USA – How a network of abortion pill providers works together in the wake of new threats

Groups such as Aid Access, Hey Jane and Just the Pill stay in close contact to help women seeking abortions in states with bans.

April 7, 2024
By Abigail Brooks and Dasha Burns

When the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in March about restricting access to the abortion drug mifepristone, Elisa Wells, co-founder and co-director of Plan C, was ready. Plan C, an information resource that connects women to abortion pill providers, almost immediately saw a spike in searches for the medication.

With Florida’s Supreme Court paving the way for the state’s six-week abortion ban, Wells says she’s expecting even more search activity and more creative thinking from providers.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/network-abortion-pill-providers-works-together-wake-new-threats-rcna146678

The Giant Threat Lurking Behind Florida’s November Abortion Vote

BY MARK JOSEPH STERN
APRIL 02, 2024

The Florida Supreme Court seemed to offer a compromise Monday when it greenlit the state’s six-week abortion ban while simultaneously approving a ballot initiative that would, if enacted, create a constitutional right to reproductive freedom. And indeed, the court’s split decision offers hope that Floridians can reestablish their state as an abortion refuge in the South this November. But an ominous current lurked beneath the rulings: Six of the court’s seven justices appeared to endorse fetal personhood under the state constitution as it stands now, expressing support for—as one justice put it—“the unborn’s competing right to life” over the patient’s right to bodily autonomy. The majority’s rhetoric indicates that if the pro-choice amendment fails this fall, the Florida Supreme Court remains ready to grant fetuses and embryos a constitutional right to life that prohibits the Legislature from legalizing abortion in the future.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/04/florida-november-abortion-vote-desantis.html

Georgia Supreme Court Allows Six-Week Abortion Ban to Remain in Effect as Legal Challenge Continues

October 24, 2023
ACLU
Case: SisterSong v. State of Georgia / Affiliate: ACLU of Georgia

ATLANTA — The Georgia Supreme Court issued a ruling today that allows H.B. 481, a ban on abortion after approximately six weeks of pregnancy, to remain in effect. The court’s majority opinion disregards long-standing precedent that a law violating either the state or federal Constitution at the time of its enactment is void from the start under the Georgia Constitution. Georgia’s ban was blatantly unconstitutional when enacted in 2019 against the backdrop of Roe v. Wade and almost five decades of federal precedent, and therefore unenforceable, as the trial court found. But today’s ruling reversing the lower court’s decision concludes that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe last year effectively erased that history.

Continued: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/georgia-supreme-court-allows-six-week-abortion-ban-to-remain-in-effect-as-legal-challenge-continues

Women, doctors announce legal action against abortion bans in 3 states

The women allege they were denied abortions despite dangerous complications.

By Nadine El-Bawab
September 12, 2023

Women in Idaho, Oklahoma and Tennessee filed legal actions against their states over abortion bans, saying they were denied abortions despite having dangerous pregnancy complications.

Four women in Idaho -- Jennifer Adkins, Jillaine St.Michel, Kayla Smith and Rebecca Vincen-Brown -- and abortion providers filed a suit against the state, Gov. Brad Little, attorney general and the state's board of medicine, claiming the state's ban has "sown confusion, fear and chaos among the medical community, resulting in grave harms to pregnant patients whose health and safety hang in the balance across the state," according to a copy of the lawsuit shared with ABC News.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/women-doctors-announce-legal-action-abortion-bans-3/story?id=103055654

‘How sick is sick enough?’ Abortion bans leave providers, patients questioning when care is OK

Saturday, September 2, 2023
By Elise Catrion Gregg | News21

AUSTIN, Texas — Amanda and Josh Zurawski sit in the house they bought last year, the dream home they intended to share with their future daughter.

They’ve told their story too many times now, but they brace themselves to tell it once more — from a room just above the backyard where they will one day plant a tree in memory of the baby who never made it home.
It will be a willow, in honor of the name they chose for their little girl.

