USA – For-Profit Abortion Telemedicine Start-Ups Are Proliferating in Wake of “Roe”

Garnet Henderson, Truthout
November 26, 2022

In 2020, a federal judge ruled that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must suspend its requirement that patients pick up mifepristone, one of the pills used in medication abortion, in person. After some back-and-forth under the Trump administration, the FDA permanently repealed the rule, which had long been decried by medical experts as unnecessary, in 2021.

This opened the door for providers to send abortion pills by mail in all but the 19 states that outlaw provision of abortion via telemedicine. (Many of those same states now ban abortion entirely.) This regulation change, along with increased popular interest in abortion access following Roe’s overturn, has led to a proliferation of telemedicine companies offering abortion pills. Some of these companies are run by people with prior experience in abortion care and connections in the reproductive health, rights and justice movements; others are not. Regardless, some abortion access advocates are raising concerns about whether the rise of for-profit telemedicine companies is the best way to serve abortion seekers.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/for-profit-abortion-telemedicine-start-ups-are-proliferating-in-the-wake-of-roe/

Abortion clinics in embattled states face another challenge: Money

Many clinics must stop providing abortions or move. Either choice is costly.

By Max Zahn
August 15, 2022

When Katie Quinonez, the executive director of an abortion clinic in West Virginia, saw the Supreme Court decision that overturned the federal guarantee of the right to an abortion, the first word she uttered was an obscenity.

The nonprofit Women's Health Center of West Virginia, located in Charleston, faced the immediate risk of prosecution under a state abortion ban from 1882, so Quinonez and a coworker made 60 calls to patients canceling procedures scheduled for the ensuing three weeks, said Quinonez.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/abortion-clinics-embattled-states-face-challenge-money/story?id=87945089

‘I Don’t Really Want to Go to Jail’: How One Doctor Kept Doing Abortions Post-Roe

A doctor in Arizona kept performing abortions after Roe v. Wade was overturned. But due to an 1864 law criminalizing abortion, chaos reigned.

by Carter Sherman
June 27, 2022

In the hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday morning, all four phone lines at Gabrielle Goodrick’s abortion clinic in Phoenix rang nonstop.

The calls came in by the hundreds. People were in shock. They were hysterical. They cried. Many had no idea what Roe even was, let alone that a handful of Supreme Court justices had just ruled to erase the precedent, which had guaranteed the national right to abortion since 1973, as if it had never been.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkgdbb/arizona-abortions-roe-v-wade

27.06.2022

Commentary

Featured

Abortion Care Network

Zachary Gingrich-Gaylord

For Decades, We’ve Helped Open Abortion Access. Here’s Where We’ll Go Post-‘Roe.’

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel of abortion care—we need to build on it.

Jun 2, 2022
National Network of Abortion Funds & Abortion Care Network

Abortion funds and independent abortion clinics are grateful for the outpouring of support in the wake of the devastating Supreme Court draft decision leak in early May. In a moment when discriminatory, racist, patriarchal systems are working hard to isolate us from each other and our collective power, so many of you know that turning to the people on the forefront of abortion access in each of our communities is an important way to fight back together.

Thank you for plugging in with your communities and each other, spreading the word that abortion is still legal no matter where you live in the United States, and comforting your loved ones with the knowledge that there are still avenues of support (including you).

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2022/06/02/for-decades-weve-helped-open-abortion-access-heres-where-well-go-post-roe/

USA – Pregnancy Center Trap. And how not to fall for it.

By Claire Lampen, The Cut
May 23, 2022

Type “abortion clinic near me” into your browser, and the search engine will likely return some murky results. Websites that ask if you are pregnant and “Feeling overwhelmed?” or “Looking for an abortion?” — without actually allowing you to schedule one. You may see abortion mentioned only in the context of “risks.” Or you may just see a flurry of “free” services: pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, and counseling, all at zero cost. But “if a site or a center offers only free services,” says Andrea Swartzendruber, an associate professor at the University of Georgia’s College of Public Health, it may be a sign that you’ve found your way to a crisis pregnancy center: a sham medical practice designed to lure people considering abortions and pressure them into birth. Often, Swartzendruber explains, “there aren’t telltale signs” to differentiate a real clinic from a fake one, but “there could be hints.”

