Post-Roe, anti-abortion groups target law protecting clinics from violence

The Face Act penalizes people for blockading and threatening abortion clinics. Anti-abortion activists want it repealed

Carter Sherman
Sat 16 Sep 2023

The inside of the abortion clinic was chaotic. Anti-abortion protesters lined the walls. A few had sat down on the clinic’s lime green chairs and draped themselves in chains. “Please inspire these parents to keep their babies!” one man shouted, before he started singing about the Virgin Mary. As some of the protesters sang and prayed loudly, the police officers crowded inside the clinic tried to urge them to move. They didn’t want to budge.

It was 22 October 2020, and one anti-abortion advocate was livestreaming a group of activists who were at the Washington DC-area clinic to, in their view, “rescue” people from having abortions. One redheaded young woman turned to the camera.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/16/face-act-anti-abortion-threaten-clinics

In Poland, Testing Women for Abortion Drugs Is a Reality. It Could Happen in the U.S.

Sept. 14, 2023
By Patrick Adams

Nearly three years ago, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal effectively ended legal abortion in the country. Since then, the Polish government has vigorously repressed the nation’s reproductive rights movement and ramped up surveillance of women who are suspected of terminating their pregnancies. Authorities have violently dispersed demonstrations, threatened activists with prison time and ordered doctors to record all pregnancies in a new national database.

Even before Roe v. Wade was overturned last summer, Poland’s draconian crackdown, which was spearheaded by the governing right-wing Law and Justice party, should have been alarming to American supporters of abortion rights. It was always possible that some aspects of what has happened there could happen here.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/14/opinion/abortion-pills-testing-poland.html

How Texas Plans to Trap Abortion Seekers

Anti-abortion activists and elected officials hope to keep abortion seekers walled in within the borders of their home states.

9/13/2023
by SHOSHANNA EHRLICH, Ms. Magazine

In 1991, Kathrin K. and her husband were stopped by German border guards as they crossed back into the country on their way home from neighboring Holland on the suspicion they were carrying illegal drugs. Instead of drugs, however, the guards found “incriminating evidence”—specifically, a plastic bag containing a nightgown, sanitary pad and towels. These items suggested that Kathrin had crossed the border into Holland to obtain an abortion—a crime under German law, even if legal where performed. She was transported to a nearby hospital and subjected to a degrading forced vaginal exam.

It is difficult for me to imagine a day when guards are stationed at the Texas-New Mexico border, or along travel routes leading from an abortion ban state into a protective one, with the power to detain those transporting pregnant persons suspected of seeking cross-border abortion services. And yet, on my more cynical or despairing days, I wonder, given the latest plan by Mark Lee Dickson, a pastor at Sovereign Love Church in East Texas, aimed at halting so-called abortion trafficking, if this dystopic vision of intrastate abortion border guards might someday become a reality.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/09/13/texas-abortion-travel-ban-sanctuary-city/

USA – We Need Courageous Leaders Who Stand Up to Anti-Abortion Extremists

Anti-abortion violence has increased significantly since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Our political leaders must not cower.

9/2/2023
by CARRIE N. BAKER

While headlines focus on politicians’ efforts to ban abortion at the state and national levels, anti-abortion forces are also working at the local level to erode abortion access—even in deep blue states such as Massachusetts. In addition to pumping massive funds into anti-abortion fake clinics in blue states, they are also working to block municipal protections for abortion healthcare by using threats and legal intimidation.

Recently, in the progressive Western Massachusetts city of Easthampton, both the mayor and city council president—both Democrats that claim to support abortion rights—voted against an ordinance to protect access to reproductive healthcare and gender-affirming care. The ordinance was supported by over 20 reproductive and trans rights groups in the community, who were perplexed and frustrated by their actions.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/09/02/anti-abortion-massachusetts/

US anti-abortion activist who kept fetal remains convicted of blockading clinic

Lauren Handy and other anti-abortion protesters invaded a Washington DC clinic in 2020 and blocked people from entering

Carter Sherman
Tue 29 Aug 2023

Lauren Handy, the anti-abortion activist who kept five fetuses in her Washington DC home, was on Tuesday found guilty of breaking federal law by blockading an abortion clinic.

