Amanda Shires on Why Abortion Rights Matter

In an exclusive op-ed, singer-songwriter discusses the crucial need for reproductive freedom in America

By AMANDA SHIRES
October 30, 2020

Amanda Shires is one of Nashville’s most celebrated singer-songwriters, winning widespread acclaim for such releases as 2018’s To the Sunset and last year’s debut from The Highwomen, the all-star group she founded with Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, and Natalie Hemby. Last month, Shires released “The Problem,” a single recorded with her husband, Jason Isbell, that depicts an honest conversation about abortion rights. All proceeds from the song’s sales benefited the Yellowhammer Fund, a reproductive justice organization based in Alabama. In this exclusive op-ed for Rolling Stone, Shires elaborates on why reproductive rights mean so much to her.

I am not a baby-killer. I have never killed a baby. I have had cells removed from my body by a doctor. But no matter what the accusatory asshats on Facebook would have you believe, I am not chopping up and dismembering anyone.

Continued: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/amanda-shires-abortion-rights-op-ed-1082647/

30.10.2020

Philippines – ’Give women options’: Advocates push for decriminalization of abortion

OCT 26, 2020
BONZ MAGSAMBOL

'There are a lot of reasons why women need to get an abortion. It's not just unwanted pregnancy. There are victims of abuse and rape,' shares one guest.

"We want to give women options whenever they face a particular situation, and that’s not something we can judge them for."

This was what Shiph Belonguel, youth reproductive health rights advocate, said during the 3rd episode of Spilling the Tea, a webinar series held by Rappler and SheDecides Philippines, a movement that promotes the fundamental rights of adolescent girls and women.

Continued: https://www.rappler.com/life-and-style/relationships/advocates-push-decriminalization-abortion

Polish woman’s quest for abortion exposes conflicted society

By Alicja Ptak
OCTOBER 19, 2020

WARSAW (Reuters) - In April, in the midst of a nationwide coronavirus lockdown in Poland, Katarzyna found out that the baby she was carrying had a severe genetic disorder and would probably die before birth or shortly after.

She immediately decided to terminate the pregnancy. When she finally managed to, five weeks later and after meeting some 10 doctors, securing a fallback plan in Germany and researching home methods, she knew she would not try to get pregnant again.

Continued: https://ca.reuters.com/article/idCAKBN27429N

This Is The Perfect Reason To Have An Abortion

MIREL ZAMAN
OCTOBER 20, 2020

There’s a good chance that you support abortion rights if you clicked on this story. You may already suspect that the title of the article is purposely attention-getting and even mildly tongue-in-cheek. You understand that there is no perfect reason to have an abortion; or, rather, that every reason is the perfect reason — as long as the person making the choice was able to decide for themselves, and follow through on that decision without unwanted interference.

And yet, even within communities that ostensibly support the right to abortion, there exist pervasive and damaging stigmas against certain “types” of abortion. “We’ve found that when people share their abortion stories, they often hear: ‘Well I’m pro-choice, but — I think you waited too long.’ ‘I think you had too many.’ ‘You didn’t use birth control’,” says Renee Bracey Sherman, a reproductive justice activist, author of Saying Abortion Aloud, and executive director of We Testify.

Continued: https://www.refinery29.com/en-ca/2020/10/10109376/reasons-for-abortion-stories-women

Roe v. Wade Might Be Overturned Soon — This Is Worse Than You Think

MOLLY LONGMAN
OCTOBER 20, 2020

Angel Kai’s* heart sank when she found out she was pregnant again. The 20-year-old had delivered her second child only three months prior. She was on unpaid maternity leave from her job in Amarillo, TX, and she’d just received a $130 electricity bill in the mail that she didn’t know if she’d be able to pay. “Everything that was happening financially was just bad,” she remembers. “I couldn’t have another kid. I knew getting an abortion would be the best thing, because I couldn’t walk up the street to get a soda if I wanted one at the time. We were that tight on money.”

