Why Doctors Are Opting Out of Arkansas

The state’s abortion ban impedes recruitment and compounds physician workloads

By Caroline McCoy
April 18, 2025

Over ten days in February, Shannon Barringer, a certified genetic counselor practicing in Little Rock, referred three patients to medical facilities outside of Arkansas. Each woman had chosen to terminate a nonviable pregnancy, a medical procedure that would present far less risk than carrying the fetus but is no longer legal in Arkansas. Barringer had spent hours coordinating care for her patients elsewhere, ultimately sending two to Chicago and one to Boston. “I think part of me is running on automatic, trying to get these people where they need to be,” Barringer said. “But I also feel very emotionally worn out.”

Continued: https://oxfordamerican.org/oa-now/why-doctors-are-opting-out-of-arkansas

19.04.2025

Commentary

abortion training

Arkansas abortion ban

Far-right Polish MEP threatens doctor with ‘citizen’s arrest’ over late-term abortion

Grzegorz Braun’s actions have been condemned by both the Polish justice minister and the country’s equality minister.

April 18, 2025
By Claudia Chiappa

Far-right European Parliament lawmaker and long-shot Polish presidential candidate Grzegorz Braun is facing a potential investigation after he stormed a hospital on Wednesday and threatened a doctor with a citizen's arrest for performing a legal late-term abortion.

Gizela Jagielska said she was signing some administrative documents when a crowd of about 30 men, led by Braun, burst into the hospital around 11 a.m. She said the men surrounded her, stopped her from leaving and told her she should be arrested.

Continued : https://www.politico.eu/article/right-wing-poland-mep-grzegorz-braun-threaten-doctor-citizen-arrest-late-term-abortion-gizela-jagielska/

Abortion Bans Criminalize People — and Not Just Those Who Are Pregnant

Post-“Roe,” pregnancy outcomes — and even actions taken to help pregnant people — face escalating criminalization.

By Lauren Rankin , Truthout
April 18, 2025

On March 20, 2025, emergency responders found Selena Maria Chandler-Scott bleeding uncontrollably after miscarrying at 19 weeks in her Tifton, Georgia, home. Chandler-Scott was immediately taken to the hospital for further treatment. The next day, while still recovering in the hospital, she was charged for her own miscarriage under the state’s 2019 “fetal personhood” law. She faced up to 13 years in prison.

The charges drew widespread condemnation, enough that they were eventually dropped. But Chandler-Scott’s traumatic ordeal reveals the ultimate endpoint of abortion bans — criminalizing pregnant people, whether they have an abortion or not.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/abortion-bans-criminalize-people-and-not-just-those-who-are-pregnant/

18.04.2025

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arresting women for miscarriage

Brittany Watts

criminalizing women for abortion

criminalizing women for miscarriage

Ken Paxton

Maria Margarita Rojas

Selena Maria Chandler-Scott

Under Idaho’s abortion ban, a family confronts life-or-death reality — and a crisis of faith

As judges weigh the limits of medical exceptions, Idaho’s abortion ban is being tested — in courts, hospitals and patients’ lives

By Kelsey Turner
Apr 18, 2025

Desi Ballis didn’t understand why her doctor needed her to go to Utah.

She lay on an exam table in Boise, her pregnant belly wet with ultrasound gel. At 38, she’d done various genetic tests that confirmed her baby was developing normally. Its small features looked perfect on the screen.

But her baby wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Her 20-week ultrasound in February 2024 showed findings of hydrops fetalis, an often lethal condition where fluid builds up in the fetus’ body, according to Desi’s medical records. Her baby would almost certainly die before delivery. If she remained pregnant, Desi risked dying, too.

Continued: https://www.investigatewest.org/investigatewest-reports/under-idahos-abortion-ban-a-family-confronts-life-or-death-reality-and-a-crisis-of-faith-17865090

‘Care Is a Political Act’: MADRE’s Global Legacy of Organizing and Solidarity

4/18/2025
by Eleanor J. Bader

In the mid-1980s, neither Amnesty International nor Human Rights Watch considered rape a weapon of war or categorized sexual assault as a violation of human rights. But MADRE did. The 40-year-old, U.S.-based global feminist organization helped correct these egregious omissions.

The group’s legacy includes numerous other accomplishments: MADRE was one of the first domestic organizations to partner with international LGBTQ+ and Indigenous activists and was one of the first to analyze foreign policy through a feminist lens.

