Why Six-Week Abortion Bans Make It Impossible for Many People to Get Care

Guttmacher Institute – Doris W. Chiu, Anna Bernstein, Alice F. Cartwright, Rachel K. Jones
Oct 7, 2024

All bans restricting abortion based on gestation are unjust; these arbitrary limits can make abortion inaccessible, leaving pregnant people’s reproductive autonomy dependent on their state of residence. But six-week abortion bans are especially pernicious because they prohibit abortion before many people know they are pregnant. Uncovering information on the timing of pregnancy recognition is vital to understanding the harmful effects of abortion bans based on gestation and who is most affected by them.

A new analysis of data from the Guttmacher Institute’s 2021–2022 Abortion Patient Survey finds that 37% of people accessing abortion discovered their pregnancy at six weeks or later. The survey collected information from a national sample of more than 6,500 people who obtained abortions in clinics across the United States between June 2021 and July 2022 (methodological details below).

Continued: https://www.guttmacher.org/2024/10/why-six-week-abortion-bans-make-it-impossible-many-people-get-care

Post-Roe, pregnant women face growing risk of criminal prosecution for charges much broader than abortion

By Deidre McPhillips, CNN
Tue September 24, 2024

A fractured landscape of reproductive rights continues to evolve in the United States in the wake of the Supreme Court Dobbs decision that revoked the federal right to an abortion, and a new report suggests that pregnant women now face increased risk of criminal prosecution.

Between June 2022 and June 2023, there were more than 200 cases in which a pregnant person faced criminal charges for conduct associated with pregnancy, pregnancy loss or birth — the most cases recorded in a single year over decades of tracking, according to Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit focused on the civil and human rights of pregnant people.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/24/health/criminal-charges-during-pregnancy-increase/index.html

24.09.2024

Commentary

Research

Amari Marsh

arresting pregnant women

USA – State abortion bans are forcing doctors to provide substandard care – new study

Research group describes health workers waiting until patients ‘on brink of death’ before providing care

Carter Sherman
Mon 9 Sep 2024

More than two years after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, state abortion bans are forcing doctors to provide substandard medical care, new research released Monday shows.

The study describes how one woman, whose water broke too early on her pregnancy, ended up in the ICU with severe sepsis because she could not get an abortion to end her doomed pregnancy. Her story is one of dozens of narratives collected by the research group Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, which is housed at the University of California, San Francisco.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/sep/09/state-abortion-bans-doctor-care-pregnancy

09.09.2024

News

Research

Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health

U.S. States with strictest abortion laws offer the least support for women and families

Researchers evaluated states on access to maternal and family social services, childcare assistance and supplemental nutritional programs for families with children.

Sept. 4, 2024
By Kaitlin Sullivan

States with abortion bans are falling short in helping low-income families, experts say. New research from Northwestern Medicine in Chicago compared state abortion laws to public programs meant to help families, such as paid parental leave and state-funded nutrition programs for families with children.

“States with the most severe abortion restrictions have the least public infrastructure to support families,” said Dr. Nigel Madden, a maternal-fetal medicine physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who led the study published Wednesday in the American Journal of Public Health.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/states-strictest-abortion-laws-offer-least-support-women-families-rcna169578

04.09.2024

Commentary

Research

anti-choice contempt for women

anti-choice cruelty

anti-choice misogyny

Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health

Caitlin Myers

Diana Greene Foster

Dr. Nigel Madden

Family and Medical Leave Act

Rights experts reveal impact of Poland’s restrictive abortion laws on women

United Nations
26 August 2024

The rights of women in Poland are currently being violated due to restrictive abortion laws that have contributed to “several preventable deaths,” according to independent rights experts on Monday.

These restrictive laws have forced many women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, travel abroad to have legal abortions or seek private unsafe procedures, based on information from the UN human rights office (OHCHR).

The report from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) published on Monday, found that most abortions in Poland are being carried out illegally and in unsafe conditions as it is illegal to assist women in getting abortions, with minimal legal exceptions, and services are often inaccessible.

