Abortion Shield Laws: A New War Between the States

Doctors in six states where abortion is legal are using new laws to send abortion pills to tens of thousands of women in states where it is illegal.

By Pam Belluck
Feb. 22, 2024

Behind an unmarked door in a boxy brick building outside Boston, a quiet rebellion is taking place. Here, in a 7-by-12-foot room, abortion is being made available to thousands of women in states where it is illegal.

The patients do not have to travel here to terminate their pregnancies, and they do not have to wait weeks to receive abortion medication from overseas.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/health/abortion-shield-laws-telemedicine.html


Disabled Texans face more barriers to accessing abortion

Few organizations track the number of disabled individuals trying to access abortion, but abortion providers and groups that help assist Texans obtain out-of-state abortions say they are falling through the cracks.

BY NEELAM BOHRA, Texas Tribune
FEB. 20, 2024

When disabled Texans used to visit abortion clinics, staffers would remember them. They may have needed in-clinic accommodations or American Sign Language Interpreters, and they appeared infrequently. Still, they came.

But more than a year since performing abortions became illegal in the state of Texas, disabled people have become a “missing population” at the clinics still providing abortions out of state, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion provider.

Continued: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/02/20/texas-abortion-disabled/


‘Comstocked’: How Extremists Are Exploiting a Victorian-Era Law To Deny Abortion Access

The 1873 Comstock law prohibits the conveyance of anything used for “the procuring or producing of abortion.” One man believes it’s the gateway to a national abortion ban that even the bluest of states will not be able to evade.

10/25/2023
by SHOSHANNA EHRLICH

In June 2019, the all-male city council in Waskom, Texas, unanimously voted to make the tiny town of just 2,000 residents the nation’s first “sanctuary city for the unborn.” Characterizing fetuses as the “most innocent among us [who] deserve equal protection under the law,” the ordinance expressly bans abortion within its municipal boundaries. The man behind the ban, anti-abortion zealot and pastor Mark Lee Dickson, has since expanded his campaign to outlaw abortion “one city at a time” into at least six other states.

At first glance, this effort may appear superfluous in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which, in overturning Roe v. Wade, ended federal protection of abortion rights. In response to the decision, a growing number of states have enacted outright abortion bans or highly restrictive laws, while others have doubled down on a commitment to keeping abortion legal and accessible.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/10/25/comstock-abortion-access-sanctuary-cities/


USA – Malpractice lawsuits over denied abortion care may be on the horizon

Sunday, June 25, 2023
Harris Meyer

A year after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, many physicians and hospitals in the states that have restricted abortion reportedly are refusing to end the pregnancies of women facing health-threatening complications out of fear they might face criminal prosecution or loss of their medical license.

Some experts predict those providers could soon face a new legal threat: medical malpractice lawsuits alleging they harmed patients by failing to provide timely, necessary abortion care.

Continued: https://www.capradio.org/articles/2023/06/25/malpractice-lawsuits-over-denied-abortion-care-may-be-on-the-horizon/


She was denied an abortion in Texas – then she almost died

June 17, 2023
BBC

A Texas law that bans all abortions - except in dire medical circumstances - is one of the strictest introduced since the right to the procedure was overturned. Critics say it is forcing many women, and their doctors, to choose between breaking the law and making the right decision for their health.

Amanda Zurawski and her husband Josh had recently bought their dream home. Located in one of the most sought-after areas of Austin, Texas, it had scenic views of a lake and a golf course. With their first child on the way, it was perfect for their growing family.

Continued:  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65935189


Mexican Activists Help US Women Get Abortion

April 11, 2023
by VOA

Marcela Castro’s office in Chihuahua is more than 150 kilometers from the United States-Mexico border. But the distance does not prevent her from assisting women in the U.S. to go around the recent bans on abortion, a medical procedure to end a pregnancy.

