Opinion: This law from the 1870s could imperil abortion in blue states

Opinion by Mary Ziegler
Fri January 27, 2023

Since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in June, promising strategies have emerged to protect abortion rights in individual states. Some have begun to pass ballot initiatives to preserve or create state constitutional protection. Others have looked to legislatures to shield doctors and those who help people seeking abortion from potential consequences in conservative states.

These wins are hardly a silver bullet: not all states allow ballot initiatives and there are any number of states where majorities of voters seem to support abortion rights but are governed by legislators who want to ban the procedure—a result of deep partisan divides, gerrymandering and limits on access to the vote.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/27/opinions/abortion-at-risk-in-blue-states-ziegler-ctrp/index.html

27.01.2023

Featured

Opinion

abortion pills

Alliance Defending Freedom

N.B. health workers launch abortion care network on Morgentaler anniversary

Lyndsay Armstrong The Canadian Press
January 26, 2023

Health-care providers in New Brunswick are launching a new abortion services network ahead of Saturday’s 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Morgentaler decision.

The New Brunswick Abortion Care Network’s 20 founding members _ who are in nursing, pharmacy, family medicine and obstetrics _ aim to increase access to and awareness of provincial abortion care, said Martha Paynter, a nursing professor and spokesperson for the new group.

Continued: https://q107.com/news/9438959/n-b-health-workers-launch-abortion-care-network-on-morgentaler-anniversary/

26.01.2023

New Brunswick Abortion Care Network

Canada

Activism

Health

UK facing crisis point in abortion provision, experts say

Women said to be travelling hundreds of miles for appointments or waiting several weeks

Lucy Hough and Hannah Moore
Thu 26 Jan 2023

The UK is facing a “crisis point” in abortion provision, experts say, with rising demand and restricted access to care in many areas putting unprecedented pressure on struggling NHS services.

Healthcare professionals described a “terrifying” state of affairs in which women are travelling hundreds of miles for appointments or waiting several weeks before they are seen.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/26/uk-facing-crisis-point-in-abortion-provision-experts-say

26.01.2023

Featured

News

Bpas

British Pregnancy Advisory Service

Clare Murphy

Jonathan Lord

MSI Reproductive Choices

Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

Tracey Masters

travelling for abortion

Europe

United Kingdom

Health

141 million unintended pregnancies prevented in 2022 – report

The report said there is a steady rise in contraceptive use among women

by SELINA TEYIE
26 January 2023

In 2022, over 141 million unintended pregnancies were prevented in low and lower-middle-income countries due to the use of contraception.

This is according to an analysis by Family Planning 2030, which released a report on Wednesday looking at their measurement of family planning uptake in 2022.

Continued: https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/realtime/2023-01-26-141-million-unintended-pregnancies-prevented-in-2022-report/

26.01.2023

family planning programs

Disabled 14-year-old rape victim refused abortion in Poland by hospitals in her province

JAN 25, 2023
Notes from Poland

A 14-year-old disabled girl who became pregnant as a result of rape was refused an abortion by hospitals in her province, forcing her to travel across the country to the capital, Warsaw, to obtain a termination.

While doctors in Poland are allowed to refuse to perform an abortion under a so-called “conscience clause”, hospitals are required to inform patients where they can obtain a legal termination. In this case it appears that did not happen.

Continued: https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/01/25/disabled-14-year-old-rape-victim-refused-abortion-in-poland-by-hospitals-in-her-province/

Undercover in US-Backed Anti-Abortion Clinics in Uganda

VICE News
Jan 25, 2023
17:06 minute video

VICE News goes undercover in Uganda to investigate misinformation and coercion inside the American-backed centers that are convincing teenagers to keep their pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCzqEXa2SrI

USA – New lawsuits target state restrictions on abortion pills

Wed, January 25, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supporters of abortion rights filed separate lawsuits Wednesday challenging two states' abortion pill restrictions, the opening salvo in what’s expected to a be a protracted legal battle over access to the medications.

The lawsuits argue that limits on the drugs in North Carolina and West Virginia run afoul of the federal authority of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which has approved the abortion pill as a safe and effective method for ending pregnancy.

Continued: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/lawsuits-target-state-restrictions-abortion-171454321.html

El Salvador – How total abortion ban puts maternal health at risk

Study finds high rates of serious complications among Salvadoran patients who were forced to carry severely malformed fetuses to term

BY Nikki Rojas, Harvard Staff Writer
January 25, 2023

Pregnant patients in El Salvador, who, under the nation’s abortion ban, had no choice but to carry fetuses with severe malformations to term, experienced high rates of maternal morbidity, according to new research by Harvard sociologist Jocelyn Viterna and two partner Salvadoran physicians. The study, which examined 239 pregnancies with one of 18 malformations typically considered fatal between 2013 and 2018, appears in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Global Reports.

In explaining why they took up their research, Viterna and co-authors Carolina Mena Ugarte and María Virginia Rodríguez Funes, wrote that a “striking number of national and subnational governments that previously allowed legal abortion in cases of severe fetal anomaly” had passed laws to remove the allowances, but that little was known about the maternal health implications.

Continued: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/how-total-abortion-ban-puts-maternal-health-at-risk/

25.01.2023

María Virginia Rodríguez Funes

National Women’s Hospital

How are Wisconsin women doing under the 1849 abortion ban?

Not so well, say doctors
Ruth Conniff
JANUARY 24, 2023

…. In the 13 states including Wisconsin with abortion bans on the books, women are three times more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, or shortly after giving birth, according to a report by the Gender Equity Institute. “These are preventable deaths,” says Dr. Kristen Lyerly, an obstetrician/gynecologist from Green Bay and a plaintiff in Attorney General Josh Kaul’s lawsuit against the 1849 ban. Babies born in states that have banned abortion are also 30% more likely to die in their first month of life. So much for the “pro-life” utopia.

Continued: https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2023/01/24/how-are-wisconsin-women-doing-under-the-1849-abortion-ban/

24.01.2023

News

Committee to Protect Health Care

The Abortion Pill’s Secret Money Men

The untold story of the private equity investors behind Mifeprex—and their escalating legal battle to cash in post-Dobbs.

HANNAH LEVINTOVA
Mother Jones, MARCH+APRIL 2023 ISSUE

In 1993, a group of activists rented a warehouse in suburban Westchester County, New York. It was smaller than they’d hoped and had limited ventilation, but the two other locations they’d tried to rent belonged to universities and required jumping through too many bureaucratic hoops—the exact sort of paper trail this group was trying to avoid.

Led by renowned pro-choice activist Lawrence Lader, their goal was to replicate RU-486, the revolutionary abortion pill developed in the 1980s by French manufacturer Roussel-Uclaf—which was unwilling to navigate American abortion politics to bring the pill stateside.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/01/abortion-pill-mifepristone-mifeprex-roe-dobbs-private-equity/