‘Cruel’: the supreme court could send one-time abortion deserts like Hawaii back in time

States in which abortion is legal but was long inaccessible have benefitted from the FDA’s expansion of a key abortion drug

Carter Sherman
Sun 24 Mar 2024

They treated a patient who had wanted to get pregnant, but decided to get an abortion rather than have a child with her abusive partner. They treated patients who had lost their houses in the 2023 Maui fires, found themselves homeless and pregnant, and wanted abortions. They treated patients who got pregnant after someone tampered with their birth control and patients who could not afford to take time off work to have an abortion.

Colleen Bass and Sharon Offley, two certified nurse midwives from Hawaii, were able to do all of that because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decided, over the last decade, to expand the availability of a common abortion pill.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/24/hawaii-mifepristone-abortion-pill

On remote US territories, abortion hurdles mount without Roe

By Audrey Mcavoy, The Associated Press
Fri., May 27, 2022

HONOLULU (AP) — Women from the remote U.S. territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands will likely have to travel farther than other Americans to terminate a pregnancy if the Supreme Court overturns a precedent that established a national right to abortion in the United States.

Hawaii is the closest U.S. state where abortion is legal under local law. Even so, Honolulu is 3,800 miles (6,100 kilometers) away — about 50% farther than Boston is from Los Angeles.

Continued: https://www.thespec.com/ts/news/world/us/2022/05/27/on-remote-us-territories-abortion-hurdles-mount-without-roe.html

USA – Abortion by Telemedicine: A Growing Option as Access to Clinics Wanes

Abortion by Telemedicine: A Growing Option as Access to Clinics Wanes
The coronavirus has created a surge in demand for telemedicine of all types — including for a quietly expanding program for terminating pregnancies.

By Pam Belluck
April 28, 2020

Ashley Dale was grateful she could end her pregnancy at home.

As her 3-year-old daughter played nearby, she spoke by video from her living room in Hawaii with Dr. Bliss Kaneshiro, an obstetrician-gynecologist, who was a 200-mile plane ride away in Honolulu. The doctor explained that two medicines that would be mailed to Ms. Dale would halt her pregnancy and cause a miscarriage.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/health/telabortion-abortion-telemedicine.html

USA – The Challenges of Innovating Access to Abortion

The Challenges of Innovating Access to Abortion

By Sue Halpern
Mar 6, 2019

A year ago, when Kanuʻuhiwa Thomas, a twenty-four-year-old who lives in Hawaii, found out that she was two weeks pregnant, she decided to terminate the pregnancy. (Kanuʻuhiwa Thomas is an alias.) “I don’t have any type of support system,” Thomas told me. “I’m still trying to finish my schooling, which is really important to me because a lot of girls here don’t finish their education—they just get pregnant and maybe get married and have kids and have to live off the system. I’m just kind of adamant about making sure I can take care of a child before I have one.”

Hawaii has one of the most liberal abortion policies in the country, but, like many rural and geographically expansive states, services are hard to come by.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-challenges-of-innovating-access-to-abortion