Continued; https://msmagazine.com/2025/04/18/care-is-a-political-act-madres-global-legacy-of-organizing-and-solidarity/

TikTok removes videos promoting birth control misinformation after The Independent investigation

Exclusive: Myths suggesting that birth control is more dangerous than beneficial were spreading to millions, an investigation by Hebe Campbell reveals

Friday 18 April 2025

TikTok has removed videos promoting birth control misinformation after The Independent found that some influencers were spreading unproven claims to millions of users.

An investigation by The Independent and tech company Alethea revealed misleading videos claimed the risks of birth control, such as cancer or psychological side effects, outweigh its benefits.

Continued; https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tiktok-birth-control-misinformation-influencers-investigation-b2729567.html

18.04.2025

Alethea

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birth control side effects

Dr Viki Male

Fides Network

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TikTok and contraception

World Health Organisation

My Abortion Was My Lifeline—Getting It Felt Like A Battle For Survival

Taren Holliman
April 17, 2025

As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I knew I wanted an abortion. The immediate decision didn't come from fear or confusion; it came from clarity. I was too sick to work, constantly running out of my classes to throw up and juggling multiple jobs to stay afloat. Behind all of that was a mental health battle I'd been quietly fighting for years, and I didn't have access to the support I needed. There was no way I could carry this pregnancy to term—and, more importantly, I didn't want to. It was my body. It was my life, and I made my decision. It really should have been that simple. But almost immediately, I learned how hard it was to access abortion care.

This is America, after all — where racist, sexist policies are so deeply embedded into our institutions that they shape who gets access to essential care and who gets left behind. And for folks most impacted by systemic inequities—like disparities in income, health insurance and medical racism—no one is facing the brunt of these bans and restrictions like Black women.

Continued: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/black-maternal-health-abortion-access

Faith, sorrow and rebirth: A quest for bodily autonomy

April 17, 2025
Dr. Michée Kanda, Health System Officer, Ipas Democratic Republic of Congo

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, access to comprehensive abortion care remains a taboo topic, enshrined in restrictive legal frameworks and rigid social norms. Although some progress has been made, cultural and religious barriers still prevent women and girls from accessing the information and care they need.

While safe medical solutions exist, their access is hampered by fear, lack of information and social rejection. In the absence of alternatives, many resort to dangerous methods or fall into depression, sometimes with tragic consequences such as suicide.

Continued: https://www.ipas.org/news/faith-sorrow-and-rebirth-a-quest-for-bodily-autonomy/

17.04.2025

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bodily autonomy

Dr. Mboma

Ipas Democratic Republic of Congo

Kintambo Center of Excellence

Michée Kanda

Africa

Democratic Republic of Congo

Georgian Abortion Drama April Is Equal Parts Disturbing and Enthralling

By Brianna Zigler
April 17, 2025

A mother screaming in the throes of labor gives birth to a baby that is lifeless and pale, as Georgian director Déa Kulumbegashvili films an actual live birth that produces a stillborn. This stillbirth drives the bare bones narrative of Kulumbegashvili’s sophomore feature, April: a timely examination of women’s reproductive healthcare in the face of cultural repression. Abortion isn’t illegal in Georgia outright, not before the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. But Orthodox customs and attitudes foster a deep culture of shame toward not just abortion but birth control. As our own country sees the strides it had once made in women’s healthcare rolled back, mothers forced to illegally cross state lines in order to receive life-saving care, any perceived “backwards” mores of an Eastern European society can no longer be shrugged off as such by the Western world.

Our protagonist, Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili, star of Kulumbegashvili’s prior feature, Beginning) travels to remote villages administering under-the-table abortions; an open secret among Nina’s disapproving male colleagues.

Continued : https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/dea-kulumbegashvili/april-movie-review-dea-kulumbegashvili-georgia-abortion-drama-reproductive-rights

17.04.2025

USA – Abortions Are Rising—Even After Dobbs. A New Book Explains Why.

“It’s a story of resistance and resilience and hope.”

Julianne McShane, Mother Jones
April 17, 2025

New data released this week reaffirmed a seemingly paradoxical reality of the post-Roe v. Wade era: Abortion rates have continued to rise despite the increasing restrictions nationwide.

The latest data, compiled by the abortion rights research and policy organization the Guttmacher Institute, shows that throughout 2024, clinicians provided more than one million abortions in states without total abortion bans, a slight increase compared to 2023. A closer look at the data reflects how healthcare providers and patients have adapted to changing circumstances—which have made access both more difficult and, in some ways, easier—since the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization revoking the constitutional right to abortion.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/04/abortions-are-rising-even-after-dobbs-a-new-book-explains-why/