USA – State Actions Undermining Abortion Rights in 2020

By Nora Ellmann
August 27, 2020

So far in 2020, there have been a number of important wins for abortion rights in the courts. In the U.S. Supreme Court, Louisiana’s unconstitutional admitting privileges law was struck down in June Medical Services v. Russo.1 In the lower courts, a federal district court in Maryland ruled that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration must suspend enforcement of a medically unnecessary restriction on access to medication abortion until 30 days after the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency.2 Also in Maryland, a district court vacated and enjoined a Trump administration rule that would have required separate insurance payments for abortion care and all other health care for people insured by certain plans under the Affordable Care Act.3 And a district court in Georgia struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban, which would have banned abortion at a point before most people even know they are pregnant.4

Continued: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2020/08/27/489786/state-actions-undermining-abortion-rights-2020/

Neo-Nazis & Religious Conservatives Unite in Slovakia’s Fresh Abortion Battle

Campaigners fear that stark legislative proposals are helping to normalise a repressive discourse around reproductive rights in which concessions may be inevitable

Sian Norris
31 July 2020

Defying the Coronavirus pandemic, women gathered on the streets of Bratislava, Liptovský Mikuláš, Banská Bystrica, and Košice in Slovakia, on 7 July, protesting the latest attack on their reproductive rights.

The women wore protective face masks and carried placards demanding that the Government not introduce restrictions to abortion law that threaten their freedom.

Continued: https://bylinetimes.com/2020/07/31/neo-nazis-religious-conservatives-unite-in-slovakias-fresh-abortion-battle/

There’s Nothing “Pro-Life” About Trump’s Opposition to Abortion Rights

There’s Nothing “Pro-Life” About Trump’s Opposition to Abortion Rights

By Tatiana Cozzarelli, Left Voice
Published January 26, 2020

As Senators sat listening to hours upon hours of impeachment proceedings, considering the possibility of removing the president from office, Donald Trump began campaigning for a second term. Yesterday, that meant being the first sitting president ever to attend and speak at the March for Life. Trump said it was a “profound honor” to be the first president to attend, and assured that “unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House.” Similar to his campaign rallies, at the end of Trump’s speech, the crowd erupted into a chant of “four more years.”

The March for Life is a large annual march against the right to an abortion, which began in 1974 after the passing of Roe v. Wade. Every year, thousands of people walk to the Supreme Court to demand the overturn of Roe v .Wade. The Catholic Church and Evangelical churches mobilize thousands of people to the march.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/theres-nothing-pro-life-about-trumps-opposition-to-abortion-rights/

Planned Parenthood chief: we have to ‘undo the damage’ of abortion bans in the Trump era

Planned Parenthood chief: we have to 'undo the damage' of abortion bans in the Trump era
Alexis McGill Johnson is focusing on systemic issues in her fight against the wave of abortion bans sweeping across the US

Jessica Glenza
Wed 22 Jan 2020

The Planned Parenthood president, Alexis McGill Johnson, was stuck on the tarmac in Washington DC, and not happy about it. She’d raced to catch a flight and now she was sitting in the stale air of a plane grounded by stormy weather. Then, the woman next to her asked a question common among strangers: “What do you do?”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/22/planned-parenthood-president-alexis-mcgill-johnson-abortion-rights

22.01.2020

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SCOTUS ‘TRAP law’ case and the erosion of abortion rights

SCOTUS 'TRAP law' case and the erosion of abortion rights

BY BRIDGET KELLY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
01/13/20

Actress Michelle Williams got some traction when she used her Golden Globe acceptance speech to champion abortion rights, saying she was “grateful to have lived at a moment in our society where choice exists.” But the moment she spoke of may be fleeting.

Three days before Willams’s speech, over 200 members of Congress signed onto an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to reconsider, if not overturn, Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision legalizing abortion in the U.S.

