How to Support People in States Where Abortion Is Under Threat

Donating to national organizations is great. But these local reproductive health care services—in places under immediate threat—could use your help, too.

July 17, 2022

IT’S BEEN SEVERAL weeks since the US Supreme Court wiped out 50 years of established precedent of reproductive rights. The cultural analyses, personal narratives, and investigations that might best be described as horror stories have since predictably surfaced to the top of the news cycle.

For example, highlighting Texas as a model for what’s to come, several media outlets reported on a teen who found out she was pregnant with twins 48 hours before the Texas abortion ban. Also known as the scientifically inaccurate Texas Heartbeat Act, the ban took effect in September 2021. The teen wanted an abortion but couldn’t access one in her home state—a disastrous predicament that many women will soon face, or are now facing.

Continued: https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-support-local-people-funds-abortion/


USA – More activists who have had abortions are saying so out loud. Here’s why

November 2, 2021
Danielle Kurtzleben

In 1992, an estimated half a million people gathered on the National Mall for a rally for abortion rights.

The speakers made many of the same arguments that abortion-rights advocates have made for decades, arguing that government shouldn't limit people's ability to make decisions about their own bodies.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/02/1050653918/more-activists-who-have-had-abortions-are-saying-so-out-loud-heres-why


Texas Nonprofit That Helps Women Pay For Abortions Sues Anti-Abortion Group For Defamation

Texas Nonprofit That Helps Women Pay For Abortions Sues Anti-Abortion Group For Defamation

By Ashley Lopez | KUT
June 12, 2020

The Texas Equal Access Fund, which provides financial support for low-income women seeking an abortion, sued anti-abortion activists in Dallas County on Thursday for accusing the group of criminal activity.
Abortions are not a crime in Texas – and neither is providing financial assistance to a private citizen for the procedure. But the Texas Equal Access Fund claims that hasn’t stopped Mark Lee Dickson and Right to Life East Texas from calling it a criminal organization.

Continued: https://www.kut.org/post/texas-nonprofit-helps-women-pay-abortions-sues-anti-abortion-group-defamation


Abortion rights groups drop suit over abortion ordinances

Abortion rights groups drop suit over abortion ordinances

by The Associated Press
Posted May 26, 2020

DALLAS — Two reproductive rights groups have dropped their lawsuit against seven small East Texas towns that had declared abortion-rights organizations “criminal organizations” in anti-abortion ordinances that prohibit them from operating within city limits.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas said Wednesday that the lawsuit had achieved its purpose of compelling the towns to revise their ordinances “to allow pro-abortion organizations to operate within the cities and stop calling them ‘criminal,'” said Imelda Mejia, spokeswoman for the ACLU of Texas.

Continued: https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/05/26/abortion-rights-groups-drop-suit-over-abortion-ordinances/


Texas – Inside the Plan to End Legal Abortion

Inside the Plan to End Legal Abortion

Esther Wang
May 22, 2020

Whiteface is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it blip in Texas’s oil patch 50 minutes west of Lubbock that only a few hundred people call home, so tiny that describing it as a small town would be a stretch. But on a rainy evening in mid-March, several dozen of its residents along with people from neighboring towns crammed into a worn-down community center on the town’s main strip for a meeting of Whiteface’s elected officials, an unusually large audience for their regular council meeting.

“I know y’all aren’t here to listen to our business,” joked one of the council members. And it was true. That night, the council would be voting on an anti-abortion ordinance that, if passed, would make Whiteface the latest so-called “sanctuary city for the unborn” in the state. With its approval, Whiteface would join a dozen other Texas towns that in recent months had declared abortion to be murder and announced that abortions (and in some towns, even emergency contraception like Plan B) were “unlawful” within the town’s limits; some of the ordinances, too, designated a list of the state’s leading abortion providers and advocacy groups as “criminal entities.” The crowd in the sparsely decorated community center, crammed into rows of red and yellow plastic chairs, had amassed to show their support for the ordinance, and to urge the Whiteface council to officially designate the town a self-proclaimed “sanctuary city for the unborn.”

Continued: https://theslot.jezebel.com/inside-the-plan-to-end-legal-abortion-1843155358


For many women, abortion access was already limited. Then COVID-19 hit

For many women, abortion access was already limited. Then COVID-19 hit
Coronavirus—and restrictions on “elective procedures” in states like Texas—have made accessing reproductive healthcare harder than ever. But providers are getting creative.

04-28-20
By Pavithra Mohanlong Read

On a Thursday in early April, Shanthi Ramesh saw three patients back to back. They were all healthcare workers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. Two of them worked in a local emergency room, while the other was driving up to New York the next day to volunteer at a hospital.

They had another thing in common: All three women had gone to Ramesh’s clinic to get an abortion.

Continued: https://www.fastcompany.com/90496986/for-many-women-abortion-access-was-already-limited-then-covid-19-hit


Texas abortion providers challenge restrictive state laws in new lawsuit

Texas abortion providers challenge restrictive state laws in new lawsuit

By Alison Durkee
June 15, 2018

Abortion providers in Texas filed a sweeping lawsuit against the state Thursday, targeting dozens of state laws that restrict access to abortion.

The lawsuit, filed by Whole Woman’s Health Alliance, Fund Texas Choice, the Lilith Fund and other organizations against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, comes two years after the U.S. Supreme Court case Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. That ruling struck down two other Texas abortion laws, ruling that they imposed an “undue burden” on women seeking an abortion.

Continued: https://mic.com/articles/189841/texas-abortion-providers-challenge-restrictive-state-laws-in-new-lawsuit#.xpNITtl9z