‘Dobbs did not break us’: How West Virginia’s Katie Quiñonez plans to keep helping women

Lindsay Schnell, USA TODAY
Mar 19, 2023

Katie Quiñonez is one of USA TODAY’s Women of the Year, a recognition of women who have made a significant impact in their communities and across the country. The program launched in 2022 as a continuation of Women of the Century, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Meet this year’s honorees at womenoftheyear.usatoday.com.

When the U.S. Supreme court overturned Roe v. Wade, the case guaranteeing women a constitutional right to abortion access, last summer, Katie Quiñonez felt utter devastation.

But heartbreak wasn’t the only emotion coursing through the executive director of the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia – she felt determination, too.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/life/2023/03/19/katie-quinonez-west-virginia-usa-today-women-year/11248803002/

19.03.2023

USA Today Women of the Year

Women's Health Center of West Virginia

The Abortion Clinics Staying Open in Hostile States

By Andrea González-Ramírez
AUG. 19, 2022

Earlier this year, Katie Quinonez, the executive director of Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, had her eyes on a vacant lot next door. Purchasing the lot would allow the state’s only abortion clinic, located in the city of Charleston, to expand. Quinonez says the owner of the lot rejected the clinic’s offer, however, because the local West Virginians for Life chapter had been renting it, and the owner wanted to give the anti-abortion group until the end of the year to raise enough money to buy the property.

It was a frustrating reminder of the logistical challenges the clinic would face if it were ever to close and later attempt to reopen. The overturn of Roe v. Wade opened the door to an imminent ban on abortion in the Mountain State, making it crucial for Quinonez to plan the clinic’s next act.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2022/08/the-abortion-clinics-staying-open-in-ban-states.html

Abortion clinics in embattled states face another challenge: Money

Many clinics must stop providing abortions or move. Either choice is costly.

By Max Zahn
August 15, 2022

When Katie Quinonez, the executive director of an abortion clinic in West Virginia, saw the Supreme Court decision that overturned the federal guarantee of the right to an abortion, the first word she uttered was an obscenity.

The nonprofit Women's Health Center of West Virginia, located in Charleston, faced the immediate risk of prosecution under a state abortion ban from 1882, so Quinonez and a coworker made 60 calls to patients canceling procedures scheduled for the ensuing three weeks, said Quinonez.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/abortion-clinics-embattled-states-face-challenge-money/story?id=87945089

Abortion clinic staff in U.S. struggle with mental health after Roe v. Wade overturn

By Leah Willingham, The Associated Press
July 3, 2022

Danielle Maness has squeezed the hands of hundreds of anxious patients lying on tables in the procedure room, now empty. She’s recorded countless vital signs and delivered scores of snacks to the recovery area, now silent.

Peering into each darkened room at West Virginia ‘s only abortion clinic, the chief nurse wondered whether she’d ever treat patients here for abortion care again.

https://globalnews.ca/news/8963779/abortion-clinic-staff-mental-health/

03.07.2022

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USA – Violence Against Abortion Providers and Patients Is Too Normal in This Country

The Right is only escalating its attacks on a safe health care procedure, and we are just letting it happen.

By Caitlin Cruz
3/17/22

Across the street from the last abortion clinic in West Virginia is a nearly acre-size vacant lot that’s been for sale for about two years. For its most recent 40-day prayer action at Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, an anti-abortion group rented out the lot, using it to erect a “cemetery” with paper crosses.

Now, the protesters own the lot. “It’s right across the street from our clinic. Where patients have to walk on the sidewalk to get into our front door, they’ve erected at least 10-, maybe 12-foot giant cross,” Katie Quiñonez, director of the clinic, told Jezebel. “It’s mental warfare, because what they’re trying to do is shame and guilt people who are seeking health care.”

Continued: https://jezebel.com/violence-against-abortion-providers-and-patients-is-too-1848628241

Red States Aren’t Waiting for the Supreme Court’s Roe Decision to Push New Abortion Bans

BY ABIGAIL ABRAMS
JANUARY 28, 2022

As the Supreme Court weighs the high-profile case that could unwind Roe v. Wade—and, with it, the Constitutional right to abortion—conservative state lawmakers are introducing a wave of new bills aimed at limiting abortion at the state level. While several states have introduced bills mimicking Texas’ controversial six-week abortion ban, at least three more—Florida, Arizona and West Virginia—are considering laws that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, modeled on the Mississippi law at the center of the Supreme Court case.

