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How close to death must a woman be to get an abortion in Tennessee?

The strictest abortion law in the US doesn’t allow exceptions for medical emergencies – and efforts to change it face powerful opposition from the right

Stephanie Kirchgaessner
Mon 20 Mar 2023

Months after the implementation of the most stringent abortion ban in the country, conservative lawmakers in Tennessee have publicly acknowledged that the state’s ban poses grave risks to the lives of women.

Now a political debate over how to change the law is centered on questions that would have been considered unthinkable before last June’s reversal of Roe v Wade: like how close to death a woman must be before a doctor may legally treat her if it means terminating her pregnancy, and whether women should be forced to carry embryos with fatal anomalies to term.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/20/tennessee-abortion-ban-strictist-in-us


Gender equality isn’t possible without abortion and contraception

Access to reproductive health protects women and girls, uplifts them and allows them to prosper.

Banchiamlack Dessalegn, Africa Director at MSI Reproductive Choices
Published On 18 Mar 2023

It is Women’s History Month and the world is bursting with proclamations of support for gender equality and women’s rights. But too often, the general narrative celebrating historical progress on gender issues leaves out abortion and contraception, sidelining the fact that without them, gender equality would have been – and still is – impossible.

This year, millions of women and girls will be denied access to abortion, forced to carry unintended pregnancies to term or resort to unsafe termination. Abortion continues to be unjustly restricted across the world, most recently in the United States, where new state bans are being introduced with the Supreme Court’s decision to rescind the legal protection of abortion established in the 1970s.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/3/18/gender-equality-isnt-possible-without-abortion-and-contraception


Nepal – Decrminalise abortion: Rights activists

By Ram Kumar Kamat
Mar 18, 2023

Kathmandu – Article 38(2) of the constitution ensures the right of every woman to safe motherhood and reproductive health thereby acknowledging the right to safe abortion as part of reproductive health right, but in practice, women have not been able to enjoy this right, due to criminalisation of abortion and a number of restrictive measures.

Executive Director of Forum for Women, Law and Development Sabin Shrestha said Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights Act, which was brought to enable women to enjoy their reproductive health rights, conversely prohibited abortion after 28 weeks of pregnancy.

Continued: https://thehimalayantimes.com/sports/decrminalise-abortion-rights-activists


Professional Herbalists Explain Why Social Media Isn’t the Place to Discuss Herbal Abortions

Sam Manzella
March 18, 2023

When Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that safeguarded abortion access in the United States for nearly 50 years, was overturned last June, herbalist Sarah Corbett of Rowan + Sage wasn’t surprised. “The writing was on the wall for years, if not decades,” she says, citing Black and indigenous activists and healers who sounded alarms while Roe was still the law of the land.

What did shock Corbett was that, in the wake of Roe’s reversal, she and virtually every herbalist she knows received a deluge of direct messages asking them to share information about herbal abortions on social media. It’s a “big ethical battleground” in the herbalism community, she explains. “I can't speak for everyone, but most herbalists hold an ideal of trying not to harm people. And [talking about herbal abortion online] could legitimately cause harm.”

Continued: https://www.wellandgood.com/herbal-abortion/


Are Texas’s abortion laws being used for state-sponsored spousal harassment?

A Texas man is suing his ex-wife’s friends for helping her get an abortion – whether he wins or not, the lawsuit is sending a terrifying message to women
18 Mar 2023
Arwa Mahdawi

Meet Jonathan Mitchell. The former solicitor general of Texas is not a household name but you’ll be familiar with his work. He’s the architect of the dystopian Texas law that lets private citizens act as vigilantes and sue abortion providers or anyone who “aids or abets” the procedure. As the New York Times noted in a 2021 profile of Mitchell, he’s devoted much of the past decade to “honing a largely below-the-radar strategy of writing laws deliberately devised to make it much more difficult for the judicial system – particularly the supreme court – to thwart them.” In other words: he’s brilliant at finding sneaky ways to inflict his beliefs on everyone else. And he appears to have made it his life’s work to weaponize the law to terrorize and control women.

Mitchell’s latest project is representing a Texas man called Marcus Silva who is currently suing his ex-wife’s friends for helping her get an abortion. Silva is demanding more than $1m in damages from each of the two friends his ex-wife talked and texted with when she planned her abortion as well as the woman who provided abortion pills. He’s also planning to sue the manufacturer of the abortion pills.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/18/are-texass-abortion-laws-being-used-for-state-sponsored-spousal-harassment


The doctors suing Texas over abortion access

By SYDNEY GOLD, Politico
03/17/2023

Last year, Dr. Judy Levison, an OBGYN in Houston, was offering routine counseling to a pregnant patient about screenings, explaining how she could check for spinal cord or chromosomal abnormalities in the fetus. She told her patient that while not everyone wants to know about abnormalities in their pregnancy, others do in case they’ll need to prepare for any health issues or, depending on the prognosis, even end the pregnancy.

