USA: Abortion bans and restrictions cause extensive harm, violate human rights

August 5, 2024
Amnesty International

By denying and restricting access to abortion to millions of people since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 with the Dobbs decision, the United States is failing to comply with its international human rights obligations and standards to ensure pregnant people have access to abortion, according to a new report published by Amnesty International today.

The report, Abortion in the USA: The Human Rights Crisis in the Aftermath of Dobbs, shares stories from individuals across the country who have been harmed by restrictive laws and practices in their states, putting a human face on the multitude of the ways in which people are harmed when denied the human right to abortion.

Continued: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/08/usa-abortion-bans-restrictions-cause-extensive-harm-violate-human-rights/

USA – As abortion rights are further decimated, reproductive health funding remains ‘shackled’ by restrictions

During a critical election year, sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations risk losing funding to engage in partisan politics

by Rebecca. L. Root
July 2nd, 2024

In the months before and following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that struck down the constitutional right to abortion, nonprofits that had long worked to advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights found themselves fighting anti-abortion legislation at unprecedented levels.

Since 2022, the legal advocacy organization the Center for Reproductive Rights has filed lawsuits in multiple states on behalf of women who were denied medically necessary abortion care. In 2022, several organizations, including The Afiya Center and the Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity, filed a federal class action lawsuit in Texas to protect the ability to help people access abortion out of state. In 2023, the state of Texas and an anonymous plaintiff sued Planned Parenthood over allegations that the organization’s affiliates defrauded the state’s Medicaid system. Also last year, Planned Parenthood Great Northwest filed a federal lawsuit against Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s office following a legal opinion issued in March 2023 that said medical professionals in Idaho could be subject to criminal penalties if they referred patients across state lines for abortion care.

Continued: https://prismreports.org/2024/07/02/reproductive-health-funding-shackled/

‘We’re doubling down’: how abortion advocates are building on midterm wins

Pro-choice activists are focusing on expanding abortion access, voter registration and education, and shield laws for providers

Melody Schreiber
Wed 7 Dec 2022

Renee Bracey Sherman answers the phone and apologizes – is it OK if we speak while she drives? Like many abortion advocates, she tends to keep a packed schedule and talk at lightning speed – the next initiative, the next law, the next policy on the horizon. Ask advocates how they felt in June after the Dobbs decision sharply curtailed reproductive rights across the US, or in November after wins in the midterm elections signaled strong public support for abortion, and they’ll answer immediately: We knew this was coming; but the fight’s not over.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/07/abortion-supporters-building-midterm-wins

Blue states seek to protect abortion rights before supreme court decision

An upcoming decision by the conservative-leaning court could overturn Roe v Wade and imperil abortion rights nationwide

Jessica Glenza

Fri 4 Mar 2022

In the face of imminent threats to legal abortion in the US, lawmakers and
activists in left-leaning “blue” states are working to expand rights and access
to the procedure.

State-level efforts to protect the right to abortion and reduce the cost of
obtaining the procedure in states such as California, Rhode Island and Vermont
are, in large part, a response to a forthcoming supreme court decision which
could gut abortion rights nationally.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/04/blue-states-abortion-rights-supreme-court

Thousands gather at Women’s March rallies in D.C., across U.S. to protect Roe v. Wade

By Caroline Kitchener, Meagan Flynn, Lola Fadulu, Donovan J. Thomas and Paul Schwartzman
Oct 2, 2021

Thousands of protesters marched at rallies in Washington and cities across the country Saturday, decrying Texas’s recent ban on most abortions and warning that the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority could impose further restrictions in the coming months.

Amassing in downtown D.C. before walking in a clamorous procession to the Supreme Court, a roster of speakers bemoaned a looming threat to Roe v. Wade and implored Americans to enlist in a nationwide campaign to preserve abortion rights.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/10/02/womens-march-dc-abortion/

Abortion rights advocates march across U.S. to protest restrictive laws

Solidarity marches held in Canada

Thomson Reuters
Oct 02, 2021

Women's rights advocates gathered at the Texas capitol on Saturday to protest against the United States' most restrictive abortion law, launching a series of 660 marches around the United States in support of reproductive freedom.