Continued: https://nondoc.com/2023/09/02/how-sick-is-sick-enough-abortion-bans-leave-providers-patients-questioning-when-care-is-ok/

‘Abortion access will be restored in the US’

The people of Georgia have been subjected to a confusing legal battle that ultimately led to a six-week abortion ban. For some in the state, all hope is not lost

by Tina Vásquez
July 18th, 2023

Kwajelyn Jackson is known throughout the South—and increasingly, across the country—as one of the reproductive justice movement’s most powerful voices. She is the executive director of the Feminist Women’s Health Center (FWHC) in Atlanta, where she has been central to the fight against anti-abortion laws in the state.

Under Jackson’s leadership, FWHC has transformed into a multigenerational, multiracial organization and a clinic operationalizing reproductive justice as part of patient care. The work is not easy, especially in a state like Georgia, which has been subjected to a byzantine array of anti-abortion laws, court battles, and injunctions that confuse people about whether they can access abortion care.

Continued: https://prismreports.org/2023/07/18/abortion-access-georgia-one-year-post-roe/

In Isolated Guam, Abortion Is Legal. And Nearly Impossible to Get.

The tiny U.S. territory in the western Pacific Ocean is thousands of miles from the nearest state, and has no resident doctors who perform abortions. Court decisions could cut access to pills, the only legal option left.

By David W. Chen
Photographs by Noriko Hayashi
June 26, 2023

For decades, the Pregnancy Control Clinic, tucked inside a squat, beige building around the corner from a bowling alley, handled most of the abortions on Guam, a tiny U.S. territory 1,600 miles south of Japan.

But the doctor who ran it retired seven years ago, and the clinic now appears abandoned. An old medical exam table stands near a vanity with a dislodged faucet, and a letter from Dr. Edmund A. Griley is taped to the front door: “My last day of seeing patients is November 18, 2016,” he wrote. “I recommend that you begin looking for a new physician as soon as possible.”

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/26/us/guam-abortion.html

Lawmakers in blue states are linking protections for abortion and gender-affirming care

The push for “shield” bills reflects a growing recognition that the concept of bodily autonomy and the ability of doctors to make decisions with their patients links the two issues.

By Grace Panetta, Orion Rummler
June 9, 2023

Blue states are crafting a new kind of legislation to respond to a dramatic wave of restrictions on abortion access and gender-affirming care across the country. Democrats are invoking the fall of Roe v. Wade as a reason to protect both areas of health care simultaneously — while aiming to create safe havens for those fleeing surrounding Republican-controlled states.

Lawmakers in five states — Illinois, New Mexico, Colorado, Washington state and Vermont, which has a Republican governor although Democrats control the state legislature — plus the District of Columbia have enacted such “shield” laws so far this year.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2023/06/abortion-trans-health-care-shield-laws/

Republicans reject abortion bans as ‘campaign-enders’ in warning to party

As states continue to bring in tighter restrictions on abortion, internal divisions within the GOP are starting to show

Poppy Noor
Thu 4 May 2023

In one state, Republican women filibustered to block a near-total abortion ban introduced by their own party. In another, the Republican co-sponsor of a six-week abortion ban subsequently tanked his own bill. On the federal level, a Republican congresswoman warns that the GOP’s abortion stance could mean “losing huge” in 2024.

As states continue to bring in tighter restrictions on abortion following the fall of Roe v Wade, internal divisions within the Republican party on the issue are starting to show.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/04/republican-lawmakers-reject-abortion-bans

04.05.2023

Republicans Are Using Exceptions to Sell Their Abortion Bans. It’s a Scam.
Exceptions for rape, incest, and medical emergencies are incredibly hard for pregnant people to actually use—and that’s a feature, not a bug.

By Carter Sherman
April 27, 2023

This week, North Dakota’s governor signed into law one of the country’s most extreme abortion bans. It outlaws almost all abortions—and only allows people to get abortions in cases of rape or incest if they undergo the procedure within the first six weeks of pregnancy.

The ban is, for now, an act of political theater. No one is going to an abortion clinic in North Dakota, because the last clinic in the state moved to Minnesota months ago. But the exceptions in the ban are also likely meaningless. Many people do not even realize that they are pregnant at six weeks, and many sexual assault survivors can take far longer to come forward, if they ever do.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en/article/4a3wvq/republicans-abortion-ban-exceptions

27.04.2023