Continued: https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1153591

26.08.2024

Research

CEDAW

Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

Genoveva Tisheva

UN Human Rights Council

Mexico: Inadequate Abortion Access in State of Mexico Violates Human Rights

State Government Should Fully Decriminalize Abortion
August 13, 2024
Human Rights Watch

(Mexico City) – Authorities and healthcare providers in the state of Mexico, the nation's most populous state, are failing to guarantee access to abortion care, even in cases in which it is permitted under state law, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Despite nationwide strides towards recognizing access to abortion as a constitutional and human right, the state of Mexico continues to criminalize abortion, allowing exceptions only in cases of rape, “negligent abortions,” risk to the pregnant woman’s life, or when the fetus has “serious congenital or genetic alterations.”

The 44-page report, “Navigating Obstacles: Abortion Access in the State of Mexico,” found that the state’s abortion law does not guarantee access to this essential service, even for legally eligible cases. Barriers to access include healthcare providers denying or delaying services, withholding necessary information, questioning the veracity of sexual violence survivors' statements, subjecting women to mistreatment, and imposing arbitrary requirements for access that contradict existing law and regulations.

Continued: https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/08/13/mexico-inadequate-abortion-access-state-mexico-violates-human-rights

US abortion numbers have risen slightly since Roe was overturned, study finds

Abortion was slightly more common across the U.S. in the first three months of this year than it was before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and cleared the way for states to implement bans, according to a new study.

By GEOFF MULVIHILL and KIMBERLEE KRUESI
August 7, 2024

The number of women getting abortions in the U.S. actually went up in the first three months of 2024 compared with before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a report released Wednesday found, reflecting the lengths that Democratic-controlled states went to expand access.

A major reason for the increase is that some Democratic-controlled states enacted laws to protect doctors who use telemedicine to see patients in places that have abortion bans, according to the quarterly #WeCount report for the Society of Family Planning, which supports abortion access.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-survey-pills-roe-election-2024-7179dda48eae0a764be89c2e0aafd80a

USA: Abortion bans and restrictions cause extensive harm, violate human rights

August 5, 2024
Amnesty International

By denying and restricting access to abortion to millions of people since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 with the Dobbs decision, the United States is failing to comply with its international human rights obligations and standards to ensure pregnant people have access to abortion, according to a new report published by Amnesty International today.

The report, Abortion in the USA: The Human Rights Crisis in the Aftermath of Dobbs, shares stories from individuals across the country who have been harmed by restrictive laws and practices in their states, putting a human face on the multitude of the ways in which people are harmed when denied the human right to abortion.

Continued: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/08/usa-abortion-bans-restrictions-cause-extensive-harm-violate-human-rights/

More US women have tried to induce their own abortion since fall of Roe – report

Roughly 7% of reproductive-aged women have attempted to induce own abortion, up from 5% before fall of Roe

Carter Sherman
Tue 30 Jul 2024

Roughly 7% of women of reproductive age in the US have attempted to induce their own abortions outside the formal healthcare system, a new study has found, up from 5% before Roe v Wade fell in 2022.

The study, published on Tuesday in the Jama medical journal, determined how many people reported ever “self-managing” their own abortion in 2021 and again in 2023 – a timeline that allowed researchers to examine how Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the supreme court case that overturned Roe, has affected self-managed abortions. People of color and LGBTQ+ people were more likely to report having ever attempted to end their own pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/30/us-women-self-managed-abortion-pill

30.07.2024

Research

Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Lauren Ralph

mifepristone

misoprostol

self-managed abortions

Tracking abortion laws across the United States

Abortion is now banned in 14 states, while four have banned the procedure past roughly six weeks of pregnancy

Carter Sherman and Andrew Witherspoon, with additional reporting by Jessica Glenza and Poppy Noor
Mon 29 Jul 2024

The US supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade may have abolished the national right to abortion, but the state-by-state battle for abortion rights is far from over.

Since Roe was overturned in 2022, 14 states have enacted near-total abortion bans, while four states – Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and Iowa – have banned abortion past roughly six weeks of pregnancy. Other states have enacted laws or held ballot referendums to protect abortion rights.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/jul/29/abortion-laws-bans-by-state

29.07.2024