Castro and her coworkers work for Marea Verde Chihuahua. The organization of mostly volunteers has supported reproductive rights in northern Mexico since 2018. They provide virtual guidance and abortion pills for women who want to end a pregnancy on their own.

Continued: https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/mexican-activists-help-us-women-get-abortion/7034400.html


Activists’ network in Mexico helps U.S. women get abortions

A network of abortion-rights activists in Mexico is finding ways to offer assistance -- including shipments of abortion pills -- to women in the United States affected by recently imposed abortion bans in several states

By MARÍA TERESA HERNÁNDEZ, Associated Press
April 2, 2023

CHIHUAHUA, Mexico -- Marcela Castro’s office in Chihuahua is more than 100 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, yet the distance doesn’t prevent her from assisting women in the United States in circumventing recently imposed bans on abortion.

From the headquarters of Marea Verde Chihuahua, an organization that has supported reproductive rights in northern Mexico since 2018, Castro and her colleagues provide virtual guidance, as well as shipments of abortion pills for women who want to terminate a pregnancy on their own.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/activists-network-mexico-helps-us-women-abortions-98299876


Texas – Lawmakers hold press conference to unveil ‘Rosie’s Law’ abortion legislation

by Jessica Taylor
Mon, March 6th 2023

AUSTIN, Texas — A new bill is bringing abortion access and emergency contraception back into the spotlight. State Senator Sarah Eckhardt (D-Austin) is one of the lawmakers supporting the bill called Rosie’s Law.

Rosie’s Law is named after a McAllen, Texas mother who died from an unsafe abortion in 1977. Organizers say that Medicaid would not cover her care at her local clinic.

Continued: https://cbsaustin.com/newsletter-daily/lawmakers-hold-press-conference-to-unveil-rosies-law-abortion-legislation-texas-austin-medicaid-coverage-family-planning


USA – The new front in the right’s war on abortion

Abortion pills are at the heart of the fight over abortion access in a post-Roe world.

By Rachel M. Cohen
Jan 9, 2023

The Biden administration helped expand access to medication abortion last week, with the US Food and Drug Administration finalizing a rule to make the pills more readily available in pharmacies. But this effort to help patients get pills to end a pregnancy could be dwarfed by a major push to restrict access to the medication from anti-abortion leaders and their Republican allies.

As lawmakers head back to state legislatures this month, many for the first time since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June, Republicans face new pressure to restrict access to the combination of abortion-inducing drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, used typically within the first 10 to 12 weeks of a pregnancy. Medication abortion has become the most common method for ending pregnancies in the United States, partly due to its safety record, its lower cost, diminished access to in-person care, and greater opportunities for privacy.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/9/23540562/abortion-pills-medication-dobbs-roe-mifepristone


TEXAS LAWMAKERS PLAN TO FURTHER DECIMATE ABORTION RIGHTS IN UPCOMING LEGISLATIVE SESSION

All Texas clinics have halted abortion care, but the anti-abortion movement says its work isn’t over.

Mary Tuma
December 26 2022

MONTHS BEFORE THE U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated nearly 50 years of abortion rights by overturning Roe v. Wade, Texans were already living in a grim post-Roe world. Senate Bill 8 — in effect since September 2021 due to the Supreme Court’s refusal to block the measure — barred abortion care once embryonic cardiac activity is detected, typically at six weeks of pregnancy. Then considered the most restrictive abortion law in the country, SB 8 halted the overwhelming majority of care in the nation’s second most populous state. The draconian law carried no exception for rape, incest, or severe fetal abnormality.

Next came the high court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which struck the final blow to abortion rights in Texas by allowing a full “trigger” ban to take effect. Performing an abortion in Texas is now a felony punishable by up to life in prison. Adding to the reproductive health crisis, state officials sought to push criminal enforcement of a 1925 pre-Roe ban. Today, all 23 abortion clinics in Texas have stopped providing abortion care at any stage, the most of any state in the nation.

Continued: https://theintercept.com/2022/12/26/texas-abortion-legislative-session/