Continued: https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/478002-scotus-trap-law-case-and-the-erosion-of-abortion-rights

USA – Gestational Age Bans: Harmful at Any Stage of Pregnancy

Gestational Age Bans: Harmful at Any Stage of Pregnancy

Megan K. Donovan, Guttmacher Institute
First published online: January 9, 2020

HIGHLIGHTS

Efforts to ban abortion by gestational age surged in 2019, helping to expose antiabortion lawmakers’ true agenda to eliminate abortion rights entirely.
Using gestational age as a legal cutoff for abortion care is harmful at any point in pregnancy.
States such as Oregon and Vermont are leading the way in enacting laws that prohibit government interference in abortion care throughout pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2020/01/gestational-age-bans-harmful-any-stage-pregnancy

The downfall of Roe v. Wade started in 2010

The downfall of Roe v. Wade started in 2010
Abortion access in America hangs by a thread. The unraveling began a decade ago.

By Anna North
Dec 23, 2019

This year, five states passed laws banning abortion before most people know they’re pregnant. Alabama passed a ban on the procedure at any stage of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest. In Ohio, lawmakers introduced a bill that would create a crime called “abortion murder,” punishable by life in prison.

For many, restrictions like these would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. But as we look ahead to 2020, the anti-abortion movement could be on the brink of its biggest success yet: dismantling the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2019/12/23/21024312/abortion-laws-2019-ohio-georgia-roe-wade

USA – Indie Abortion Clinics Can’t Be Replaced, but They’re Dying Out

Indie Abortion Clinics Can’t Be Replaced, but They’re Dying Out
Abortion clinics that aren't connected to large national organizations like Planned Parenthood provide more than half of all abortions.

by Marie Solis
Dec 23 2019

Laurent Delli-Bovi is used to operating her Brookline, Massachusetts, abortion clinic in a state of financial precarity. Women's Health Services, which has been around for almost 28 years, has been in the red for the last 13 of them.

Delli-Bovi, the clinic's medical director, said those years have mostly consisted of "robbing Peter to pay Paul": putting off paying some bills in favor of more urgent ones. The independent clinic runs on a "day-to-day" basis, its future never guaranteed.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdp4x/independent-abortion-clinics-are-closing-thanks-to-abortion-restrictions

USA – 2019 Was a Banner Year for Abortion Laws—and Not the Kind You Think

2019 Was a Banner Year for Abortion Laws—and Not the Kind You Think
Anti-abortion legislation got the headlines, but there was an even bigger surge in state-level abortion protections.

December 22, 2019
Jessica Washington

This year will be remembered for an unprecedented red-state assault on reproductive rights. From a wave of early-term abortion bans in the South and Midwest to a host of policies aimed at preventing providers from having open conversations with patients about abortion, conservative state legislators have done everything in their power to limit the right to abortion. But out of the headlines, 2019 was actually a banner year for abortion protections, as progressives in blue states started to fight back and win major legislative battles to protect the rights enshrined in Roe v. Wade. In 2019, more legislation was passed by Democratic statehouses to protect the right to abortion than in the entire previous decade.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/12/2019-was-a-banner-year-for-abortion-laws-and-not-the-kind-you-think/

USA – Abortion. Transgender rights. Voting access. Polarizing issues could dominate statehouse agendas in 2020.

Abortion. Transgender rights. Voting access. Polarizing issues could dominate statehouse agendas in 2020.

By Tim Craig and Emily Wax-Thibodeaux
Dec. 22, 2019

Republican-controlled state legislatures are gearing up to try to tighten abortion laws across the country, while some states controlled by Democrats are looking to enshrine the right to choose into law.

It’s one of a handful of deeply polarizing issues that could dominate state legislatures in 2020, a potential sign of the partisan gridlock that’s to come — and the efforts to rally supporters during a hyperpartisan presidential election year.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/abortion-transgender-rights-voting-access-polarizing-issues-could-dominate-statehouse-agendas-in-2020/2019/12/22/57ae576c-2043-11ea-bed5-880264cc91a9_story.html