Wyoming Banned Abortion. She Opened an Abortion Clinic Anyway.

The only abortion clinic left in the state has been protested and set on fire, rebuilt and opened as Wyoming grapples with what it means to be conservative in a post-Roe nation.

By Kate Zernike, NYT
March 10, 2024

It was not such an implausible idea, back in 2020, when a philanthropist emailed Julie Burkhart to ask if she would consider opening an abortion clinic in Wyoming, one of the nation’s most conservative states and the one that had twice given Donald Trump his biggest margin of victory.

In fact, Ms. Burkhart had the same idea more than a decade earlier, after an anti-abortion extremist killed her boss and mentor, George Tiller, in Wichita, Kan., where he ran one of the nation’s few clinics that provided abortion late in pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/10/us/wyoming-abortion-clinic-julie-burkhart.html


Why ‘viability’ is dividing the abortion rights movement

By Associated Press AP
Jan. 16, 2024

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Reproductive rights activists in Missouri agree they want to get a ballot measure before voters this fall to roll back one of the strictest abortion bans in the country and ensure access. The sticking point is how far they should go.

The groups have been at odds over whether to include a provision that would allow the state to regulate abortions after the fetus is viable, a concession supporters of the language say will be needed to persuade voters in the conservative state.

Continued: https://ny1.com/nyc/brooklyn/ap-top-news/2024/01/16/disputes-over-viability-are-dividing-abortion-rights-groups-and-complicating-ballot-measure-efforts


USA – Abortion Clinics Are Dealing with More Arson, Stalking, and Anthrax Threats Now

Abortion providers feared they’d see an increase in harassment and threats if Roe v Wade was overturned. They were right.

By Carter Sherman
May 11, 2023

Dr. Gabrielle Goodrick has provided abortions for 26 years. And up until a few years ago, she never had to deal with protesters at her Phoenix, Arizona clinic.

But in the year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the protests at her clinic have become so large and loud that, for the first time, Goodrick has had to enlist people to help escort patients through the picketers.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7bday/rise-in-abortion-clinic-harassment-after-roe


Abortion clinics in 3 states sue to protect pill access

Abortion providers in three states filed a lawsuit Monday aimed at preserving access to the widely used abortion pill mifepristone

By MATTHEW PERRONE and DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press
May 8, 2023

Abortion providers in three states filed a lawsuit Monday aimed at preserving access to the abortion pill mifepristone, even as the drug is threatened by a separate Texas lawsuit winding its way through U.S. court system.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia on behalf of clinics in Virginia, Montana and Kansas, is the latest legal action over the decades-old pill, which is part of the two-drug regimen used in most U.S. abortions.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/abortion-clinics-3-states-sue-protect-pill-access-99181828


50 years after Roe v. Wade, many abortion providers are changing how they do business

January 22, 2023
Sarah McCammon
4-Minute Listen with Transcript

The 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision would have been a day of celebration for many abortion-rights supporters. But this milestone anniversary, on January 22, falls just short of seven months after another landmark abortion decision: the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling issued June 24 that overturned Roe.

After Dobbs, many clinics in red states where restrictive abortion laws have been enacted have been forced to close their doors and move, or stay open and dramatically shift the services they're providing.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/22/1150574240/50-years-roe-v-wade-dobbs-abortion-providers-reinvent


Pressure and Stress Intensify for Abortion Providers Post-Roe

NOVEMBER 29, 2022
Susan Buttenwieser

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in late June, providers of abortion care have been dealing with emotional devastation, managing severe staff burnout, the possibility of facing criminal charges, and increased harassment from protestors.

Some providers also contended with the prospect of losing their jobs when abortion became illegal in their state, at times within hours of the decision, forcing their clinics to close down. By October, 66 clinics across 15 states had been forced to stop offering abortion care or had closed down entirely. Before the June 24 Dobbs decision, those 15 states had 79 clinics that provided abortion care; by October 2, that number had dropped to 13, all located in one state, Georgia.

Continued: https://womensmediacenter.com/news-features/pressure-and-stress-intensify-for-abortion-providers-post-roe


After clinic arson, abortion rights advocates in Wyoming step up their fight

Lawmakers want to ban abortion. Advocates are confident that Wyoming’s constitution protects access — and they’re fighting in court to prove it.

Jordan Smith
October 15 2022

THE SUN WAS just coming up on May 25 when Julie Burkhart’s phone rang.

Burkhart had arrived in Casper, Wyoming, a day earlier to check on renovations to a new abortion clinic she was opening on East Second Street. The final cleaning in preparation for opening day was scheduled for the end of the week. That evening she’d done a walk-through; all looked good. But when she heard the voice of one of her contractors on the other end of the line, she knew something was wrong. “I was thinking there’s a plumbing issue,” she recalled. “‘There was a water break, right?’”

Continued: https://theintercept.com/2022/10/15/wyoming-abortion-clinic-arson/


USA – “In the end we will win”: The faces of the fight for abortion rights

The Supreme Court’s decision to end federal protections for abortion access didn’t just rewind the clock 50 years, it opened a Pandora’s box of confusing, potentially life-threatening legal complications. VF talks with five women on the front lines.

BY ABIGAIL TRACY AND ERIN VANDERHOOF
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DIANA MARKOSIAN AND DRU DONOVAN
OCTOBER 12, 2022

Tattooed on Caitlin Bernard’s left foot is the image of a coat hanger and the words “Trust Women.” The 38-year-old Indiana-based ob-gyn got it years ago; it was intended as a reminder of life before Roe v. Wade. Bernard has long paired her medical career with advocacy. She was a plaintiff in an unsuccessful 2019 American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit to reverse Indiana’s near-total ban on second-trimester abortions. Post-Roe, Indiana became the first state to pass an abortion ban. Now, Bernard is girding for another legal fight—this time against Republican Indiana attorney general Todd Rokita, who she says maligned her practice as Bernard became a lightning rod in one of the most publicized cases after the Dobbs decision stripped federal abortion protections and turned the country into a patchwork of disparate laws.

Continued: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/10/the-fight-for-abortion-rights


Blueprinting the Kansas Abortion-Rights Victory

Pro-choice forces fought misdirection and marshalled enormous turnout. Can their success be replicated?

By Peter Slevin
August 7, 2022

It was Election Night in a hotel ballroom in Overland Park, Kansas, and Ashley All didn’t know what to think. For months, she had been a public face in the fight to protect abortion rights from a ballot initiative that would change the state constitution and open the door to severe restrictions, or even a ban. Polling had been iffy, the opposition had been relentless, and she was afraid to trust the promising early returns. Nervous, she ducked into a conference room, where Mike Gaughan, a friend and colleague, was sitting at a computer. “He pointed out the impressive numbers in some of the big counties and also great numbers in some not-so-big counties in rural areas,” All told me. It was really happening. A broad coalition with a fresh message was beating the Kansas right-to-lifers at their own game.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/blueprinting-the-kansas-abortion-rights-victory


‘I Don’t Really Want to Go to Jail’: How One Doctor Kept Doing Abortions Post-Roe

A doctor in Arizona kept performing abortions after Roe v. Wade was overturned. But due to an 1864 law criminalizing abortion, chaos reigned.

by Carter Sherman
June 27, 2022

In the hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday morning, all four phone lines at Gabrielle Goodrick’s abortion clinic in Phoenix rang nonstop.

The calls came in by the hundreds. People were in shock. They were hysterical. They cried. Many had no idea what Roe even was, let alone that a handful of Supreme Court justices had just ruled to erase the precedent, which had guaranteed the national right to abortion since 1973, as if it had never been. 

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkgdbb/arizona-abortions-roe-v-wade