USA – ‘A Virtual Abortion Doula in Your Pocket’: Aya Contigo Helps Latinas Find Abortion Care

5/26/2024
by Carrie N. Baker

U.S. abortion bans impact 6.7 million Latinas in the United States—the largest group of women of color impacted by these bans. Many lack insurance, cannot travel and face language and cultural barriers to reproductive healthcare.

To address these barriers, two Canadian physicians—Dr. Roopan Gill and Dr. Genevieve Tam—co-created Aya Contigo, an app with an embedded live virtual chat to help people access contraception and abortion. A project of Vitala Global, the app provides resources for obtaining and using abortion pills, and the chat is staffed by professional counselors who walk users through the process. Launched originally in Venezuela, Aya Contigo began serving the United States in September 2023 with plans to expand to Guatemala.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2024/05/26/spanish-abortion-support-usa-venezuela-latina-women/

USA – Red state abortion bans headed for clash with blue state shield laws

BY NATHANIEL WEIXEL
05/20/24

A clash is looming between anti-abortion red states and the blue state telemedicine shield laws trying to preserve abortion access.

More than a dozen states have laws shielding medical providers and others from out-of-state investigations and prosecutions regarding abortions and gender affirming care. But six states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, California, Vermont and Washington — have gone even further.

Continued: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4671299-abortion-bans-clash-shield-laws/

The Abortion Pill Underground

Since Roe was overturned, thousands of people in red states have found a way to get an abortion—often thanks to providers operating at the edge of the law.

AMY LITTLEFIELD
May 7, 2024

When Kay found out she was pregnant at the end of last year, she knew three things clearly. “I was poor and I had an unwanted pregnancy and knew I couldn’t afford a standard abortion for hundreds of dollars,” she told me. A 29-year-old student already raising one child, Kay lives in Texas, where abortion is banned. The nearest clinic she could find was at least a 12-hour drive away. But Kay thought there might be another option. “I went to Google and started searching if it was possible somehow to receive abortion pills through the Internet.”

It was not only possible; it was much easier and more affordable than Kay had expected. She found online services that offered to ship the same medications that were available in clinics right to her doorstep in Texas for $150 or, if she couldn’t afford that, for free. It seemed so simple that Kay thought it might be a scam. “I was scared I would wait for the pills and they wouldn’t work when I got them,” she said.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/telehealth-abortion-shield-laws/

07.05.2024

Commentary

Abortion Care Network

Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine

abortion funds

abortion pills

abortion pills by mail

Abuzz

Aid Access

Center for Reproductive Rights

Choices Women’s Medical Center

in-person requirement

Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline

National Network of Abortion Funds

self-managed abortion

shield laws

Susan Yanow

telemedicine abortion

Many people now rely on telehealth to access abortion pills — but the Supreme Court could change that

Next week, the court will hear arguments in a case that could restrict the use of mifepristone, which a growing number of Americans get without an in-person appointment.

Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
March 20, 2024

A Supreme Court battle that will play out next week over how patients access mifepristone — one of the two drugs used in a medication abortion — could have sweeping consequences for Americans, regardless of their state’s abortion laws.

In recent years, Americans seeking to terminate their pregnancies have come to increasingly rely on the pills, with medication now making up a majority of all abortions.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2024/03/telehealth-abortion-pill-access-supreme-court/

Abortion Shield Laws: A New War Between the States

Doctors in six states where abortion is legal are using new laws to send abortion pills to tens of thousands of women in states where it is illegal.

By Pam Belluck
Feb. 22, 2024

Behind an unmarked door in a boxy brick building outside Boston, a quiet rebellion is taking place. Here, in a 7-by-12-foot room, abortion is being made available to thousands of women in states where it is illegal.

The patients do not have to travel here to terminate their pregnancies, and they do not have to wait weeks to receive abortion medication from overseas.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/health/abortion-shield-laws-telemedicine.html

Access to abortion pills has grown since Dobbs

How activists, clinicians, and businesses are getting abortion medication to all 50 states.

By Rachel M. Cohen
Dec 27, 2023

Eighteen months after the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, and with a new Supreme Court challenge pending against the abortion medication mifepristone, confusion abounds about access to reproductive health care in America.

Since the June 2022 decision, abortion rates in states with restrictions have plummeted, and researchers estimated last month that the Dobbs decision led to “approximately 32,000 additional annual births resulting from bans.” Journalists profiled women who carried to term since Dobbs because they couldn’t afford to travel out of their restrictive state.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/12/27/24015092/abortion-pills-mifepristone-roe-reproductive-misoprostol

27.12.2023

Commentary

Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine

abortion pills

abortion support networks

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Elisa Wells

Expanding Medication Abortion Access

Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project

medication abortion

mifepristone

misoprostol

misoprostol only abortions

National Abortion Federation

Plan C

Red State Access

Reproductive Health Initiative for Telehealth Equity and Solutions

self-managed abortion

shield laws

Society of Family Planning

telehealth abortion

telemedicine abortion

USA – The Satanic Abortion Clinic That’s Pissed Off Pretty Much Everyone…and Might Beat the Bans Anyway

At first glance, The Satanic Temple’s new telehealth venture, named after Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr.'s mom, seems like a social experiment in trolling. But as Cosmo reports, the fully credentialed clinic is serving real patients and has a real chance of breaking the religious right’s grip on abortion law.

BY ARIELLE DOMB AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOE LINGEMAN
Nov 14, 2023

Rose Fradusco Alito gave birth on April Fool’s Day, 1950. Hundreds of women would die that year from botched illegal abortions in the United States, where the procedure had been widely banned for decades. But here in the Alito household in suburban New Jersey, all was grand. Rose thrilled at new motherhood. She was a schoolteacher, then a principal. Her husband Sam was a teacher too, then a director in state government. Their son, named after his father, would go on to do important things someday; Rose could feel it. When she died in 2013, Samuel Alito Jr. was all grown up, with a big fancy job on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Continued: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a45613416/satanic-group-abortion-clinic-samuel-alito-mom/