To Expand Access to IVF, We Need to Expand Access to Abortion

Latin America’s history reveals how policies aimed at boosting births can backfire without safeguarding reproductive choice for families.

7/15/2025
by Jess Ogden

History rarely repeats itself, but it does often rhyme. We may feel like the expanding restrictions on reproductive freedom that is currently happening in the United States is unprecedented, but our Latin American neighbors have walked this path for decades. There are many lessons we can learn from their experience on the far-reaching impact of such restrictions on social justice, legal strategies and policymaking.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 18 aimed at expanding access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) by reducing costs and removing barriers to care. However, the current regulatory landscape, which is characterized by antiabortion language, poses significant threats to IVF access. Without safeguarding abortion rights, efforts to make fertility treatments more accessible may be undermined by legal precedents that restrict reproductive autonomy.

Continued; https://msmagazine.com/2025/07/15/expand-ivf-access-protect-abortion-bans-reproductive-rights-families/

15.07.2025

Commentary

Dr. Gabriela Alvarado

Three years after Alabama’s abortion ban, many must make tiring trips for care

July 11, 2025
Rhonda Sonnenberg

About every other day in Alabama, a woman suspecting she is pregnant seeks abortion counseling at an Alabama clinic without knowing how far into the pregnancy she is. She may be a mother with three young children at home. She might be in an abusive relationship. Or perhaps she is a student who someday wants children — just not now.

Once a clinic nurse determines the approximate stage of the pregnancy, she will refer the patient to an out-of-state abortion facility where the procedure is still legal. Meanwhile, staff at the Birmingham-based Yellowhammer Fund would work to guarantee a financial contribution for her travel, hotel and child care costs, if necessary, and cobble together funding for the abortion care from additional funding sources. Yellowhammer’s work is a lifeline for pregnant people in Alabama, providing grassroots support and resources when they need it most.

Continued: https://www.splcenter.org/resources/stories/alabama-abortion-ban-assistance/

How Innovators Are Emotionally Supporting Abortion Seekers in a Post-Roe World

With laws constantly changing and often unclear, being able to reach abortion seekers on an emotional level is a critical touchpoint in the new digital landscape of access.

James Estrada, Common Dreams
Jul 10, 2025

In the three years since the Dobbs decision resulted in abortion bans in 42 states across the U.S, the ecosystem of abortion access in America has shifted and stretched to meet the ever-changing moment. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Planned Parenthood vs. Medina has paved the way for even more states to further target abortion providers by enabling states to withhold state funding to clinics that provide sexual health services from sexually transmitted infection tests to cervical cancer screenings simply because they also offer abortion care.

With laws constantly changing and often unclear in the eyes on abortion seekers, being able to reach abortion seekers on an emotional level is a critical touchpoint in the new digital landscape of access. Innovators have stepped up to meet the demand for emotional support, helping individuals feel heard and get informed throughout the abortion process as laws change and stigma abounds. They’re pairing abortion seekers with counselors, peers, and educators as the digital entry point to care, meeting and supporting the actual and immediate needs, whether they are anxious, confused about where to find care, or feeling stigmatized.

Continued: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/support-abortion-seekers

Texas Overhauls Anti-Abortion Program That Spent Tens of Millions of Taxpayer Dollars With Little Oversight

After a ProPublica and CBS News investigation revealed that Texas’ funding pipeline for anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers is riddled with waste, nonprofits in the program must now provide a detailed accounting of their expenses.

by Cassandra Jaramillo and Jeremy Kohler
July 10, 2025

Texas health officials are overhauling a program designed to steer people away from abortion following a ProPublica and CBS News investigation that found that the state had funneled tens of millions of taxpayer dollars into the effort while providing little oversight of the spending.

The money has been flowing to a network of nonprofit organizations that are part of Thriving Texas Families, a state program that supports parenting and adoption as alternatives to abortion and provides counseling, material assistance and other services. Most of the groups operate as crisis pregnancy centers, or pregnancy resource centers, which often resemble medical clinics but are frequently criticized for offering little or no actual health care and misleading women about their options.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-overhauls-anti-abortion-crisis-pregnancy-centers-funding

USA – An Open Letter to Rep. Kat Cammack From a Medical Doctor: It’s Abortion Bans That Make Doctors Afraid to Act, Not ‘the Radical Left’

July 10, 2025
by Chloe Nazra Lee

I remember the day I heard about Dobbs. It was a summer morning during my final year of medical school. I’d awakened in the damp basement apartment I’d rented for a clinical rotation in Pittsburgh. As I scrolled through my news feed, my heart plummeted. There was a resigned and tacitly understood melancholy among the women in the hospital that day. A sisterhood predicated on shared despair was quietly forming during the upheaval of perceived judicial betrayal. Even those of us who barely knew each other might wearily exchange passing glances in the hallway, signaling, “Well, shit. Girl, I know. And it’ll only get worse.”

