US Feminists Look to Latin America for Models to Resist Abortion Bans

Latin American activists have navigated widespread abortion bans with information-sharing support networks.

By Naomi Braine , Truthout
January 3, 2025

As U.S. residents prepare for the start of a new Trump administration, we face increasing threats to health and bodily autonomy, especially for people facing unwanted pregnancies. Currently, 12 states have completely banned abortion, an additional six states have imposed bans within the first trimester and 19 states impose restrictions specifically on medication abortions.

In spite of expanding restrictions, the overall rate of abortions has increased nationally, as clinicians in states that allow abortion expand services to meet the needs of people traveling to find care. Meanwhile, an unknowable number of people with unwanted pregnancies have taken abortion pills to end a pregnancy safely and effectively in the privacy of their own home, a friend’s home or another safe space — a practice known as self-managed abortion (SMA).

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/us-feminists-look-to-latin-america-for-models-to-resist-abortion-bans/

03.01.2025

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abortion pills

abortion support networks

Las Libres

self-managed abortion

USA – Experts explain how abortion ban exceptions for rape and incest are inaccessible in practice

By Lauren Mascarenhas, CNN
Sat October 19, 2024

“When I was 5, I began getting sexually abused by my stepfather, and he got me pregnant when I was 12,” Hadley Duvall says in a new campaign ad released by Vice President Kamala Harris Thursday.

Duvall, a rape survivor turned reproductive rights advocate, has been featured in several high-profile campaign ads and spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. She has recounted the harrowing pattern of abuse that resulted in her pregnancy as a child in Kentucky, and the options she had about what to do with that pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/19/us/abortion-ban-states-rape-exception/index.html

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

Will abortion be the issue that swings the 2024 US presidential election?

January 31, 2024
Prudence Flowers, Flinders University

Abortion is shaping up to be a central issue for both parties in the 2024 US presidential and Congressional elections.

Nearly two years ago, the US Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, finding there was no constitutional right to abortion and returning regulation to the states.

Since that decision (a case known as Dobbs v. Jackson), 14 states now ban abortion in almost all circumstances and ten have imposed restrictions, some of which have been blocked by the courts. One in three women of reproductive age now live in states that have either banned or restricted abortion.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/will-abortion-be-the-issue-that-swings-the-2024-us-presidential-election-219495

31.01.2024

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Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Clinicians to Lawmakers: Abortion Bans in the United States are Causing a Health and Human Rights Crisis

On the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, abortion bans continue to harm patients and put clinicians in impossible situations. Physicians for Human Rights joins the renewed call for protection of fundamental rights to health and reproductive justice.

January 18, 2024
By William Jaffe, Advocacy Coordinator

January 22 will mark the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which established federal protection of the right to abortion in the United States. Since June 2022, when the Supreme Court reversed Roe, at least 14 states have adopted abortion bans imposing severe civil and criminal penalties on clinicians for providing abortion except in very narrow circumstances.

Health and human rights advocates across the United States – including Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) – oppose these bans and the profound harm they cause, to patients and clinicians alike. Read on for a recap of PHR’s work on reproductive justice at the national and international arenas, and a look at how we’re gearing up for the year ahead.

Continued: https://phr.org/our-work/resources/clinicians-to-lawmakers-abortion-bans-in-the-united-states-are-causing-a-health-and-human-rights-crisis/

Supreme Courts in 3 states will hear cases about abortion access this week

DECEMBER 11, 2023
By Katherine Davis-Young (KJZZ), Alice Fordham (KUNM), Hanna Merzbach (KHOL/Wyoming Public Media)

The future of reproductive rights for a wide swath of the Mountain West may be decided next week, as three state Supreme Courts hear arguments in cases that will determine abortion access in the region. Here's what to know.

Which law is the law in Arizona?
When the U.S. Supreme Court returned abortion regulating power to states, Arizona had two seemingly conflicting abortion laws on the books. One, passed just a few months before Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, outlaws abortion after 15 weeks. The other, which dates back to 1864, is a near-total ban.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/12/11/1218357869/state-supreme-courts-abortion-wyoming-new-mexico-arizona

USA – How abortion bans are undercutting efforts to prevent domestic violence

OB-GYNs are often the first or only doctors to learn if a patient is facing intimate partner violence. As they leave places with abortion bans, domestic violence victims are feeling the impacts.

By Jennifer Gerson, Shefali Luthra
November 13, 2023

As more abortion bans have gone into effect across the country, it has become far more difficult to perform a standard element of gynecological care: screening patients for domestic abuse.

Research shows that OB-GYNs are often the first or only doctors to learn if a patient is facing intimate partner violence. While women of all ages experience intimate partner violence, it is most prevalent among women of reproductive age, the people most likely to see an OB-GYN. Meanwhile, abortion bans have contributed to reproductive health care providers leaving states, retiring early or declining to practice where the procedure is restricted.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2023/11/abortion-bans-hindering-domestic-violence-screenings-prevention/

“Hopeless and frustrated”: Idaho’s abortion ban is driving OB/GYNs out of the state

BY ADRIANA DIAZ, JESSICA KEGU, ANALISA NOVAK, CBS NEWS
OCTOBER 31, 2023

Idaho's restrictive abortion laws are fueling an exodus of OB/GYNs, with more than half of those who specialize in high-risk pregnancies expected to leave the state by the end of the year.

Doctors CBS News spoke with said treating non-viable pregnancies, in which the fetus is not expected to survive, puts them and their patients in what they call an impossible position.

Continued: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/idaho-near-total-abortion-ban-driving-doctors-out-of-the-state/

31.10.2023

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abortion bans

Becca Vincen-Brown

Center for Reproductive Rights

USA – Faced with abortion bans, doctors beg hospitals for help with key decisions

Vague state laws, and a lack of guidance on how to interpret them, have led to some patients being denied care until they are critically ill

By Caroline Kitchener and Dan Diamond
October 28, 2023

Amelia Huntsberger pulled up a list of the top administrators at her northern Idaho hospital, anxious last fall to confirm she could treat a patient with a potentially life-threatening pregnancy complication. But it was a Friday afternoon — and no one was picking up.

Huntsberger said she called six administrators before she finally got ahold of someone, her patient awaiting help a few rooms away. When she asked whether she could terminate a pregnancy under Idaho’s new abortion ban — which allows doctors to perform an abortion only if they deem it “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman” — the OB/GYN said the decision was punted back to her.

Unlocked: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/28/abortion-bans-medical-exceptions/

Global abortion rights: two steps forward, one step back

According to the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) NGO, only 35 percent of women of reproductive age live in countries where abortion is available on demand. It says backstreet abortions lead to 39,000 deaths per year

BY AFP RELAXNEWS
Sep 30, 2023

Countries around the world take differing stances on abortion, with traditional Catholic bastions like Ireland and Mexico among those lifting bans in recent years, even as the United States abolished nationwide access.

In the wake of International Safe Abortion Day, Here's a look at where it is getting easier to terminate a pregnancy—and where it is getting harder:

Continued: https://www.forbesindia.com/article/lifes/global-abortion-rights-two-steps-forward-one-step-back/88647/1

30.09.2023