USA – Why Hospitals in Many States With Legal Abortion May Refuse To Perform Them

By Rachana Pradhan
MARCH 5, 2024

Many states that tout themselves as protectors of reproductive health care, including California, Michigan and Pennsylvania, have little-noticed laws on the books protecting hospitals that refuse to provide it.

The laws shield at least some hospitals from liability for not providing care they object to on religious grounds, leaving little recourse for patients. The providers — many of them Catholic hospitals — generally refuse to perform abortions and sterilizations because the services run contrary to their religious beliefs, but their objections can extend to other kinds of care.

Continued: https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/health-202-catholic-hospitals-legal-abortion-refusal/

A crucial abortion access lifeline is hanging by a thread

Independent clinics across the US exist precariously in a post-Roe world. Bronx Abortion's sudden closure left a borough of 1.4 million in the lurch.

Trisha Mukherjee
Mar 3, 2024

Around dawn on any given Saturday morning in 2022, the sidewalk in front of the squat building that housed Bronx Abortion transformed into a tense ecosystem of people with signs, masks, rosaries, and colorful vests.

Anti-abortion protestors gathered outside the small, independent clinic in Morris Park to disrupt the women who sought its services. Chelsea, the clinic escort coordinator, would wake up at 4:15 to get to the clinic before it opened. By the time she arrived, the protestors usually had, too.

Continued: https://www.businessinsider.com/independent-abortion-clinic-crucial-endangered-bronx-abortion-2024-3

USA – Inside the Internal Debates of a Hospital Abortion Committee

In states that banned abortion, doctors are forced to wrestle with tough decisions about high-risk pregnancy care. “I don’t want to have a patient die and be responsible for it,” one Tennessee doctor said.

by Kavitha Surana
Feb. 26, 2024

Sitting at her computer one day in late December, Dr. Sarah Osmundson mustered her best argument to approve an abortion for a suffering patient.

The woman was 14 weeks pregnant when she learned her fetus was developing without a skull. This increased the likelihood of a severe buildup of amniotic fluid, which could cause her uterus to rupture and possibly kill her. Osmundson, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who helps patients navigate high-risk pregnancies, knew that outcome was uncommon, but she had seen it happen.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/abortion-doctor-decisions-hospital-committee

Abortions Later in Pregnancy in a Post-Dobbs Era

Ivette Gomez, Alina Salganicoff, and Laurie Sobel - KFF
Published: Feb 21, 2024

Abortions occurring at or after 21 weeks gestational age are rare. They are often difficult to obtain, as they are only available in a handful of states, performed by a small subset of abortion providers and are typically costly and time-intensive. Yet, these abortions receive a disproportionate share of attention in the news, policy and the law.

…This brief explains why individuals may seek abortions later in pregnancy, how often these procedures occur, and the various laws which regulate access to abortions later in pregnancy across the country.

Continued: https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/abortions-later-in-pregnancy-in-a-post-dobbs-era/

21.02.2024

Research

abortions after 20 weeks

Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Advancing together towards abortion access and quality care

19 February 2024
FIGO - Hannah Agnew, Senior Communications and Marketing Coordinator

A new supplement published in the International Journal of Gynecology (IJGO) describes the remarkable progress made in abortion access in crucial areas, such as law and policy reforms, improved access to information and supportive health systems and communities.

This compilation of positive case studies brings together examples from diverse regions, such as England and Wales, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Argentina and India.

Continued: https://www.figo.org/news/advancing-together-towards-abortion-access-and-quality-care-0

19.02.2024

Research

FIGO

Hannah Agnew

International Journal of Gynecology

Global

Clinical

Health

The increasing difficulties of getting an abortion in Italy

This long article is behind a paywall, but the first part is available.

Women wishing to terminate a pregnancy are facing many hurdles and social disapproval, raising the wrath of feminists.

