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9594 articles found

The Importance of Mental Health Exceptions in Abortion Restrictions

Excluding mental health conditions is likely to have downstream consequences.

Posted March 27, 2023
By A. Alban Foulser, M.A., and Sophie Arkin, M.A., on behalf of the Atlanta Behavioral Health Advocates

The ban on abortions after six weeks following the overturning of Roe v. Wade is an enormous threat to the reproductive freedom and well-being of Americans (Rahman & Fellow, 2022). Many states allow exceptions to abortion restrictions for severe health risks or medical emergencies (Schoenfeld Walker, 2023); however, in states such as Georgia, Nebraska, West Virginia, and Florida, mental health conditions are explicitly excluded from qualifying as such medical emergencies (Tanner, 2022).

This denial of mental illness as a legitimate reason to obtain an abortion is inconsistent with the biopsychosocial model of medicine, which considers the role of mental health, biology, and sociocultural factors such as generational racial trauma, poverty, and food insecurity on physical health (Engel, 1977).

Continued: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/outside-the-box/202303/the-importance-of-mental-health-exceptions-in-abortion-restrictions

27.03.2023

Research

A. Alban Foulser

Atlanta Behavioral Health Advocates

mental health and abortion

USA – Volunteer pilots fly patients seeking abortions to states where it’s legal

March 27, 2023
By Rose Conlon, NPR for Wichita

The pilot, clad in a blue windbreaker, recently pulled his single-engine, four-seater prop plane onto the tarmac of a small municipal airport.

The airport sits in a state where abortion is now banned in virtually all cases. But a short flight away in Kansas, abortion remains legal. That has launched a wave of travel from across the South and Midwest in pursuit of pills and procedures that used to be legal all across the U.S..

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/27/1166262892/volunteer-pilots-fly-patients-seeking-abortions-to-states-where-its-legal

27.03.2023

Midwest Action Coalition

Alleged Mass Abortion: Nigerian Army chief testifies as Human Rights Commission continues investigation

Reuters reported that the Nigerian military since 2013 carried out “a secret, systematic and illegal abortion program in the country’s northeast, ending at least 10,000 pregnancies."

By Ameh Ejekwonyilo
March 26, 2023

The Nigerian Army has formally dismissed a Reuters report of alleged mass abortion carried out by the military on victims of Boko Haram terrorism in the North-east.

The Chief of Army Staff, Farouk Yahaya, issued the denial Saturday in Abuja while testifying before a panel set up by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to investigate the matter.

Continued: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/590129-alleged-mass-abortion-nigerian-army-chief-testifies-as-human-rights-council-continues-investigation.html

26.03.2023

mass abortion program

National Human Rights Commission

Africa

Nigeria

Human Rights

Abortion clinics regroup, rebuild after violent attacks: ‘There’s more work to be done’

Christine Fernando, USA TODAY
March 25, 2023

As a detective led her through the charred remains of the clinic, Julie Burkhart was heartbroken. Everything was black and melted. The smell was overwhelming. Fire and smoke damage had engulfed the building from the basement to the attic.

“I knew then that we were going to have a long road ahead,” said Burkhart, president of Wellspring Health Access in Casper, Wyoming.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/03/25/abortion-clinics-violence-attacks-rebound-rebuilding/11484439002/

25.03.2023

anti-choice terrorism

anti-choice violence

Dr. Colleen McNicholas

Dr. David Gunn

Dr. George Tiller

Feminist Majority Foundation

National Abortion Federation

Patti Pace-Halpin

Planned Parenthood of Illinois

Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri

pro-life killings

pro-life violence

Trust Women clinic

Trust Women Foundation

Wellspring Health Access

States’ divisions on abortion widen after Roe overturned

By KIMBERLEE KRUESI and GEOFF MULVIHILL
March 25, 2023

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A group of Tennessee Republicans began this year’s legislative session hoping to add narrow exceptions to one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, armed with the belief that most people — even in conservative Tennessee — reject extremes on the issue.

Tennessee law requires doctors to prove in court that they were saving a woman’s life when they performed an abortion. Surely, the lawmakers thought, they could win concessions that would allow doctors to use their good faith judgment about when abortion is necessary to save a woman’s life. But after a key anti-abortion group stepped in, the lawmakers had to settle for a stricter legal standard that moves the needle very little.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-divide-republican-democratic-states-fd2e6fffffec2fdcf328d7bca1e6fd78

25.03.2023

states hostile to abortion

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America

Tennessee Right to Life

USA – What plaintiffs targeting abortion pill want might not even be possible

BY: SOFIA RESNICK
MARCH 25, 2023

At the center of the federal anti-abortion lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is the abortion drug mifepristone and the regimen that reportedly accounts for the majority of abortions in post-Roe America. That’s why the whole country is bracing itself for a ruling from a notoriously anti-abortion judge in Amarillo, Texas.