It turned out, though, that Angel couldn’t even afford the abortion she knew she wanted. Her health plan was offered under state-funded Medicaid, which, in Texas, only covers abortion in cases of life endangerment, rape, and incest. So, Angel Googled “abortion financial help.”

Continued: https://www.refinery29.com/en-ca/2020/10/10112297/what-happens-if-roe-v-wade-overturned-state-abortion-laws

20.10.2020

American Civil Liberties Union

American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

Americans United for Life

Caitlin Knowles Myers

Catherine Glenn Foster

constitutional amendment to ban abortion

crisis pregnancy centers

Laurie Bertram Roberts

Marcela Howell

Mary Ziegler

Medicaid abortion

Mississippi Freedom Fund

National Abortion Federation

National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda

National Network of Abortion Funds

National Women’s Law Center

Noel León

Planned Parenthood Action Fund

self-managed abortion

Talcott Camp

Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers

TRAP laws

traveling for abortion

trigger laws

women's abortion stories

Women’s Health Protection Act

US – The Mercy of Abortion: What Republicans Get Wrong About Late Medical Terminations

ZawnVillines
Thursday October 15, 2020

Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. Thousands of families across the nation will light candles for babies who were born dead, died shortly after birth, or whose births would have killed their mothers, necessitating a medical termination.

I am one of them. My daughter, Ember, died of fatal birth defects.

Continued: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/15/1986801/-The-Mercy-of-Abortion-What-Republicans-Get-Wrong-About-Late-Medical-Terminations

16.10.2020

fatal fetal abnormalities

later abortions

mercy abortions

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day

The rape survivors facing an ‘impossible choice’ in Brazil

By Ana Ionova, Rio de Janeiro
Oct 14, 2020

Paloma had just cobbled together enough money for a clandestine abortion when the coronavirus pandemic shuttered much of Brazil.

The 27-year-old had been raped late last year by an ex-boyfriend who remained a close family friend. The mother of two found out she was pregnant a few weeks later, after moving from her native Bahia to Minas Gerais, a nearby state, for work.

"I didn't know what to do," recalls Paloma. "The only thing I was certain of was that I didn't want this child."

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-54447343

Blood, sweat and tears of unsafe abortions and the better way out

by NJERI MBUGUA

09 October
2020

We are sitting in her studio apartment, and during the duration of our
conversation, she carefully tucks herself at the corner of her bed.

She had requested me to sit at her study table, just next to the bed on a
wooden chair facing her. Her eyes were swollen and she told me she was yet to
change the sheets in her bed.

Continued: https://www.the-star.co.ke/sasa/lifestyle/2020-10-09-blood-sweat-and-tears-of-unsafe-abortions-and-the-better-way-out/

Abortion increasingly hard to access in Turkey

By FARIBA NAWA
Oct 6, 2020
Listen: 6:43 podcast

When Sevilay, a 38-year-old, stay-at-home mom in Istanbul, learned she was pregnant with a third child, she agonized over what to do.

“I became very upset when I learned about my
pregnancy. I wondered whether I could do it or not. I was already having a hard
time with two kids. There was nobody that could help me.”

Continued: https://news.wbfo.org/post/abortion-increasingly-hard-access-turkey

06.10.2020

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’Let down’: calls for Gibraltar’s Covid-delayed abortion vote to take place

Pro-choice activists demand decriminalisation referendum happen despite conservative opposition

Darcy Jimenez
Tue 29 Sep 2020

Earlier this year, pro-choice activists in Gibraltar were hopeful that their territory’s abortion laws – the harshest in Europe – could soon be overturned.

Terminations are banned in the tiny British territory, even in the cases of rape, incest, or foetal abnormality where the foetus will not survive. Abortions are punishable by life imprisonment, except when the woman’s life is in danger.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/29/the-gibraltarians-demanding-covid-delayed-abortion-vote-takes-place