UK – State and federal MPs describe death threats and vile abuse in wake of Joanna Howe’s anti-abortion campaign

Representatives around the country say third parties sent abusive messages after they were targeted for their stance on abortion

Tory Shepherd
Wed 21 May 2025

State and federal MPs around the country say they and their staff have received death threats from third parties amid controversy generated by the self-described “assertiveness” of the anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe.

Howe, an expert in migration law at the University of Adelaide, has campaigned for anti-abortion laws in various state parliaments, and this month organised a rally – attended by the former prime minister Tony Abbott – against NSW reforms to improve access to services. She said on social media people “need to be hysterical” about the bill, which represented what she called “an extreme, radical takeover of our country”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/21/state-and-federal-mps-describe-death-threats-and-vile-abuse-in-wake-of-joanna-howes-anti-abortion-campaign-ntwnfb

USA – ‘Rolling Thunder’: Inside conservatives’ strategy to curb abortion pill access

Abortion opponents hope a new report will spur the GOP to ban abortion pills and defund Planned Parenthood.

By Alice Miranda Ollstein
May 7, 2025

The nation’s most influential anti-abortion groups have a new plan to roll back access to the procedure for millions of Americans in what they’re calling the “biggest opportunity for the pro-life movement” since toppling Roe v. Wade.

The effort, which the groups have privately named “Rolling Thunder,” is the movement’s first concerted attempt under the second Trump administration to target abortion pills, and aims to convince the FDA, Congress and courts to crack down on their use.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/07/anti-abortion-pill-gameplan-rolling-thunder-00331933

07.05.2025

Commentary

abortion pills

American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs

Americans United for Life

Angela Vasquez-Giroux

anti-choice anti-science

anti-choice cruelty

anti-choice dishonesty

anti-choice extremism

anti-choice junk science

anti-choice lies

anti-choice misogyny

Brittni Frederiksen

Colson Center for Christian Worldview

Dr. Christina Francis

Ethics and Public Policy Center

FDA

Food and Drug Administration

Marjorie Dannenfelser

Marty Makary

mifepristone

Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood Action Fund

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

RollingThunder

Ryan Anderson

safety of abortion pills

Students for Life

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America

United States

Activism

Anti-choice

The Legacy of Dr. Warren Hern: Abortion Provider, Women’s Health Advocate and Target of Hate

1/17/2025
by Carole Joffe, Ms. Magazine

After more than 50 years of providing abortions, Dr. Warren Hern of Boulder, Colo., will retire on Jan. 22, 2025. For years, he has been one of the most high-profile abortion doctors in the United States—one of only a handful of providers to perform abortions in the late second trimester and third trimester of pregnancy.

…In a letter to Ms. executive editor Kathy Spillar reflecting on his five-plus decades in medicine, Hern described his role and his clinic as “providing the safest, most compassionate and highest quality outpatient abortion services available anywhere.”

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/01/17/warren-hern-late-abortion-care/

‘Extreme’ US anti-abortion group ramps up lobbying in Westminster

The UK branch of the Alliance Defending Freedom has increased its spending and is forging ties with key MPs

Shanti Das, Home affairs correspondent
Sat 6 Apr 2024

A rightwing Christian lobby group that wants abortion to be banned has forged ties with an adviser to the prime minister and is drawing up policy briefings for politicians.

The UK branch of the US-based Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has more than doubled its spending since 2020 and been appointed a stakeholder in a parliamentary group on religious freedoms in a role that grants it direct access to MPs.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/06/extreme-us-anti-abortion-group-ramps-up-lobbying-in-westminster

Canada – Right-wing extremism is connected to being anti-choice – but we can win on abortion rights

As we see the growing restriction of abortion in the US, it is important that we remain vigilant of a growing anti-choice movement on the right.

by Joyce Arthur, rabble.ca
February 8, 2024

Canada has done well without any abortion law or restrictions since 1988, leaving abortion care under the same medical regulations as other healthcare. Indeed, abortion care follows the same pattern around the world regardless of law – people who want abortions have them as early as possible, while a small number of later abortions will always be needed for compelling social or medical reasons. Laws trying to regulate abortion are redundant and restrictions are harmful.

