Lawsuit over Texas abortion ban could be a model in other states

BY: DAVID MONTGOMERY
AUGUST 2, 2023

AUSTIN, Texas — A lawsuit in Texas asserting that the state’s abortion ban imperils women by dissuading doctors from ending dangerous pregnancies could provide a template for similar challenges across the country.

Texas is one of 14 states that banned abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. The Texas ban includes an exception that allows physicians to end a pregnancy if it could result in the death of the woman or a “substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”

Continued: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/08/02/lawsuit-over-texas-abortion-ban-could-be-a-model-in-other-states/


Texas advocates file new legal challenge to near-total abortion ban

Lawsuit asks court to rule SB 8 unconstitutional, citing public threats and legal action from anti-abortion activists

Mary Tuma
Tue 19 Apr 2022

Reproductive rights advocates in Texas have filed a new legal challenge to halt a near-total abortion ban that has been in effect for more than half a year.

Senate Bill 8 bars abortion once embryonic cardiac activity is detected – typically as early as six week of pregnancy, which is before most people are aware they are pregnant – and offers no exception for rape or incest. The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, asks a federal court to rule the extreme law unconstitutional. It cites public threats and legal action from anti-abortion activists against Texas abortion funds, groups that have been instrumental in helping patients travel out of state for care, arguing that this conduct has chilled their first amendment rights.

Continued:  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/19/texas-abortion-ban-senate-bill8-legal-challenge


Texas Is the Future of Abortion in America

March 6, 2022
By Mary Tuma

For half a year, Roe v. Wade — the 1973 Supreme Court decision that guarantees abortion rights for all Americans — has been effectively moot in the second largest state in the country, home to about 10 percent of the nation’s reproductive-age women.

On Sept. 1, the Supreme Court allowed Texas Senate Bill 8 to go into effect — the most restrictive abortion law to do so in the United States since Roe. There’s a good chance that Texans will not see their reproductive rights restored any time soon — because Roe itself could be overturned or gutted before the fate of S.B. 8 is resolved in the courts.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/opinion/abortion-texas-sb-8-roe-v-wade.html


The Texas Pastor Preaching About Abortion Rights Amelia Fulbright has been taking a stand for years.

More and more clergy are joining her.

By Amelia Schonbek
NOV. 15, 2021

Reverend Amelia Fulbright has helped her congregants navigate all sorts of questions in the 13 years she has been an ordained minister. She has talked with them about whether they should move cities or change jobs or go on birth control or divorce their spouse. She has helped them figure out how to talk to their conservative families about being trans. They’ve asked her what to do if you think you no longer believe in God. They’ve asked her how to handle the sensitive communication required in polyamorous relationships. But never has a member of her church asked her to help them think through whether to end a pregnancy.

Fulbright gets it. She knows that the stereotypical Christian pastor is far more likely to be imagined protesting an abortion clinic than blessing it. But Fulbright, who is in her early 40s, is not a stereotypical pastor.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2021/11/texas-pastor-preaching-about-abortion-rights.html


“Like a Mad Max Movie plot”: Confronting the Texas Abortion Ban

Whole Woman’s Health’s Amy Hagstrom Miller and former politician Wendy Davis parse this week’s stunning SCOTUS decision—and the future for Texas women.

BY JOE HAGAN AND EMILY JANE FOX
SEPTEMBER 3, 2021
(1 hour, 12 minute podcast)

In the wake of the shocking Supreme Court move that has allowed Texas to effectively ban abortion, cohost Joe Hagan conducts back-to-back interviews with Amy Hagstrom Miller, of Whole Woman’s Health, which operates abortion clinics in Texas, and Wendy Davis, a veteran of Texas politics and founder of Deeds Not Words, a nonprofit committed to gender equality. Addressing the law and its ramifications for women, Miller and Davis bring front-line news and historical context to this demoralizing moment in the yearslong battle for women’s reproductive rights. They also consider the political fallout and offer ideas for a path forward in what is sure to be a long and rocky road ahead.

Continued: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/09/confronting-the-texas-abortion-ban


USA – Abortion Fight Evolves, Overshadowed in 2020 but With Huge Stakes

Anti-abortion groups hope to keep Americans voting Republican despite anger at leaders’ handling of the coronavirus, race and the economy. Abortion-rights groups say the issues are all linked.