The charges stem from an incident in October 2020, when Handy and nine other anti-abortion protesters invaded a Washington abortion clinic, according to an October 2022 indictment of the group. Handy used a fake name to book an appointment at the clinic, then blocked people from entering the waiting room while other defendants chained themselves together inside the clinic, prosecutors alleged. One of the clinic’s nurses sprained her ankle after she was pushed by a protester, according to the indictment.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/29/lauren-handy-anti-abortion-convicted-blockading-clinic

29.08.2023

News

anti-choice blockade

anti-choice clinic invasion

anti-choice cruelty

anti-choice terrorism

anti-choice violence

FACE Act

Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act

Abortion bans are fueling a rise in high-risk patients heading to Illinois hospitals

August 23, 2023
By Kristen Schorsch
3-Minute Listen with Transcript

When she was around 22 weeks pregnant, the patient found out that the son she was carrying didn't have kidneys and his lungs wouldn't develop. If he survived the birth, he would struggle to breathe and die within hours.

The patient had a crushing decision to make: continue the pregnancy — which could be a risk to her health and her ability to have children in the future — or have an abortion.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/08/23/1193898181/abortion-bans-are-fueling-a-rise-in-high-risk-patients-heading-to-illinois-hospi

Australia – ‘I was shocked’: Catholic-run public hospitals refuse to provide birth control and abortion

Publicly funded Catholic hospitals across Australia are using the cover of religion to opt out of providing reproductive care – and experts say it has created a ‘postcode lottery’ for access to services

by Donna Lu and Melissa Davey
Mon 21 Aug 2023

When Sarah*, a Melbourne mother, was pregnant with her second child, her GP gave her a surprising warning: if she had any serious complications, concerns about the viability of the pregnancy or believed she might be miscarrying, she should go to the Royal Women’s hospital rather than the Mercy Hospital for Women, where she was planning to deliver the baby.

The reason, the GP told her, was that the Mercy – a public hospital in Melbourne’s north-east – would not assist in terminating a pregnancy due to its Catholic affiliation.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/22/do-australian-catholic-hospitals-perform-abortions-provide-contraception-reproductive-care

Pastors say they support ‘sanctity of life’ after case involving 11-year-old girl

Friday, August 18, 2023
By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

AFTER an 11-year-old girl allegedly impregnated by her mother’s boyfriend aborted the baby with pills procured by her mother, two prominent religious leaders said yesterday that many churchgoers still oppose abortion in such circumstances.

...Alicia Wallace, director of Equality Bahamas, said given the degree of gender-based violence in The Bahamas, it is “ridiculous and inhumane to expect women or children to suffer through unwanted pregnancies”.

"There is absolutely no reason to criminalise a child or the people who helped her to access critical healthcare that likely saved her life, preventing further physical and mental harm,” she said on Wednesday.

Continued: http://www.tribune242.com/news/2023/aug/18/we-oppose-abortion-even-case-rape-pastors-say-they/

Travis County judge sides with Texas women denied abortions after dangerous pregnancies

Ryan Autullo, Austin American-Statesman
Aug 4, 2023

A state judge in Travis County ruled Friday that abortions in Texas are lawful in cases of dangerous pregnancy complications, including fatal fetal diagnoses, and that doctors cannot be prosecuted for using "good faith judgment" on when to terminate a pregnancy.

The injunction from District Judge Jessica Mangrum, which the state immediately blocked Friday in filing an appeal, comes two weeks after four Texas women came to her court to give emotional testimony about not receiving an abortion, even as they suffered physically and after doctors deemed their pregnancies incompatible with life. It marked the first time women denied abortions have sued a state since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.

Continued: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/state/2023/08/04/austin-texas-judge-lifts-abortion-ban-for-women-with-risky-pregnancies/70534072007/

How Meta Created a Wild West for Abortion Misinformation

New cases from Meta’s Oversight Board highlight Meta’s haphazard approach to reproductive health.

BY JENNIFER NEDA JOHN
JULY 31, 2023

In March, a member of an anti-abortion Facebook group shared a post describing what it claimed was “pro-abortion logic”: “We don’t want you to be poor, starved or unwanted. So we’ll just kill you instead.”

That same month, another Facebook user shared a link to a news article covering a South Carolina bill that would have criminalized abortion as homicide, thus making it eligible for the death penalty. In the caption, the user criticized lawmakers’ logic that “it’s wrong to kill so we are going to kill you.” On Instagram, another post struck the same tone, criticizing the idea of being “so pro-life” that “we’ll kill you dead if you get an abortion.”

Continued: https://slate.com/technology/2023/07/abortion-misinformation-meta-oversight-board.html