My abortion story: For International Safe Abortion Day, 15 women share their experiences

SEP 28, 2021
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières

Abortion is a common experience—people of all ages, ethnicities, nationalities, and religions decide to end their pregnancies for various reasons. Yet in many places across the globe, people who have abortions face harmful stereotypes, blame, and social stigma.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) provides safe abortion care and also treats people for the consequences of unsafe abortion, a leading cause of maternal mortality. In 2020, MSF teams provided more than 30,000 safe abortions in our health care facilities around the world. When our teams talk to people who are deciding to have an abortion, we often hear their personal stories. To mark International Safe Abortion Day, September 28, we want to help break abortion stigma by sharing some first-person stories from women in the places where MSF works. We hear from women all over the world—from Colombia to Democratic Republic of Congo, Greece to India—including students, midwives, and people with and without children.

Continued: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/news-stories/story/my-abortion-story

28.09.2021

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Abortion-Rights Organizations Are Working Overtime In Texas As SB8 Remains In Place

September 19, 2021

NPR Radio, 5-Minute Listen

Transcript
Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with Rosann Mariapurram, executive director of Jane's Due Process, a grassroots organization in Texas that helps people under 18 access abortion care.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:
Texas' controversial abortion law is still on the books after another judge refused to block it last week. That law prohibits terminations after about six weeks, even in the case of incest and rape, and it allows private citizens to sue abortion providers or anyone else who helps a woman break the law and gives them money if they win. What effect is that having on the ground in Texas now? Rosann Mariappuram is the executive director of Jane's Due Process, a grassroots organization in Texas that helps teens access safe abortion care, and she joins us now. Hello.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/19/1038681772/abortion-rights-organizations-are-working-overtime-in-texas-as-sb8-remains-in-pl

The Right-Wing Divisions Over Texas’s Abortion Law

SEPT. 16, 2021
By Irin Carmon and Benjamin Hart

Though Texas’s strict new abortion rule seemed like a blueprint for its red-state brethren, the path forward is a bit more complicated.

I spoke with senior writer Irin Carmon about why the law is dividing some conservatives — and why all the anti-abortion factions might wind up satisfied in the end.

Continued: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/09/the-right-wing-divisions-over-texass-abortion-law.html

“Like a Mad Max Movie plot”: Confronting the Texas Abortion Ban

Whole Woman’s Health’s Amy Hagstrom Miller and former politician Wendy Davis parse this week’s stunning SCOTUS decision—and the future for Texas women.

BY JOE HAGAN AND EMILY JANE FOX
SEPTEMBER 3, 2021
(1 hour, 12 minute podcast)

In the wake of the shocking Supreme Court move that has allowed Texas to effectively ban abortion, cohost Joe Hagan conducts back-to-back interviews with Amy Hagstrom Miller, of Whole Woman’s Health, which operates abortion clinics in Texas, and Wendy Davis, a veteran of Texas politics and founder of Deeds Not Words, a nonprofit committed to gender equality. Addressing the law and its ramifications for women, Miller and Davis bring front-line news and historical context to this demoralizing moment in the yearslong battle for women’s reproductive rights. They also consider the political fallout and offer ideas for a path forward in what is sure to be a long and rocky road ahead.

Continued: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/09/confronting-the-texas-abortion-ban

An Abortion Provider Discusses His Biggest Fears Over Texas’ Abortion ‘Bounty’ Law

Will other states follow Texas’ lead? Will clinics be able to withstand the potential onslaught of lawsuits? “We have no idea what this is going to look like,” says Dr. Bhavik Kumar.

JULY 16, 2021
By TESSA STUART

Dr. Bhavik Kumar has been a Texas abortion provider for six years, with the last two at the Planned Parenthood Center for Choice in Houston, Texas. He started practicing shortly after House Bill 2 — the last Texas abortion law to go all the way to the Supreme Court before it was struck down as unconstitutional — went into effect. In the three years between the law’s passage and the Supreme Court’s decision, HB2 forced roughly half of Texas’ abortion providers to shut their doors.