The attention and confusion around this case might end up being the most impactful aspects about it, as many legal scholars doubt the judge has the legal authority to do what plaintiffs are asking for, which boils down to forcing the FDA to essentially recall a drug that for two decades has maintained a record of efficacy and safety. But regardless of the lawsuit’s outcome, legal experts still think a ruling that even briefly or partially favors plaintiffs will likely have lasting consequences on U.S. abortion access and affect medication policy beyond abortion.

Continued: https://lailluminator.com/2023/03/25/what-plaintiffs-targeting-abortion-pill-want-might-not-even-be-possible/

The Latest Casualties of Idaho’s Abortion Ban: Babies

An entire obstetrics department shuttered. Give the Idaho GOP a round of applause!

Abigail Weinberg
March 25, 2023

An Idaho hospital is ending its labor and delivery services in the wake of a Texas-style, near-total abortion ban signed into state law last year.

Citing the state’s “legal and political climate,” Bonner General Health plans to stop delivering babies and providing other obstetrical services in mid-May, according to a press release. While the release doesn’t explicitly blame Idaho’s restrictive abortion laws for the decision, the implication is clear: “Highly respected, talented physicians are leaving,” it says, while the state legislature “continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care.”

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/03/the-latest-casualties-of-idahos-abortion-ban-babies/

25.03.2023

Commentary

Abigail Weinberg

American Medical Association

Bonner General Health

closure of maternity wards

As South bans abortion, thousands turn to Illinois clinics

By AMANDA SEITZ
Mar 25, 2023

FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS, Ill. (AP) — Dr. Colleen McNicholas is fresh off performing two abortions when a ringing phone quickly stops her.

“Oh, ugh,” she said, eyes widened, before she darted off to another room.

Just the day before, 58 women had abortions at the Fairview Heights’ Planned Parenthood clinic, 15 miles east of St. Louis. But the new day is still stacked with appointments; as many as 100 abortion and family planning patients might walk through the doors.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-bans-illinois-clinic-south-travel-demand-a30afcbd022cdeeb92b9aa5788421687

25.03.2023

Commentary

Alamo Clinic

Andrea Gallegos

Dr. Colleen McNicholas

Fairview Heights Planned Parenthood

Abortion Laws Stand Between Pregnant Texans and the Care They Need

Doctors are left to guess at whether helping their patients will land them in prison.

BY SARA HUTCHINSON
MARCH 24, 2023

Doctors have a code, a set of principles meant to guide their practice: Give care. Act justly. Respect patients. Do no harm. But for Texas doctors, especially obstetrician-gynecologists, following those seemingly straightforward principles has become a legal and ethical minefield.

Physicians are finding themselves torn between providing medically appropriate care and staying in compliance with the state’s draconian anti-abortion laws. The stakes couldn’t be higher: risking major fines and up to life in prison for doctors on one side, and on the other, often putting women’s lives at risk because of delays in care or refusals to provide formerly routine procedures. As a result, medical decisions regarding pregnancy complications now involve a host of new stakeholders—hospital administrators and lawyers—who may put questions of institutional risk above patient well-being.

Continued: https://prospect.org/health/2023-03-24-abortion-laws-pregnant-texans/

Punishable by death—how the US anti-abortion movement ended up proposing the death penalty

These proposals are unlikely to succeed but remind Americans what is at stake, writes Rebecca Kluchin

BMJ 2023; 380 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.p711
Published 24 March 2023
Rebecca Kluchin, professor

In January 2023, 24 Republican legislators in the US state of South Carolina sponsored the South Carolina Equal Protection Act of 2023, a bill designed to extend constitutional rights to embryos and fetuses at all stages of development, granting them equality with women already born.1 The bill makes women and pregnant people who undergo abortion subject to the state’s homicide laws and punishments, including the death penalty. It allows exceptions if they face “imminent death or great bodily injury,” as well as to save the life of the mother, but not for rape or incest.

The anti-abortion movement celebrated a huge victory last summer when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. With the ruling for Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court threw abortion policy back to the judgment of individual states, making access to abortion care contingent on where one lives. Since then, 14 states have criminalised abortion.2 South Carolina legislators attempted to ban the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, but the state supreme court ruled that effort unconstitutional in January. The Equal Protection Act is one of several legislative efforts to ban the procedure again.

Continued: https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p711