No woman may escape the cruelty of the nebulous and varying restrictions on reproductive healthcare in the post-Roe world—as Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) discovered in May 2024 when faced with a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy shortly after Florida’s six-week abortion ban took effect.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/07/10/rep-kat-cammack-medical-doctor-abortion-bans-that-doctors-afraid-act/

The U.N. Should Condemn the U.S.’ Human Rights Record on Abortion

The U.S. must be held accountable on the world stage for its escalating attacks on reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy.

July 9, 2025
by Jaime M. Gher and Elise Keppler

The periodic U.N. review of the United States’ human rights record is coming up in November. With the Trump administration’s far-reaching, intensifying attacks, the timing could not be more opportune. Never have U.S. institutions, funding and initiatives that promote the rule of law, faced such an abject threat. This is a moment to shine a light on U.S. abuses on the global stage.

U.S. policymakers and the public rarely consider the experiences of U.S. residents through a human rights lens — but doing so is eye-opening. Abortion is a key case in point.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/07/09/united-nations-usa-abortion-human-rights-record-health-death/

09.07.2025

Commentary

United Nations

Universal Periodic Review

The Minnesota Shooting Wasn’t Random—It Was a Predictable Resurgence of Violence

Abortion providers and pro-abortion lawmakers have long been under threat. It’s time we act like it .

July 9, 2025
by Tiffany L. Green and Jamie Morgan

Minnesota experienced an act of devastating political violence last month: Former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, were killed in their home. State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette are recovering from life-saving surgeries after shielding their adult daughter from the gunman.

While we do not yet understand the full extent of the gunman’s motives, it is undeniable that protesting abortion and intimidating people who support access to it was one of them. Authorities report the suspect carried a list of over 70 targets, including elected officials who support abortion rights, abortion providers and pro-choice advocates.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/07/09/minnesota-shooting-hortman-anti-abortion-violence-doctors-providers/

USA – A baby born to a brain dead mother: this is the horror of abortion bans

Adriana Smith was legally dead for months, but kept on life support in Atlanta because she was pregnant

Moira Donegan
Tue 8 Jul 2025

On Friday 13 June, a baby was born in an Atlanta hospital to a woman who had been dead for four months. Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old Black nurse and mother, was declared brain dead in February after blood clots formed in her brain. Legally, and by all meaningful measures, she was dead then: the woman who loved her family, laughed with her friends, comforted her son, helped her colleagues and cared for her patients was gone then, and was never coming back.

But the state of Georgia, and the administrators of the hospital where she was declared dead, kept her corpse in a state of artificial animation for months. That’s because when Smith went to the hospital in February complaining of a headache, and later became unresponsive, she was about eight weeks pregnant. According to her family, doctors at Emory hospital, in Georgia, told the family that the state’s abortion ban required them to maintain the regimen that falsely animated their daughter’s corpse so that the fetus inside her could continue to grow.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/08/adriana-smith-atlanta-brain-dead-birth

08.07.2025

Opinion

Adriana Smith

Emory University hospital

If Trump Restricts Mifepristone, Clinicians Are Ready to Pivot to Misoprostol-Only Abortions

7/7/2025
by Carrie N. Baker

For decades, clinicians relied on the gold standard of medication abortion care: a two-pill regimen. Mifepristone is taken first, followed by misoprostol 24 to 48 hours later. However, misoprostol can be used alone for abortion. Recent research on patients in the U.S. confirms that misoprostol-only abortion is not only safe and effective, but that patients respond positively to using it.

In light of the FDA’s recent decision to reopen its safety review of mifepristone—a move advocates warn may lead to new restrictions—abortion providers say they are ready to offer the misoprostol-only regimen to keep telehealth abortion available in all 50 states.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/07/07/trump-restricts-mifepristone-misoprostol-only-abortions/

“A radical act of solidarity”: D.C. doulas reflect on abortion care post-Dobbs

By Alexandra Risi
July 8, 2025

For Maddy Niziolek, no day at her job is the same. One day, she may provide technical assistance, connecting clients with professionals to help fund and perform necessary operations; another day, she may hold someone’s hand and give them a shoulder to cry on. This variation is typical for an abortion doula—a profession that many don’t know about, but one that Niziolek and other doulas say is vital.

Abortion doulas are non-medical, non-mental health professionals who provide both physical and emotional support before, during, and after abortions. Their work, similar to birthing doulas who provide support during labor, can take many different forms, but centers on care and support for those experiencing an abortion.

Continued: https://georgetownvoice.com/2025/07/08/a-radical-act-of-solidarity-d-c-doulas-reflect-on-abortion-care-post-dobbs/