‘More American than football’: Retired history professor recounts abortion fight

The Canadian Press
Published Dec. 3, 2022

Betsy Jameson found a yellow piece of paper in 2017 when she cleaned out her office after retiring from the history department at the University of Calgary.

The paper, faded and slightly stained, had the names and phone numbers of three doctors in New York and New Jersey. It was from the summer of 1967 when she was a 20-year-old student training to be a hall adviser at a college residence in Ohio. The names were doctors who would perform abortions at a time when it was illegal in most states.

Continued: https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/more-american-than-football-retired-history-professor-recounts-abortion-fight-1.6179920

03.12.2022

USA – We’re Thankful for Our Abortions

Many people who have abortions celebrate their experience. Here’s why my colleagues and I at We Testify are thankful.

By Nikiya Natale
Nov 24, 2022

This time of year is… complicated. For many people, this season calls for reflection and gratitude. This year I find myself reflecting not only on all the people I love and cherish but also on the outcomes and impact of the midterm elections, and on why our nation celebrates the complicated holiday of Thanksgiving at all.

This holiday is founded on the unforgivable genocide of Native Americans, and my commitment to justice for all people makes it difficult for me to celebrate things I am thankful for. And the harsh reality is that the utter disregard for all Indigenous people in the 1800s fuels the same systems of white supremacy that dehumanize all of us today. Black lives are taken by the police and the prison-industrial complex, any sense of LGBTQ+ peace and tranquility has been obliterated by gun violence and hate, and, ultimately, the small promise of abortion access guaranteed by Roe v. Wade was stripped away by an illegitimate Supreme Court.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/thankful-for-abortions/

24.11.2022

Commentary

Interviews/Podcasts

abortion stories

gratitude for abortion

Nikiya Natale

Roe v. Wade

We Testify

women's abortion stories

USA – What It Feels Like to Take the Abortion Pill: People Share Their Stories

BY BRITTNEY MCNAMARA
NOVEMBER 22, 2022

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, 13 states have outlawed abortion with few or no exceptions. More states have banned abortion and had those bans blocked by courts, and others have restricted how far into pregnancy people can access abortion.

But in the months following the decision, requests for the abortion pill online surged. Currently, more than half of abortions in the U.S. are done via the abortion pill, and as more people may turn to medication abortion because of restricted access to in-clinic abortions, abortion rights organizations We Testify and Mayday Health teamed up to get people to talk about their experiences with abortion pills, showing what having a medication abortion is really like.

Continued: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-it-feels-like-to-take-the-abortion-pill

22.11.2022

USA – Doctors who would like to defy abortion laws say it’s too risky

November 22, 2022
Selena Simmons-Duffin

Doctors in states with abortion bans can face prison time and lose their licenses if they violate the laws. Some are calling on doctors to openly defy the bans.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: It's been five months since Roe v. Wade was overturned, and now 13 states have laws banning abortion with limited exceptions for medical emergencies. Doctors who violate these laws could face felony charges, prison time and the loss of their medical license. Surveys, news reports and court affidavits show the fear of these laws has caused some doctors to delay or deny abortions, including in emergencies. Some doctors are asking themselves a tough question - when they are forced to choose between their ethical obligations to patients and the law, should they defy the law? NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin reports.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/22/1138558392/doctors-who-would-like-to-defy-abortion-laws-say-its-too-risky

Abortion providers detail mounting external difficulties, profound rewards of serving patients in post-Roe America

November 16, 2022
By Angelica Ferrara, Postdoctoral Fellow

For some patients and providers, ideologically and politically motivated restrictions on abortion have long been the status quo. But in the months since the Dobbs decision this June, the situation has become fraught with new legal and logistical uncertainties. At this year’s Jing Lyman Lecture, the Stanford community heard from those most intimately acquainted with the status of reproductive justice after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision: what has changed in the post-Roe world, and what has stayed the same?

Continued: https://gender.stanford.edu/news/abortion-providers-detail-mounting-external-difficulties-profound-rewards-serving-patients

16.11.2022

From the Front Lines: Abortion Post-Roe

Katherine Brown

Moira Donegan

Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri

Argentina – Abortion: a pillar of a broad pro-democracy and human rights coalition

THURSDAY 3 NOVEMBER 2022
BY CAMILA VALLE, MABEL BELLUCCI

I received Mabel Belluci’s 2014 book Historia de una desobediencia: Aborto y feminismo (History of a Disobedience: Abortion and Feminism) for Christmas four years ago. As an Argentinian reproductive justice organizer in the United States, I found their account of the abortion movement in Argentina to be a stunning product of a life within the struggle—remarkable in particular for its interest in the often messy shifts, splits, reformations, and moments of unity that go into building a movement. Reading it brought to the fore the value and potential of independent feminist historiography: of history told by us and for us, consciously situated as the continuation of a long political lineage.