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/article/abortion-crisis-pregnancy-center.html

USA – Liberal Cities Are Not Immune to Mounting Attacks on Abortion Rights

BY Emily Janakiram & Katie Finnigan, Truthout
April 16, 2022

An anti-abortion group that masquerades as progressive in an attempt to gain a following in liberal cities suddenly surged into mainstream news headlines this spring after the Washington Metro Police Department recovered five fetuses from the apartment of anti-abortion activist Lauren Handy.

Handy is a member of the group “Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising” (PAAU), which announced its formation in September 2021. The group claims to be “pro-BIPOC” and “pro-LGBTQ,” but in practice, the group’s actions align with a violent, right-wing anti-abortion tradition.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/liberal-cities-are-not-immune-to-mounting-attacks-on-abortion-rights/

Mark Ruffalo, Jane Fonda, Cyndi Lauper, and More Back Abortion Within Reach Campaign

Among the Abortion Within Reach campaign’s demands is access to “compassionate, affirming abortion care for people of all identities”

By TOMÁS MIER
January 19, 2022

A coalition of nearly 100 celebrities from Mark Ruffalo and Mac DeMarco to Cyndi Lauper and Portugal. the Man is coming together to support the Abortion Within Reach campaign, launched by a group of abortion rights organizations to fight for access to safe pregnancy and abortion care.

Jane Fonda, Bon Iver, Busy Philipps, Chelsea Handler, Fleet Foxes, K. Flay, Megan Rapinoe, Margo Price, Soccer Mommy, Sylvan Esso, and Yung Bae are among the stars supporting the healthcare initiative in time for the 49-year anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Continued: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/mark-ruffalo-jane-fonda-cyndi-laiper-support-abortion-campaign-1287388/

Independent Abortion Clinics Are The Backbone of Reproductive Care in America

Non-Planned Parenthood providers are badly underfunded and under attack, and three in five patients are seeking abortions there.

By Caitlin Cruz
November 16, 2021

Ashley was pregnant and lived about an hour outside Wichita, Kansas. Workers at Trust Women in Kansas had gotten her as much funding for her abortion as possible, but she’d still have to shell out a couple hundred dollars herself. She kept cancelling appointments, and Rebecca Tong, now co-executive director of Trust Women in Oklahoma and Kansas, kept rescheduling her.

“We got to the very end of when we could see her, and I told her, ‘If we don’t see you at this appointment, we will not be able to see you at all, because of the arbitrary limits set in Kansas of 20 weeks,’” Tong told Jezebel.

Continued: https://jezebel.com/independent-abortion-clinics-are-the-backbone-of-reprod-1848067419

Texas law sparks hundreds of U.S. protests against abortion restrictions

By Timothy Gardner and Richard Webner
Reuters, Oct 2

WASHINGTON/AUSTIN, Texas - Women marched by the thousands on Saturday on the Supreme Court, the Texas Capitol and cities across the United States to protest increasing state restrictions on abortion and advocate for maintaining a constitutional right to the procedure.

The 660 demonstrations around the United States were largely sparked by a Texas law that bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. The measure, which went into effect last month, is the most restrictive in the country.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/abortion-rights-advocates-will-march-across-us-protest-restrictive-laws-2021-10-02/

USA – These Start-Ups Could Make Abortion One Click Away

During the pandemic, women have been able to get abortion pills to take at home through an email or phone call. Will it stay that way?

Emily Shugerman, Gender Reporter
Updated May. 16, 2021

In California right now, you can get an abortion without speaking to a single other human being. You log onto a website—mychoix.co—put in your health information, answer some questions, and wait for an email from a clinician letting you know if you’ve been approved. If you are, an online pharmacy will ship you a package of mifepristone and misoprostol—a two-pill regime that is safer than many prescription drugs and 98 percent effective at terminating early-stage pregnancies. You will take it, you will bleed, your pregnancy will—in all likelihood—end.

This particular configuration is available in only one state, for a limited time, due to an emergency declaration issued by the Food and Drug Administration during the pandemic. But make no mistake: This is the future abortion advocates want.

Continued: https://www.thedailybeast.com/these-start-ups-could-make-abortion-one-click-away

16.05.2021