By Raphaëlle Rérolle
Feb 13, 2024

To find their way around the San Filippo Neri Hospital, women who want an abortion had better be able to read between the lines. The abortion service does exist. It's mentioned, among all the others, at the entrance to this large Rome establishment, located to the northwest of the capital. But then, poof, the name disappears. Once past the entrance hall, visitors are greeted by a single A4 sheet of paper. Plastered against a wall, the sign reads "gynecological surgery" in large letters, then, in brackets and in smaller type, "law 194/78". It is by this number, followed by the year of its adoption, that the legislation authorizing abortion in Italy is commonly referred to. For the acronym IVG (interruzione volontaria di gravidanza) to reappear, you have to wait for the service's door. The head of the department, Marina Marceca, said she again had to fight for this, against the views of the very Catholic director of this public hospital, who was bothered by the designation.

Continued: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/02/14/the-increasing-difficulties-of-getting-an-abortion-in-italy_6522839_4.html

13.02.2024

Commentary

Marina Marceca

San Filippo Neri Hospital

Post-Roe v. Wade, more patients rely on early prenatal testing as states toughen abortion laws

by: LAURA UNGAR and AMANDA SEITZ, Associated Press
Feb 12, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — In Utah, more of Dr. Cara Heuser’s maternal-fetal medicine patients are requesting early ultrasounds, hoping to detect serious problems in time to choose whether to continue the pregnancy or have an abortion.

In North Carolina, more obstetrics patients of Dr. Clayton Alfonso and his colleagues are relying on early genetic screenings that don’t provide a firm diagnosis.

The reason? New state abortion restrictions mean the clock is ticking.

Continued: https://www.westernslopenow.com/news/national-news/ap-post-roe-v-wade-more-patients-rely-on-early-prenatal-testing-as-states-toughen-abortion-laws/

Maryland – A safe haven for late abortions

At a clinic in Maryland, desperate patients arrive from all over the country to terminate their pregnancies.

Photographs by Maggie Shannon
February 5, 2024

For several years, Morgan Nuzzo, a nurse-midwife, and her friend and colleague Diane Horvath, an ob-gyn, talked about opening a clinic that would provide abortions in all trimesters of pregnancy. In May, 2022, the draft opinion of the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade was leaked, infusing their plan with fresh urgency. The women had launched a GoFundMe campaign earlier that spring, noting that stand-alone clinics made up the majority of providers offering abortion after fifteen weeks, and that many of these had closed in recent years. Within weeks, Nuzzo and Horvath had raised more than a hundred thousand dollars; that summer, they started training employees for the new clinic, Partners in Abortion Care, in College Park, Maryland. They saw their first patient that October, and by the end of 2023 they had treated nearly five hundred. The youngest was eleven years old, the oldest fifty-three.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/02/12/a-safe-haven-for-late-abortions

USA – Do women still have a right to stabilizing abortion care under federal law?

BY MICHAEL J. DELL, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
02/02/24

Almost two years ago, the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that had been recognized for almost 50 years.

Now, in Moyle v. United States, the court has strongly hinted that it is ready to eliminate the limited statutory protection for patients who need emergency abortions under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which was enacted by Congress in 1986.

Continued: https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/4444695-do-women-still-have-a-right-to-stabilizing-abortion-care-under-federal-law/

02.02.2024

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act

EMTALA

Michael J. Dell

Moyle v. United States

USA – Study: Abortion Bans Creating OBGYN Crisis

Docs in anti-choice states are depressed, scared, and getting worse

JESSICA VALENTI
FEB 1, 2024

A new study shows that abortion bans have created an “occupational health crisis” for OBGYNs in anti-choice states, 93% of whom report that they or a colleague have been unable to follow standards of care because of abortion laws.

Researchers from Harvard’s School of Public Health, Boston College, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, report “deep and pervasive impacts” not just on patient outcomes—but physicians’ own health, and on state workforce sustainability.

Continued: https://jessica.substack.com/p/study-abortion-bans-creating-obgyn

01.02.2024