I spoke with Belluci about the Argentinian abortion movement’s confrontational tactics, its path to building a broad coalition, and the lessons for Argentinian feminists in the broad rollback of abortion rights in the US. - Camila Valle.

Continued: https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article7868

03.11.2022

Featured

Interviews/Podcasts

Camila Valle

Commission for the Right to Abortion

Dora Coledesky

Historia de una desobediencia: Aborto y feminismo

Mabel Belluci

National Campaign for the Right to Legal Safe and Free Abortion

The Fight for Abortion and Reproductive Justice after Roe

SUNDAY 16 OCTOBER 2022
BY CAMILA VALLE, EMILY JANAKIRAM, HOLLY LEWIS, SHERRY WOLF

Spectre Journal (USA) recently hosted an event for donors about global lessons for the struggle for abortion rights and reproductive justice after the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. The panel included Camila Valle, Sherry Wolf, Emily Janakiram, and Holly Lewis. This is an edited transcript of their speeches and wrap ups after the discussion.

Camila Valle: I know people are probably thinking about what just happened to our right to abortion and reproductive healthcare in the US, which other speakers will go into tonight, but I wanted to start with a historic victory in a different part of the world: that of the Argentinian abortion movement, which won legalization at the end of 2020—and not just legalization, but free abortion as part of their socialized healthcare system.

Continued: https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article7850

USA – The New Abortion Underground

Stephania Taladrid reports on a network of volunteers distributing abortion medication to women in states that ban the procedure. Plus, Andrew Sean Greer on his new novel, “Less Is Lost.”

With David Remnick
October 14, 2022
25-minute podcast

Since the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the contributor Stephania Taladrid has been following a network of women who are secretly distributing abortion pills across the United States. The network has its roots in Mexico, where some medications used for at-home abortion are available at a lower cost over the counter. Volunteers—they call themselves “pill fairies”—are sourcing the pills at Mexican pharmacies and bringing them over the border. The work is increasingly perilous: in states like Texas, abetting an abortion is considered a felony, carrying long prison sentences. But, to Taladrid’s sources, it’s imperative. “I mean, there’s nothing else to do, right?” one woman in Texas, who had an abortion using the medication she received from a pill fairy, said. “You can’t just lie down and accept it. You can’t.”

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/the-new-abortion-underground

14.10.2022

self-induced abortion

USA – The Long Campaign to Turn Birth Control Into the New Abortion

Now that the fall of Roe v. Wade has ended the constitutional right to abortion, many in the religious right have a new goal: undermining trust in, and limiting access to, hormonal contraception – including the pill.

October 8, 2022

When the Supreme Court’s decision undoing Roe v. Wade came down in June, anti-abortion groups were jubilant – but far from satisfied. Many in the movement have a new target: hormonal birth control. It seems contradictory; doesn’t preventing unwanted pregnancies also prevent abortions? But anti-abortion groups don’t see it that way. They claim that hormonal contraceptives like IUDs and the pill can actually cause abortions.

One prominent group making this claim is Students for Life of America, whose president has said she wants contraceptives like IUDs and birth control pills to be illegal. The fast-growing group has built a social media campaign spreading the false idea that hormonal birth control is an abortifacient. Reveal’s Amy Mostafa teams up with UC Berkeley journalism and law students to dig into the world of young anti-abortion influencers and how medical misinformation gains traction on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, with far-reaching consequences.

Continued: https://revealnews.org/podcast/the-long-campaign-to-turn-birth-control-into-the-new-abortion/

Joyce Arthur continues the fight for abortion rights and access in Canada

by ORLY ZEBAK, Niv Magazine
Sept 10, 2022

Before 1969 all abortions in Canada were considered a criminal offence. If a doctor or anyone else was caught helping a woman terminate her pregnancy they could face life in prison; the woman, if found guilty, could face up to two years in jail. Before January 28, 1988 you needed approval from a Therapeutic Abortion Committee (TAC) to induce an abortion. Comprised of three medical practitioners in an accredited hospital, the TAC determined that a woman may only receive an abortion at said hospital if the pregnancy posed a threat to the woman’s life or health. Joyce Arthur, founder of Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC), found herself before such a committee at Vancouver General Hospital.

Continued: https://nivmag.com/joyce-arthur-continues-the-fight-for-abortion-rights-and-access-in-canada/

10.09.2022