A new bill, passed by the Texas State Legislature in May and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in June, has the potential to be even more disruptive. Instead of outlawing abortion outright, the new law empowers private citizens to sue doctors like Kumar, nurses, members of his staff, as well as anyone else who “aids and abets” an abortion — family members who drive patients to the clinic, faith leaders who provide counseling, abortion funds — for $10,000 each. The ban applies to abortions that take place after heart activity can be detected in the embryo — six weeks gestation, or roughly two weeks after a woman’s missed period, when many women don’t even know they are pregnant yet.

continued: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/sb-8-texas-abortion-law-10000-dollar-bounty-1194953/

Nadia: “There is Hope for a Better Future for Women in Poland.”

June 25, 2021

Nadia believes activism can change the world. Over the last few years in Poland, women’s reproductive choices have been stripped back at an alarming rate. The young activist wants to reverse this erosion of women’s rights by campaigning for better reproductive, labour and social rights across the country. Nadia is painfully aware that in Poland, where public discourse is dominated by men, the belief that “children and young women have no voice” still reigns.

"I wish we no longer had to talk about the wage gap, reproductive rights, the overloading of women with unpaid reproductive work. I want to live in a world where women had freedom of expression and the full right to pleasure on our terms," the activist says.

Continued: https://defendthedefenders.eu/nadia-there-is-hope-for-a-better-future-for-women-in-poland/

Ecuador Decriminalized Abortion In Rape Cases — What That Means For South America

May 20, 2021

Mary Louise Kelly
4-Minute Podcast

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with sociologist and lawyer Ana Cristina Vera about what Ecuador's recent expansion of abortion decriminalization means for reproductive rights in South America.

Transcript
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Now on to South America and specifically to Ecuador, where the country's highest court has eased restrictions on abortion in cases of rape.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2021/05/20/998709225/ecuador-decriminalized-abortion-in-rape-cases-what-that-means-for-south-america

20.05.2021

criminalization of women

The mobile apps helping Mexican women seek abortion

Feminist groups and activists in Mexico are helping women perform ‘at-home’ abortions.

10 May 2021

Al Jazeera
(20 minute podcast)

Feminist groups and activists in Mexico have taken it upon themselves to help
women gain access to abortion, in a country where it is largely illegal. At
great risk to their safety, they use social networks to inform women on how to
perform “at-home” abortions. They have taken to the streets and to their
cellphones to push back against the law, while helping women find the support
they seek. The local efforts come as Mexico’s Supreme Court prepares to discuss
the legal merits of cases surrounding abortion in June.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/podcasts/2021/5/10/the-mobile-apps-helping-mexican-women-seek-abortion

10.05.2021

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Exclusive: First Large-Scale Telemedicine Abortion Service Launches in U.S.

On the heels of a Biden administration announcement that temporarily allows telehealth abortion, a new, first-of-its-kind telehealth service, Abortion on Demand, opens to help women get care.

By Susan Rinkunas
Apr 13, 2021

A new telemedicine site is changing the future of abortion access, hopefully, permanently: Launching today, Abortion on Demand (AOD), the first large-scale telehealth abortion (a.k.a. teleabortion) service run by a U.S.-based provider, will help people who want to end their pregnancies with pills. The launch comes immediately after the Biden administration announced it would temporarily allow telemedicine abortions during the pandemic; it's a change long-awaited by reproductive rights advocates and AOD's founder, Dr. Jamie Phifer, who has been building the service for the last year and a half—keeping it under wraps until such a policy change enabled her to legally get it off the ground.

Continued: https://www.marieclaire.com/health-fitness/a36028641/abortion-on-demand-telemedicine-service-launch/

The women trapped and traumatised by Poland’s near-total abortion ban

Poland already had some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe, but new changes have effectively banned them completely.

21 Mar 2021
(26 minute podcast)

Poland already had some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe, but new changes have effectively banned them completely.

Many women now have to travel abroad to seek abortions or risk performing them at home.

Continued: https://www.channel4.com/news/the-women-trapped-and-traumatised-by-polands-near-total-abortion-ban