is no excuse not to be aggressive.”

Finally, they listened.

Continued: https://www.thelily.com/there-has-never-been-an-antiabortion-law-like-the-one-just-passed-in-texas/

USA – ‘You have to stand up to illegitimate authority’: what veteran abortion activists can teach us in the Trump era

‘You have to stand up to illegitimate authority’: what veteran abortion activists can teach us in the Trump era
The pioneers who struggled for legalisation in the 60s are seeing the same battles being fought all over again

Laura Barton
Sat 18 Jan 2020

The telephone sat in the dormitory hallway, and when it rang it might have been for any of the residents – young women in their teens and early 20s, all students at the University of Chicago. Calls came from family and friends and boyfriends, from colleagues and classmates and clubs. But sometimes the voice at the end of the line would ask for “Jane”.

This was 1965, and in Chicago the social justice movement was gathering pace – a new era that encompassed civil rights, student rights, women’s rights and resistance to the war in Vietnam. Among those involved was Heather Booth, a 19-year-old social sciences student from New York.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/18/you-have-to-stand-up-to-illegitimate-authority-what-veteran-abortion-activists-can-teach-us-in-the-trump-era