How a pastor is trying to revive a 150-year-old US law to ban abortion

Mark Lee Dickson is trying to get the federal anti-obscenity law at the heart of ordinances enforced across the US

Cecilia Nowell
Thu 9 Mar 2023

When Amy Hagstrom Miller closed her Texas abortion clinic after Roe v Wade fell, the founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health wanted to reopen just across the border in New Mexico, to make care as accessible as possible to Texans who could no longer access it in their state. But anti-abortion advocates had other plans.

Hagstrom Miller was considering purchasing a building in the border town of Hobbs when, last November, the city passed an ordinance banning abortion and declaring itself “a sanctuary city for the unborn”. Earlier this year, the towns of Clovis and Eunice followed suit, as did the counties of Roosevelt and Lea. Hagstrom Miller and her team decided instead to open their new clinic in Albuquerque, a more progressive city about 200 miles from the Texas border, where they hope providers and patients will feel more welcomed. The clinic is currently awaiting approval of its licensing paperwork before officially opening.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/09/pastor-push-national-abortion-ban-sanctuary-cities-for-the-unborn


“It Could End Abortion in America”: Two Tiny Towns At the Center of the Abortion Wars

New Mexico has emerged as one of the key battlefronts in the U.S. war over abortion.

By Carter Sherman
February 13, 2023

SANTA TERESA, New Mexico — When Paulina Caballero’s pregnancy made her so nauseous that she could no longer cook for her kids, she realized that she could not go through with it.

At 29, the Texas native was already a mother of three. She suffers, she said, from a medical condition that leads her to vomit uncontrollably during pregnancy and forces her to spend months in the hospital. During her first pregnancy, she lost 50 pounds. During her second, she lost 80. During her third, 40.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7bmxn/future-of-abortion-war-is-in-new-mexico


Fears mount around ‘catastrophic’ abortion pills case as decision nears
Conservative judges likely to decide fate of Texas lawsuit seeking to ban mifepristone nationwide

By Caroline Kitchener and  Perry Stein
February 5, 2023

Abortion rights advocates delivered a stark warning to the Biden administration’s top health official in a private meeting last week: It’s time to take seriously “fringe” threats that could wind up blocking abortion access across the country. Driving their anxiety is a Texas lawsuit brought by conservative groups seeking to revoke the decades-old government approval of a key abortion drug.

The suit has been widely ridiculed by legal experts as rooted in baseless and debunked arguments. But in recent weeks, abortion rights advocates and some in the Biden administration have grown increasingly concerned that the case is likely to be decided entirely by conservative judges who might be eager for a chance to restrict abortion access even in Democrat-led states, where the procedure has remained legal since the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/05/abortion-pills-texas-lawsuit/


Indiana abortion clinics see patients amid legal changes

It’s a glimmer of hope and common sense,” Dr. Jeanne Corwin, who traveled from Cincinnati to Indianapolis on Friday to provide abortions, said of last week’s ruling blocking Indiana’s abortion ban.

Sept. 25, 2022
By The Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS — Dr. Jeanne Corwin traveled about two hours on Friday from her hometown of Cincinnati to an Indianapolis abortion clinic, where she saw the clinic’s first 12 patients the day after an Indiana judge blocked the state’s abortion ban from being enforced.

It’s a trip Corwin has made several times over the past few months, as her Ohio medical license allows her to sign off on required paperwork for Women’s Med patients in Indiana to access care in the clinic’s sister location in Dayton.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/indiana-abortion-clinics-see-patients-legal-changes-rcna49324


USA – Telemedicine providers navigate murky legal territory as abortion bans take effect

Iowa Public Radio | By Farah Yousry
September 19, 2022

The patchwork nature of abortion laws across the Midwest has made the procedure harder for pregnant people to get — and for health care providers to give. Telemedicine rules present especially murky legal territory.

Allison Case, a family medicine physician, spends much of her time working in a hospital where she delivers babies and provides reproductive health care services.

https://www.iowapublicradio.org/2022-09-19/telemedicine-providers-navigate-murky-legal-territory-as-abortion-bans-take-effect


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


Americans scramble for abortions in states that have banned it

New avenues are emerging, but logistical hassles are everywhere

By RUTH READER and BEN LEONARD
July 11, 2022

Demand for pills that end pregnancy has skyrocketed in states that have restricted abortion since the Supreme Court decision last month, and abortion clinics are reporting a rush for appointments in towns bordering those states.

Aid Access, a virtual abortion clinic based in the Netherlands, saw a 256 percent increase in people coming to its site in the 24 hours after the court’s June 24 decision.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/11/teleabortions-high-demand-abortion-pill-00044005


What clinics in southern states where abortion is banned are doing now

Abortion is now largely banned across the South.

By Kyla Guilfoil and Alexandra Svokos
July 11, 2022

Two weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the South has become covered with abortion bans. Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Texas -- along with Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and South Dakota -- all now have near-total bans on abortion in effect.

The clinics that had been working there spent years navigating previous restrictions and fighting off state laws.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/clinics-southern-states-abortion-banned-now/story?id=86299844


Abortion providers are trying to open new clinics as close as possible to states with bans

Providers hope the new clinics can help serve the surge of patients now expected to travel for abortions.

Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
July 11, 2022

Whole Woman’s Health announced plans to close its four Texas abortion clinics and open one in neighboring New Mexico.

CHOICES, based in Memphis, Tennessee, is opening a clinic in Carbondale, Illinois, the closest state expected to protect abortion rights.

https://19thnews.org/2022/07/abortion-providers-new-clinics-borders-states-bans/


A 49-year crusade: Inside the movement to overturn Roe v. Wade

Antiabortion activists and their Republican allies are on the cusp of reaching a goal they have sought for decades in tossing out the 1973 Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion.

By Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey, Caroline Kitchener and Rachel Roubein, Washington Post
May 7, 2022

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell still remembers the shock he felt when Donald Trump won the 2016 election. He also recalls what happened next.

“The first thing that came to my mind was the Supreme Court,” McConnell said in an interview this past week, remembering his reaction that night as he watched results from a basement office at the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He soon called Donald McGahn, campaign counsel to the president-elect, who was slated to become the top White House lawyer.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/07/abortion-movement-roe-wade/