HHS eliminates CDC staff who made sure birth control is safe for women at risk

By Rachana Pradhan
June 30, 2025

For Brianna Henderson, birth control isn't just about preventing pregnancy. The Texas mother of two was diagnosed with a rare and potentially fatal heart condition after having her second child. In addition to avoiding another pregnancy that could be life-threatening, Henderson has to make sure the contraception she uses doesn't jeopardize her health.

For more than a decade, a small team of people at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention worked to do just that, issuing national guidelines for clinicians on how to prescribe contraception safely for millions of women with underlying medical conditions — including heart disease, lupus, sickle cell disease, and obesity. But the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, fired those workers as part of the Trump administration's rapid downsizing of the federal workforce.

Continued; https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hhs-cdc-staff-birth-control-safety-women-at-risk/

Right wing policies threaten gender equality and health security

Young people call for all sexual and reproductive health services including safe abortion rights

SHOBHA SHUKLA – CNS
08 Feb 2025

Donald Trump’s presidency is likely to have far-reaching consequences for sexual and reproductive health, bodily autonomy and human rights worldwide. He has already withdrawn USA’s financial support to the UN health agency World Health Organization (WHO), and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will no longer share its invaluable expertise with the WHO.

Also all ongoing (as well as future) projects funded by US Agency for International Development (USAID) have been put on immediate hold. Many of these are lifesaving health programmes, including those directly related to sexual and reproductive health services.

Continued: https://kashmirtimes.com/opinion/comment-articles/right-wing-policies-threaten-gender-equality-and-health-security

Number of US abortions fell by only 2% after wave of state bans, CDC report reveals

First major report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tallies abortion provision in the post-Roe US

Carter Sherman
Wed 27 Nov 2024

Despite the wave of state abortion bans that took effect after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June 2022, the number of abortions performed in the US fell by only 2% that year, according to the first major report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to tally abortion provision in the post-Roe United States.

The findings in the report, released Wednesday, echo other research that has uncovered that US abortion rates have surprisingly risen in the years since Roe’s demise. In 2023, the US saw more than 1m abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortions and restrictions on the procedure – the highest number recorded in more than a decade.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/27/post-roe-abortion-rate

27.11.2024

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Society of Family Planning

United States

Health

US abortion numbers have risen slightly since Roe was overturned, study finds

Abortion was slightly more common across the U.S. in the first three months of this year than it was before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and cleared the way for states to implement bans, according to a new study.

By GEOFF MULVIHILL and KIMBERLEE KRUESI
August 7, 2024

The number of women getting abortions in the U.S. actually went up in the first three months of 2024 compared with before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a report released Wednesday found, reflecting the lengths that Democratic-controlled states went to expand access.

A major reason for the increase is that some Democratic-controlled states enacted laws to protect doctors who use telemedicine to see patients in places that have abortion bans, according to the quarterly #WeCount report for the Society of Family Planning, which supports abortion access.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-survey-pills-roe-election-2024-7179dda48eae0a764be89c2e0aafd80a

USA – Why do abortion “exceptions” rarely include mental health?

"It's one stigma on top of another: abortion is stigmatized, mental health is stigmatized," one expert told Salon

By NICOLE KARLIS, Salon
JULY 19, 2024

As more states move toward more restrictive gestational limits on when a person can have an abortion or not, medical “exceptions” have become the norm. While they often create more confusion than clarity, frequently missing from exceptions are those for mental health. More often than not, the exceptions are focused on physical health only.

According to KFF, 14 states have near-total abortion bans. Many more have restrictions with gestational limits in effect. While exceptions vary, only one state, Alabama, explicitly includes mental health conditions as a legal exception. However, in this case, the exception specifically requires a psychiatrist to diagnose the pregnant person with a “serious mental illness” and document that the person will engage in behavior that could result in their death or the death of the fetus due to their mental health condition.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2024/07/19/why-do-abortion-exceptions-rarely-include-mental-health/

USA – Abortion exceptions “have no meaning at all” — and estimates of pregnancies by rape prove it

A new report estimates 65,000 pregnancies by rape in abortion-ban states, underscoring the fallacy of these laws

By NICOLE KARLIS
JANUARY 26, 2024

For years, Dr. Samuel Dickman was an abortion provider in Texas. Currently, he works as the chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood in Montana. But in both states, he’s had patients who have spontaneously revealed that they were pregnant as a result of rape.