A crowd of more than 1,000 protesters assembled in sweltering heat in front of the Austin building where lawmakers earlier this year passed a measure that bans abortions after about six weeks, which Gov. Greg Abbott later signed.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/abortion-rights-advocates-march-across-u-s-to-protest-restrictive-laws-1.6197724

Indigenous and immigrant communities stand to be disproportionately affected by Texas’s abortion ban

For these groups, access to abortion has long been entangled in other structural and historical issues

Frances Nguyen, The Lily
September 14, 2021

Long before Texas’s Senate Bill 8 (S.B. 8) went into effect on Sept. 1, making it the most restrictive abortion ban in the country, abortion rights advocates, providers and funds have been trying to interpret what the measure could actually mean for them, especially its most unprecedented provision: Private citizens, even people who live outside the state, are empowered to sue anyone they think may have “aided or abetted” someone getting an abortion after six weeks — before most people know they’re pregnant.

Many believe that, for those trying to access abortion care, anyone within their support system — from the doctor who administers the procedure to the fund that pays for their fees, and even the person who drives them to the clinic — could be liable for a civil suit for $10,000 for each abortion.

Continued: https://www.thelily.com/indigenous-and-immigrant-communities-stand-to-be-disproportionately-affected-by-texass-abortion-ban/

Texas Abortion Ban Sends Women Out of State, Draining Aid Funds

Ayanna Alexander, Bloomberg News
September 10, 2021

(Bloomberg Law) -- Nonprofits that aid women seeking abortions plan to steer more of their funds to sending women out of state to get the procedure in the face of new Republican restrictions across the South, but the list of destinations is shrinking.

The added time and expense will drain resources from the abortion funds, which help women who can’t afford the procedure on their own. The new restrictions will hit low-income Black women, who are a significant portion of their clientele, the hardest. Texas’s new restrictions, which ban abortions after six weeks and allow anyone to sue providers suspected of violating the measure, only ratchet up the pressure on abortion funds as more Republican-led states watch to see if the law survives legal scrutiny.

Continued: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/texas-abortion-ban-sends-women-out-of-state-draining-aid-funds-1.1650462

Lawsuit Filed to Stop Texas’ Radical New Abortion Ban

For Immediate Release: July 13, 2021

Broad coalition of Texas abortion providers, doctors, clergy, abortion funds and practical support networks sues to block the state’s radical new abortion ban set to take effect Sept. 1

The ban encourages anyone – including anti-abortion activists – to essentially act as bounty hunters by awarding $10,000 or more to those who successfully sue another person for providing or assisting someone who gets an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy

WASHINGTON — Today, Texas abortion providers—led by Whole Woman’s Health—along with several abortion funds, practical support networks, doctors, health center staff, and clergy members filed a lawsuit to block a radical new Texas law (S.B. 8) set to take effect Sept. 1. The law bans abortion as early as six weeks of pregnancy and includes an unprecedented provision that asks private individuals — including anti-abortion protestors with no connection to the patient — to file lawsuits seeking “enforcement” of the ban. The law creates monetary rewards for any member of the public who successfully sues an abortion provider or those who “aid and abet” someone getting an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/lawsuit-filed-to-stop-texas-radical-new-abortion-ban

Texas – Inside the Plan to End Legal Abortion

Inside the Plan to End Legal Abortion

Esther Wang
May 22, 2020

Whiteface is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it blip in Texas’s oil patch 50 minutes west of Lubbock that only a few hundred people call home, so tiny that describing it as a small town would be a stretch. But on a rainy evening in mid-March, several dozen of its residents along with people from neighboring towns crammed into a worn-down community center on the town’s main strip for a meeting of Whiteface’s elected officials, an unusually large audience for their regular council meeting.

“I know y’all aren’t here to listen to our business,” joked one of the council members. And it was true. That night, the council would be voting on an anti-abortion ordinance that, if passed, would make Whiteface the latest so-called “sanctuary city for the unborn” in the state. With its approval, Whiteface would join a dozen other Texas towns that in recent months had declared abortion to be murder and announced that abortions (and in some towns, even emergency contraception like Plan B) were “unlawful” within the town’s limits; some of the ordinances, too, designated a list of the state’s leading abortion providers and advocacy groups as “criminal entities.” The crowd in the sparsely decorated community center, crammed into rows of red and yellow plastic chairs, had amassed to show their support for the ordinance, and to urge the Whiteface council to officially designate the town a self-proclaimed “sanctuary city for the unborn.”

Continued: https://theslot.jezebel.com/inside-the-plan-to-end-legal-abortion-1843155358