These bills directly violate the so-called viability standard set by Roe v. Wade, which states that women have the constitutional right to end pregnancies until the fetus is viable. But proponents are betting that the Supreme Court’s decision, which is expected before the end of June, will allow Mississippi’s 15-week ban to stand. They are arguing that the 15-week ban is a more reasonable alternative to the extreme, Texas-style laws that curtail access to abortion after about just six weeks.

Continued: https://time.com/6143345/15-week-abortion-ban-supreme-court/

Independent Abortion Clinics Are The Backbone of Reproductive Care in America

Non-Planned Parenthood providers are badly underfunded and under attack, and three in five patients are seeking abortions there.

By Caitlin Cruz
November 16, 2021

Ashley was pregnant and lived about an hour outside Wichita, Kansas. Workers at Trust Women in Kansas had gotten her as much funding for her abortion as possible, but she’d still have to shell out a couple hundred dollars herself. She kept cancelling appointments, and Rebecca Tong, now co-executive director of Trust Women in Oklahoma and Kansas, kept rescheduling her.

“We got to the very end of when we could see her, and I told her, ‘If we don’t see you at this appointment, we will not be able to see you at all, because of the arbitrary limits set in Kansas of 20 weeks,’” Tong told Jezebel.

Continued: https://jezebel.com/independent-abortion-clinics-are-the-backbone-of-reprod-1848067419

USA – Telemedicine options for abortion are here to stay

Through pandemic necessity, an ad-hoc, telehealth model for reproductive healthcare is sticking around.

By KYLIE CHEUNG
PUBLISHED JUNE 20, 2021

As much of the country prepares to return to some form of post-pandemic normalcy, reproductive health care providers and advocates hope we continue one vital pandemic tradition: telemedicine options for receiving and providing reproductive care from home.

Some researchers and providers have found offering medication abortion care via telehealth is crucial to bridging gaps in abortion access. Abortion medication care is safe and effective up to 10 weeks into one's pregnancy, and providers say that having a telehealth component to abortion care may even help establish greater medical trust and comfort for patients from marginalized communities seeking care.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2021/06/20/telehealth-abortion-access-pandemic/

USA – The Capitol Insurrection Was Fed by the Anti-Abortion Movement

BY Tina Vásquez, Prism
February 2, 2021

Reproductive justice advocate Jordyn Close watched with the rest of the nation on Jan. 6 as Donald Trump supporters invaded the Capitol. Some were outfitted in tactical gear and had zip ties at the ready. Others brought nooses and pitchforks and Confederate flags. The insurrectionists broke windows, ransacked lawmakers’ offices, and spread feces on the Capitol walls. By the end of it all, five people died.

The escalation from rhetoric to violence at the Capitol has shocked many Americans. Close, who works with Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity (URGE), is an abortion storyteller with We Testify, and who serves on the board of the abortion fund Women Have Options Ohio, is less surprised. Very early into the news coverage of the insurrection, Close saw a number of familiar faces. Overwhelmingly, these were white men who — when not trying to overthrow the government — spend a great deal of their time harassing people outside of abortion clinics.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/the-capitol-insurrection-was-fed-by-the-anti-abortion-movement/

02.02.2021

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USA – “I Am Honestly Scared to Death”: Small Abortion Clinics Are Fighting for Survival Over Trump’s New Abortion Rules

“I Am Honestly Scared to Death”: Small Abortion Clinics Are Fighting for Survival Over Trump’s New Abortion Rules
Independent abortion clinics' budgets were slashed after being driven from the only federal program dedicated to family planning.

by Carter Sherman
Sep 10 2019

After the Trump administration announced that providers who receive money from the nation’s only dedicated family planning program can’t refer people for abortions, Planned Parenthood made national headlines by leaving the program.

But while Planned Parenthood is anti-abortion activists’ biggest bogeyman, the bulk of American abortions are actually performed by small, independent abortion clinics. Those providers are also quietly leaving the Title X program — and without the name-brand recognition, political sway, or fundraising firepower of a national network, they’re fighting to keep their services cheap and available.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43k37d/i-am-honestly-scared-to-death-small-abortion-clinics-are-fighting-for-survival-over-trumps-new-abortion-rules