Abroad, Canada has a reputation as a socially liberal western democracy that guarantees reproductive rights and minority rights such as for gender expansive people. The Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a self-declared feminist foreign policy and has often spoken out in favour of abortion rights.

Continued: https://rabble.ca/health/right-wing-extremism-is-connected-to-being-anti-choice-but-we-can-win-on-abortion-rights/

‘Stunning’ threat in Texas abortion case steps up Paxton criminalization crusade

State attorney general threatened to prosecute doctors if they provided abortion care to a woman with a nonviable pregnancy

Mary Tuma
Tue 12 Dec 2023

When a Texas court ruled that a 31-year-old woman with a non-viable pregnancy could have an abortion despite the state’s strict bans, the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, responded with a brazen threat to prosecute “hospitals, doctors, or anyone else” who would assist in providing the procedure. The letter he sent Texas hospitals hours after the ruling, threatening first-degree felonies that could result in life in prison, was a “stunning” move indicative of his longstanding crusade to criminalize abortion care, say legal experts and advocates.

“It is extraordinary that Paxton would threaten hospitals and doctors with this letter before even winning an appeal,” Mary Ziegler, a UC-Davis law professor who focuses on reproductive rights, told the Guardian. “It’s a very unusual maneuver, but does certainly reflect his ultimate goal of wanting to go after abortion providers and supporters at all costs.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/12/texas-abortion-ken-paxton-kate-cox

USA – Tuesday’s Election Results Show Women Will Fight for Abortion Rights

Women don't want men making laws getting between us, our families, and our doctors.

NANCY BRAUS, Common Dreams
Nov 12, 2023

It is clear that the Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court caught the Republicans completely off guard, even though they have been working to take away the rights of women since before they killed the Equal Rights Amendment.

The right must have thought that stealing the basic rights to bodily autonomy and to determining the size of one's own family would be upsetting at first, but then we would all get over it. The pundits always say that Americans have a short span of attention, especially when it comes to politics, so it appears that the forced birthers didn't have a clue about the buzz saw they were about to confront.

Continued: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/tuesday-election-abortion-rights

Nationalist leader convicted for violence against Polish abortion protester “Grandma Kate”

NOV 6, 2023
Notes from Poland

Polish nationalist leader Robert Bąkiewicz has received a binding conviction for his involvement in a “hooligan act” of violence against a prominent protester for women’s and LGBT rights, Katarzyna Augustynek, widely known by her nickname of “Grandma Kate” (Babcia Kasia).

Bąkiewicz, who stood as a candidate for the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party at last month’s parliamentary elections, has dismissed the ruling as a politically motivated decision by a biased judge. He says that he will not comply with the order to undertake community service and pay compensation to his victim.

Continued: https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/11/06/nationalist-leader-convicted-for-violence-against-polish-abortion-protester-grandma-kate/

Canada – Hamilton councillors look to conceal ‘triggering’ anti-abortion flyers

City staff would look at requiring the flyers be put in envelopes with trigger warnings

Samantha Beattie · CBC News
Nov 05, 2023

In an effort to protect Hamilton residents from experiencing "severe harm" when they discover graphic images of aborted fetuses in their mailbox, councillors are calling for new city regulations.

Unsolicited anti-abortion flyers are routinely delivered to Hamilton homes for anybody to see, including children and people who have had an abortion or experienced pregnancy loss, said Coun. Maureen Wilson (Ward 1) at a planning committee meeting this week.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/flyer-bylaw-1.7017716

An Alabama woman was imprisoned for ‘endangering’ her fetus. She gave birth in a jail shower

Exclusive: Ashley Caswell, one of a growing number of jailed pregnant women in Etowah county, is suing officials after she was denied care

Sam Levin in Los Angeles
Fri 13 Oct 2023

In March 2021, sheriffs in Etowah county, Alabama, arrested Ashley Caswell on accusations that she’d tested positive for methamphetamine while pregnant and was “endangering” her fetus.

Caswell, who was two months pregnant at the time, became one of a growing number of women imprisoned in the county in the name of protecting their “unborn children”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/13/alabama-pregnant-woman-jail-lawsuit