Dickman and his colleagues thought if some people are revealing this to their abortion providers, without being prompted, there have to be more who aren’t because they understandably don’t feel comfortable doing so. Moreover, what was happening to pregnant survivors of rape in states with abortion bans?

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2024/01/26/abortion-exceptions-have-no-meaning-at-all-and-estimates-of-pregnancies-by-rape-prove-it/

26.01.2024

Commentary

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

How Many Abortions Did the Post-Roe Bans Prevent?

The first estimate of births since Dobbs found that almost a quarter of women who would have gotten abortions carried their pregnancies to term.

By Margot Sanger-Katz and Claire Cain Miller
Nov. 22, 2023

The first data on births since Roe v. Wade was overturned shows how much abortion bans have had their intended effect: Births increased in every state with a ban, an analysis of the data shows.

By comparing birth statistics in states before and after the bans passed, researchers estimated that the laws caused around 32,000 annual births, based on the first six months of 2023, a relatively small increase that was in line with overall expectations.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/upshot/abortion-births-bans-states.html

22.11.2023

News

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Daniel Dench

Dr. Alison Norris

forced birth

Institute of Labor Economics

Kristan Hawkins

Mayra Pineda-Torres

online abortion pills

Roe v. Wade

Students for Life of America

United States

Human Rights

Law

A new abortion study is a stunning indictment of Dobbs’ consequences

Criminalization is ineffective because it fails to address the reasons one would consider abortion in the first place.

Oct. 26, 2023
By Mary Ziegler

A study released this week confirmed a surprising fact: The national abortion rate has risen slightly in the year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The study, released by WeCount, a project of the Society of Family Planning, relied on data from more than 80% of the nation’s providers, along with historical trends and state data. The report matches earlier findings released last month by the Guttmacher Institute, which likewise found abortions had remained steady or even increased since Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health.

With abortion rates not decreasing, opponents will pursue increasingly complex and constitutionally dubious ways to shut down access in and travel to progressive states. The outcome of this ratcheting up of penalties will be just as predictable. While criminalization makes pregnancy far more dangerous, it is ineffective because it fails to address the reasons one would consider abortion in the first place.

Continued: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/abortion-rates-study-dobbs-roe-republicans-rcna122324

USA – Medical exceptions to abortion bans often exclude mental health conditions

Pregnant people were more likely to die from mental health conditions than any other cause, a CDC analysis found.

Nada Hassanein, Stateline
October 24, 2023

More than a dozen states now have near-total abortion bans following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, with limited medical exceptions meant to protect the patient’s health or life.

But among those states, only Alabama explicitly includes “serious mental illness” as an allowable exception. Meanwhile, 10 states with near-total abortion bans (Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming) explicitly exclude mental health conditions as legal exceptions, according to an analysis from KFF, a health policy research organization.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2023/10/medical-exceptions-abortion-bans-mental-health-conditions/

USA – Effects of Dobbs on maternal health care overwhelmingly negative, survey shows

By Kim Bellware and Emily Guskin
June 21, 2023

Sweeping restrictions and even outright abortion bans adopted by states in the year since the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling have had an overwhelmingly negative effect on maternal health care, according to a survey of OBGYNs released Wednesday that provides one of the clearest views yet of how the U.S. Supreme Court decision has affected women’s health care in the United States.

The poll by the health research nonprofit KFF reveals that the Dobbs ruling — which ended federal protection on the right to abortion — affected maternal mortality and how pregnancy-related medical emergencies are managed, precipitated a rise in requests for sterilization and has done much more than restrict abortion access. Many OBGYNs said it has also made their jobs more difficult and legally perilous than before, while leading to worse outcomes for patients.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/21/obgyn-abortion-poll/

21.06.2023