USA – Catholic Hospital Mergers Pose Growing Threat to Abortion Access

Center for American Progress
Sep 29, 2025

Washington, D.C. — By 2020, at least 1 in 6 U.S. hospital beds were located in Catholic hospitals. While consolidation has been increasing in American health care, Catholic health care providers are uniquely constrained by religious directives that restrict contraception access, abortion, gender-affirming care, fertility treatments, and other forms of lifesaving reproductive health care.

As the market share of Catholic hospital networks continues to grow, patients are left with fewer choices, charged higher prices, and forced to face greater challenges in accessing high-quality reproductive care. A new report from the Center for American Progress discusses this aspect of health care consolidation and recommends policies to slow consolidation, increase transparency, and protect patients’ access to care.

Continued: https://www.americanprogress.org/press/release-catholic-hospital-mergers-pose-growing-threat-to-abortion-access/

29.09.2025

Research

Barak Richman

belief-based care denial

Catholic directives

Catholic hospitals

Center for American Progress

Federal Trade Commission

Biden declares Equal Rights Amendment adopted, sparking a debate about his abortion legacy

The move has no immediate legal force but will likely spark lawsuits that advocates hope will restore abortion rights.

By Alice Miranda Ollstein
01/17/2025

President Joe Biden’s Friday announcement declaring the Equal Rights Amendment part of the U.S. Constitution is reviving long-simmering tensions in the abortion-rights movement about the outgoing president’s legacy on reproductive rights.

The last-minute move, three days before the end of Biden’s term, has sparked arguments between Biden’s defenders and his detractors over its significance, since even the White House acknowledged the announcement does not have the force of law. And the president’s declaration is also fueling a broader debate about whether Biden did enough to prepare for and respond to the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/17/biden-era-abortion-legacy-00199115

USA – Project 2025 and Vance agree: “The Dobbs decision is just the beginning.”

Shawn Musgrave
July 17 2024

DONALD TRUMP HAS tried to distance himself from Project 2025, the conservative playbook for a new Trump administration penned by dozens of right-wing organizations — and especially its hard-line anti-abortion proposals.

In the lead-up to the Republican convention, many credulously lauded Trump for “softening” or “moderating” the GOP platform on the issue, despite the fact that the platform proposes fetuses and embryos already have full constitutional rights.

Continued: https://theintercept.com/2024/07/17/jd-vance-trump-project-2025/

Inside the $100 million plan to restore abortion rights in America

Leaders of the coalition say they want to make the procedure more accessible and affordable than ever before.

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
06/24/2024

A new coalition of abortion-rights groups is marking the second anniversary of the fall of Roe v. Wade with a pledge to spend $100 million to restore federal protections for the procedure and make it more accessible than ever before.

In plans shared first with POLITICO, groups including Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and Reproductive Freedom for All are banding together to form Abortion Access Now — a national, 10-year campaign that will both prepare policies for the next time Democrats control the House, Senate and White House, and build support for those policies among lawmakers and the public. At a private event Monday evening in Washington, they will pitch a group of influential progressives on going on offense at a time when abortion is outlawed in a third of the country.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/24/abortion-rights-advocates-launch-100-million-campaign-00164528

Domestic Violence Calls About ‘Reproductive Coercion’ Doubled After the Overturn of Roe

Those experiencing domestic violence are facing a reality where an inability to receive reproductive care is also further endangering their lives, new data shows.

10/20/2023
by JENNIFER GERSON, THE 19^TH

Reports of abuse involving reproductive coercion—actions that prevent someone from making crucial decisions about their body and reproductive health—nearly doubled in the yearlong period after Roe v. Wade was overturned, according to new data from the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH).

“If you cannot make these decisions, it could mean unfortunately that you have to stay in an abusive situation longer than you want to,” Marium Durrani, the vice president of public policy at the NDVH, told The 19th. “It could impact your escape, it could mean that potentially you’re forced to have a child with someone you don’t want to have a child with.”
Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/10/20/domestic-violence-reproductive-coercion-doubled-roe-dobbs/

States with the toughest abortion laws have the weakest maternal supports, data shows

August 18, 2022
RACHEL TREISMAN

Nearly two dozen states have moved to restrict abortion or ban it altogether since the reversal of Roe v. Wade — meaning more people, especially those with low incomes and from marginalized communities, will be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term.

So are states prepared to pay for the infrastructure needed to support these parents and children? The data paints a grim picture for many families: Mothers and children in states with the toughest abortion restrictions tend to have less access to health care and financial assistance, as well as worse health outcomes.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1111344810/abortion-ban-states-social-safety-net-health-outcomes

USA – Judges are split on how seriously to take John Roberts’ abortion opinion

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter
Wed April 14, 2021

(CNN) Almost a year after Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the Supreme Court's liberals to cast the determinative vote to block a Louisiana abortion law, his opinion in the case is causing deep divisions among lower court judges and lawyers.

Last June, Roberts, who had never voted against an abortion restriction, spelled out his thinking in a concurring opinion, perhaps to bring clarity to lower courts dealing with the explosive issue.

Instead, that opinion has added to the tangle of cases and rulings throughout the country, some of which are now making their way up to the high court.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/14/politics/john-roberts-abortion/index.html

USA – Brett Kavanaugh’s disturbing abortion history: He ruled against women who were forced to abort

Brett Kavanaugh’s disturbing abortion history: He ruled against women who were forced to abort
In 2007, two disabled women complained about being forced to have abortions. Kavanaugh ruled against them

Amanda Marcotte
August 20, 2018

Much of the discourse around Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump's second nominee for the Supreme Court, has been focused around his attitudes on abortion. Anti-choice groups have been crowing that Kavanaugh has a "strong record of protecting life" and will uphold laws written "to protect unborn children." Trump himself promised, during the 2016 campaign, to appoint "pro-life judges." And while some conservatives, in a likely effort to bamboozle both the Senate and the public, have been pretending that Kavanaugh is a moderate when it comes to the abortion issue, both pro- and anti-choice activists seem to agree that Kavanaugh is a threat to a woman's right to choose to terminate her pregnancy.

"Choose" being the operative word here. In 2007, as an appellate judge in Washington, D.C., Kavanaugh was presented with an unusual case involving two women who had wanted to continue their pregnancies but had been forced to have abortions instead. They sued and Kavanaugh ruled against them, denying their claims that they had a right to be consulted about the decision to terminate their pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2018/08/20/brett-kavanaughs-disturbing-abortion-history-he-ruled-against-women-who-endured-forced-abortions/

USA – Limiting Abortion Access Contributes to Poor Maternal Health Outcomes

Limiting Abortion Access Contributes to Poor Maternal Health Outcomes
By Anusha Ravi
Posted on June 13, 2018

Access to abortion is a key component of women’s comprehensive health care. The ability to choose if, when, and how to give birth is linked to women’s economic success, educational attainment, and general health and well-being.

Anti-choice advocates, unfortunately, often use women’s health and maternal mortality as justifications for abortion restrictions. Although abortion has been proven to be one of the safest medical procedures, anti-choice policymakers at state and federal levels continue to use the guise of protecting women’s health to promote restrictions on abortion providers and procedures such as medication abortion; add requirements for women to fulfill in order to receive an abortion; and limit the procedure after an arbitrary number of weeks into a pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2018/06/13/451891/limiting-abortion-access-contributes-poor-maternal-health-outcomes/