Community Providers Have Given Abortion Pills to Over 70,000 People in Restrictive States Since Dobbs

PUBLISHED 9/13/2024
by Carrie N. Baker, Ms. Magazine

In response to the Supreme Court overturning the constitutional right to abortion in June 2022 and many states banning and restricting abortion access, abortion advocates have created volunteer-run, donor-supported, community-based mutual aid groups around the country to provide free abortion pills to people living in states restricting abortion.

These community providers obtain medication from overseas suppliers, bring them into the country and mail them from within the United States so that people receive them promptly. Many of these groups—including AccessMA, FL Companion Request, Access Pills, Oklahoma Access and Territory Access, among others—serve people of all ages and gestational stages, using different protocols for people in later pregnancy.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2024/09/13/community-providers-have-given-abortion-pills-to-70000-people-in-restrictive-states-since-dobbs/


USA – Fearing Legal Threats, Doctors Are Performing C-Sections in Lieu of Abortions

Some physicians are doing unnecessary and invasive surgery on pregnant patients “to preserve the appearance of not doing an abortion.”

MARY TUMA
April 17, 2024

When news that Lizelle Gonzalez was suing the local prosecutor’s office for more than $1 million in damages, after being falsely imprisoned for murder over an attempted self-managed abortion in 2022, reproductive rights advocates cheered the move as a pathway to justice for the wrongfully charged southern Texas woman. However, a revelation in the lawsuit gave them pause: At the same hospital that reported her self-induced abortion to authorities, Gonzalez underwent a “classical C-section” for the delivery of her stillborn child, instead of abortion care. Major invasive surgery, Cesarean sections carry much higher risk for health complications, like hemorrhaging, compared with D&E abortion, and can jeopardize subsequent pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/c-sections-abortions-terrifying-new-reality/


Mexican abortion-pill networks reach across U.S. border to help immigrants without access

By Marien López-Medina, Kevin Palomino, April Pierdant and Tori Gantz
Sep 9, 2023

MONTERREY, Mexico — Verónica Cruz Sánchez watched something remarkable happen from the office of her women’s rights organization in Guanajuato, the capital city of one of this country’s most conservative Catholic states.

Founder of Las Libres — “the free” in English — she had built an underground abortion-pill network in a country where having the procedure could have meant going to jail.

In September 2021, the Mexican Supreme Court issued a surprise ruling that abortion was no longer a crime — not even in places like Guanajuato, where it continues to be outlawed by the state.

Continued: https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/mexican-abortion-pill-networks-reach-across-u-s-border-to-help-immigrants-without-access/article_75ac1598-4d93-11ee-bd66-d34ec1a86685.html


One Woman’s Story Of Self-Managing Her Abortion In An Anti-Choice State

Managing your own abortion is not a crime in Ohio, but a politically motivated prosecutor might believe Julia should be punished for what she did.

By Alanna Vagianos
Aug 7, 2023

SOMEWHERE IN OHIO — It’s a pretty short drive to the polling site from the cabin where Julia has been self-managing her abortion. Julia took the last of her abortion pills the day before, which she believes have ended her unwanted pregnancy. She still has some minor cramping and is tired from the whole ordeal, but she feels reasonably OK — well enough to go vote on a ballot referendum that could help decide the fate of abortion rights in Ohio.

Issue 1, a ballot initiative to raise the threshold to alter the state constitution from a simple majority — the standard in Ohio for over a century — to 60%, is a preemptive attempt to block a pro-choice constitutional amendment that Ohioans will vote on in November.

Continued: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/one-womans-story-of-self-managing-her-abortion-in-an-anti-choice-state_n_64c03e6be4b053a7009335eb


USA – Abortion Pills Will Be Crucial in a Post-Roe World. But They’re Not the Magic Fix Many Think They Are.

Let me repeat: equity, equity, equity.

BECCA ANDREWS
Jun 7, 2022

Ever since it became evident that Roe is likely to fall in the coming weeks, activists and folks who are generally interested in preserving abortion access have heralded medication abortion as the great solution to the end of legal abortion. And it’s true—mifespristone and misoprostol have a lot of advantages that will surely come in handy in our post-Roe future, the main one being that it’s a do-it-yourself, at-home abortion method that is safe and effective.

As Kimberly Inez McGuire, executive director at URGE (Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity), said in a media briefing, “As we look at the impact of abortion bans, particularly disproportionately impacting communities such as Black and Brown folks, young people, as well as low-income communities, and immigrants, and trans young people, it is even more important that we consider the potential of self-managed abortion as an essential tool for accessing reproductive health care and autonomy for these marginalized communities.”

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/06/medication-abortion-roe-solution-access/