Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Get Rid of Helms Amendment—’A Racist, Colonial Relic’

One analysis estimates the repeal would result in 19 million fewer unsafe abortions each year.

Wednesday, March 10, 2021
By Andrea Germanos, staff writer, Common Dreams

A group of pro-choice congresswomen launched a fresh bid this week to get rid of a policy that blocks U.S. foreign assistance funds from going to abortion care services and that its critics call a "stark example of neocolonialism."

Led by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), the group of lawmakers reintroduced on Tuesday the Abortion Is Health Care Everywhere Act, which would repeal the Helms Amendment.

Continued: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/03/10/lawmakers-introduce-bill-get-rid-helms-amendment-racist-colonial-relic

Thousands protest Trump’s Supreme Court pick at Women’s Marches

Women’s rights groups have raised concerns that Amy Coney Barrett will restrict abortion access in the United States.

17 Oct 2020

Thousands of protesters have rallied in the US capital – Washington, DC – and other cities across the country to protest against President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee and to call for his defeat in the November 3 election.

Saturday’s rallies, which organisers said were taking place in all 50 states, were inspired by the first Women’s March in Washington, DC, a huge anti-Trump rally held a day after his 2017 inauguration.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/17/womens-march-holds-rally-against-trumps-supreme-court-pick

USA – States That Use COVID-19 To Ban Abortion Increase Our Risks, Hardships And Fear Nationwide

States That Use COVID-19 To Ban Abortion Increase Our Risks, Hardships And Fear Nationwide

Janet Burns, Senior Contributor
April 12, 2020

For the past few weeks, lawmakers in a growing number of US states have taken it upon themselves to restrict abortion during the COVID-19 pandemic by deeming that care “nonessential,” despite medical experts’ explicit warnings not to.

As US states have rushed to define and maintain their own responses to the global viral disease outbreak, numerous state lawmakers have chosen the extra step of declaring virtually all abortion care or procedures “nonessential,” rather than letting doctors decide (along with patients) what’s essential and safe right now.

Continued: https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetwburns/2020/04/11/states-using-covid-19-to-ban-abortion-increase-everyones-risks-and-hardships-in-a-crisis/#35d56106aa8c

USA – ‘I Came to Put My Body On the Line’: Both Inside and Outside Hearing, Women Lead Fight Against Kavanaugh Confirmation

'I Came to Put My Body On the Line': Both Inside and Outside Hearing, Women Lead Fight Against Kavanaugh Confirmation
"Many citizens before me have fought for the equal rights of women. I can't be silent when someone is nominated to the Supreme Court who would take our equal rights away."

by Julia Conley, staff writer
Sep 4, 2018

As the Senate Judiciary Committee proceeded with its confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Tuesday—whose appointment Planned Parenthood has said "would determine the health and freedom of countless women's lives"— it was women both inside and outside the hearing who led the charge against Kavanaugh's ascension to the highest court in the land.

NARAL Pro-Choice America shared that its Missouri and Washington chapters' executive directors, Alison Dreith and Tiffany Hankins, were among the more than 30 protesters who were arrested for demonstrating inside the hearing room.

Continued: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/04/i-came-put-my-body-line-both-inside-and-outside-hearing-women-lead-fight-against