“As I got to the word ‘abortion,’ you know, ending a pregnancy, I suddenly stopped and said, ‘Oh my, I can’t offer abortion anymore, and my patients tend to be low income, and going out of state is really not an option,’” said Levison. “I suddenly felt like somebody had literally tied my hands behind my back.” Levison ultimately decided to stop seeing patients after nearly 40 years in practice, citing Dobbs as a contributing factor.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/women-rule/2023/03/17/the-doctors-suing-texas-over-abortion-access-00087608


If You Want to Know What Republicans Think About How Americans Feel, Ask Walgreens

March 17, 2023
By Mary Ziegler

The corporate culture wars have reached a turning point: A number of companies that once championed social justice and equity seem to be beating a hasty retreat.

Walgreens is trapped in a political firestorm. The pharmacy chain, which had sought certification so its stores could fill prescriptions for the abortion medication mifepristone, announced last week that it will not dispense the pill in the 21 states where Republican attorneys general have threatened legal action. Walgreens, which said it came to this conclusion before the threats began, won’t dispense the drug in several G.O.P.-controlled states where abortion remains legal. There was a swift backlash, with Gov. Gavin Newsom announcing that California would not renew a multimillion-dollar contract with Walgreens and others calling for a nationwide boycott. The hashtag #boycottwalgreens has taken off on Twitter.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/17/opinion/walgreens-abortion-pill-attorneys-general-states.html


USA – The sole US supplier of a major abortion pill said it would not distribute the drug in 31 states

A list circulated in January by the distributor to Walgreens and CVS underscores the uncertainty surrounding abortion pills in the post-Roe era.

By Rachel M. Cohen
Updated Mar 17, 2023

Earlier this month, Politico broke news that Walgreens, the nation’s second-largest pharmacy chain, assured 21 Republican attorneys general that it would not dispense abortion pills in their states should the company be approved to dispense them. The decision was met with sharp protest by Walgreens customers, abortion rights activists, and Democrats, who accused the pharmacy of caving needlessly to pressure.

But fear of state prosecution is not the only factor shaping Walgreens’ decision-making. Another previously unreported constraint on the company is that its sole supplier of Mifeprex — the brand-name drug for the abortion pill mifepristone first approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2000 — circulated a list to its corporate clients in January naming 31 states that it would not supply the abortion medication to. Vox spoke with two sources who had reviewed that list recently.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/3/15/23639267/walgreens-abortion-pill-mifepristone-mifeprex-misoprostol


South Africa – TMH now offers reproductive health care, including safe and legal abortion services

The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy guidelines estimated at least 50% of all abortions were still done by informal, illegal and unsafe providers.

March 17, 2023
Fanie Mthupha 

Finally, the Tambo Memorial Hospital boasts a Women’s Health Clinic after not having had the service for decades.

The newly opened clinic, to be officially launched today, is located within the institution, and offers, among other things, family planning, choice on termination of pregnancy (CTOP) services and post-termination of pregnancy care services, which include counselling by a psychologist or social worker to ensure clients cope with post-termination issues.

Continued: https://boksburgadvertiser.co.za/464580/tmh-now-offers-reproductive-health-care-including-safe-and-legal-abortion-services/


A woman convicted in Poland for aiding abortion says she did what was right

NPR | By Ari Shapiro, Matt Ozug, Karen Zamora
Published March 17, 2023
Podcast interview - 5:25 mins

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Poland's abortion laws are some of the most restrictive in Europe. Abortion is almost entirely illegal. Helping someone end a pregnancy can lead to jail time. One year ago, we first heard from an activist in Poland - the first woman to face criminal charges under Polish abortion law for helping a woman in an abusive relationship obtain abortion pills.

JUSTYNA WYDRZYNSKA: She was begging us, please help me somehow.

SHAPIRO: Well, this week, Justyna Wydrzynska received her sentence. A judge in Warsaw gave her eight months of community service. And she joins us now. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

WYDRZYNSKA: Thank you. Thank you for invitation.

Continued: https://www.vpm.org/npr-news/npr-news/2023-03-17/a-woman-convicted-in-poland-for-aiding-abortion-says-she-did-what-was-right