By Maggie Astor
Aug. 18, 2020

It would be difficult to overstate the significance of this year’s elections for the future of abortion in America. The results could eventually determine whether Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court or codified by Congress.

Normally, stakes that high would make abortion a primary focus of the 2020 campaign. But normally, the country wouldn’t be experiencing a pandemic, a recession and a civil rights movement all at once. On Night 1 of the Democratic National Convention, the sum total of the attention abortion received was the second it took Kamala Harris to say “reproductive justice” in a video montage.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/politics/abortion-2020-election.html


USA – How Abortion Storytellers Feel About Michelle Williams’ Golden Globes Speech

How Abortion Storytellers Feel About Michelle Williams’ Golden Globes Speech
Actress Michelle Williams highlighted that parenting and choosing abortion are not mutually exclusive. Her speech comes at a critical juncture for abortion rights in the United States.

Jan 7, 2020
Aimee Arrambide, Jordyn Close & Sarah Lopez

During Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards, actress Michelle Williams used her win for best actress in a limited series to emphasize the power of supporting working women in all aspects of their lives, including being able to choose what to do with a pregnancy.

Williams, pregnant with her second child, told the audience that winning the award meant they were “acknowledging the choices” actors make, including “the education they pursued, the training they sought, the hours they put in.” Her speech then pivoted to talk about “choices” as they relate to pregnancy, and alluded to the #MeToo movement in Hollywood and the power of voting rights:

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2020/01/07/how-abortion-storytellers-feel-about-michelle-williams-golden-globes-speech/


The downfall of Roe v. Wade started in 2010

The downfall of Roe v. Wade started in 2010
Abortion access in America hangs by a thread. The unraveling began a decade ago.

By Anna North
Dec 23, 2019

This year, five states passed laws banning abortion before most people know they’re pregnant. Alabama passed a ban on the procedure at any stage of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest. In Ohio, lawmakers introduced a bill that would create a crime called “abortion murder,” punishable by life in prison.

For many, restrictions like these would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. But as we look ahead to 2020, the anti-abortion movement could be on the brink of its biggest success yet: dismantling the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2019/12/23/21024312/abortion-laws-2019-ohio-georgia-roe-wade


USA – The Last Decade Was Disastrous For Abortion Rights. Advocates Are Trying To Figure Out What’s Next.

The Last Decade Was Disastrous For Abortion Rights. Advocates Are Trying To Figure Out What’s Next.
This year, the battle over abortion rights reached a fever pitch. That’s what this entire decade was building toward.

Ema O'Connor BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on December 17, 2019

As the decade draws to a close, the national right to abortion is in the most vulnerable place it’s been in decades.

Since 2010, hundreds of laws restricting abortion access have been enacted all over the country, making the procedure less attainable and forcing abortion clinics to close. The US has gone from having around 1,720 facilities that perform abortions in 2011 to 1,587 in 2017 (the last year reproductive rights group Guttmacher Institute surveyed). As of this year, there are six states with only one abortion clinic left. Twenty-five abortion bans were signed into law in 2019 alone, leading to nationwide protests. Though all, so far, have been blocked by the courts, a major fight over abortion rights at the Supreme Court is yet to come.

Continued: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emaoconnor/abortion-rights-decade-bans-trump-kavanaugh-planned


USA – The First Time Women Shouted Their Abortions

The First Time Women Shouted Their Abortions
Fifty years ago, a group of women stood up in a church and talked about ending their pregnancies. The way they did so still shapes how we discuss the topic today.

By Nona Willis Aronowitz
March 23, 2019

You couldn’t just casually threaten suicide — you had to sound like you meant it, the woman onstage recalled. “You have to go and bring a razor, or whatever: ‘If you don’t tell me I’m going to have an abortion right now, I’m going to go out and jump off the Verrazzano Bridge.’”

The woman was speaking in 1969. Legalized abortion nationwide was still four years away; in New York, so-called therapeutic abortions were legal — but only if a doctor judged you mentally unfit to have a child. And so, the woman explained, she ended up seeing two psychiatrists who, to her relief, deemed her suicide threats real enough to be granted the procedure. The crowd clapped and roared at the absurdity of it all, until the woman explained that after her abortion, she was stuck in the maternity ward to recover — right next to crying babies. The crowd wasn’t laughing anymore.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/opinion/sunday/abortion-speakout-anniversary.html