A covert network of activists is preparing for the end of Roe

What will the future of abortion in America look like?

By Jessica Bruder
APRIL 4, 2022

One bright afternoon in early January, on a beach in Southern California, a young woman spread what looked like a very strange picnic across an orange polka-dot towel: A mason jar. A rubber stopper with two holes. A syringe without a needle. A coil of aquarium tubing and a one-way valve. A plastic speculum. Several individually wrapped sterile cannulas—thin tubes designed to be inserted into the body—which resembled long soda straws. And, finally, a three-dimensional scale model of the female reproductive system.

The two of us were sitting on the sand. The woman, whom I’ll call Ellie, had suggested that we meet at the beach; she had recently recovered from COVID-19, and proposed the open-air setting for my safety. She also didn’t want to risk revealing where she lives—and asked me to withhold her name—because of concerns about harassment or violence from anti-abortion extremists.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/roe-v-wade-overturn-abortion-rights/629366/

04.04.2022

American Medical Association

Army of Three

Autonomous Pelvic Care

Carol Downer

Choix

Clergy Consultation Service

Danika Severino Wynn

Del-Em device

dilatation and curettage

DIY abortion

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Laurie Bertram Roberts

Letitia James

Lorraine Rothman

lunch-hour abortion

manual vacuum aspiration

Mountain Access Brigade

Plan C

Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood v. Casey

self-managed abortion

Self-managed Abortion Safe and Supported

telemedicine abortion

The End of Roe v. Wade

traveling for abortion

trigger laws

undue burden standard

USA – Miscarriages Are Awful, and Abortion Politics Make Them Worse

June 22, 2021
New York Times
By Amanda Allen and Cari Sietstra

Up to 26 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. These losses can be as physically painful as they are emotionally wrenching. And yet many patients are not offered the best care for their miscarriages because of abortion politics.

Both of us have had miscarriages. We each visited our doctors for scheduled ultrasounds between eight and 11 weeks of pregnancy, expecting to see a little bean-shaped baby-to-be with a reassuring heartbeat. Unfortunately, all we heard was quiet. No motion. No beautiful pulse. Only stillness.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/opinion/miscarriage-abortion.html

In Hospitals Across Africa, A Lack Of Post-Abortion Care

March 9, 2021
PATRICK ADAMS

Some of Onikepe Owolabi's most vivid memories of medical school in her native Nigeria are of the teenage girls she saw in the emergency room of a rural hospital with complications from an unsafe abortion — painful infections that, if left untreated, can lead to permanent disability or even death.

Each time, Owolabi, now a senior research scientist with the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit reproductive rights organization in the U.S. that supports abortion rights, assisted doctors in promptly providing the girls with a group of essential obstetric services known collectively as "post-abortion care," or PAC.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/03/09/936206516/in-hospitals-across-africa-a-lack-of-post-abortion-care

Venezuela – This Woman Performed Her Own Abortion — And Was Lucky To Survive

This Woman Performed Her Own Abortion — And Was Lucky To Survive
After barely surviving two illegal abortions, Beatriz sells birth control on the black market to help other women in Venezuela, as the economic and political crisis deepens.

Karla Zabludovsky, BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on February 28, 2019

CARACAS, Venezuela — With a flick of the wrist, Beatriz pulled out two strips of birth control pills from her top.

Contraceptives are in short supply in Venezuela, with most pharmacies sold out, so it’s largely up to black marketeers like Beatriz to supply women with them. And despite their exorbitant price tag — on the street, $1 gets you a month’s birth control, but that represents a week’s salary — the pills remain highly sought after.

Continued: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/karlazabludovsky/venezuelas-crisis-is-pushing-women-to-have-illegal-abortions

CROATIA – Movement to stop violence against women in hospitals

CROATIA – Movement to stop violence against women in hospitals

by International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion
Nov 20, 2018

Ivana Nincevic Lesandric, member of Parliament from the centre-right MOST party shared a personal story in Parliament of having had an abortion after a miscarriage in a Croatian hospital, which revived a public debate on the state of women’s health care. She said doctors had tied her hands and legs before doing an extremely painful curettage to remove tissue from her uterus without anesthesia. She said the conditions were “from the 15th century” and the most painful 30 minutes of her life, and that many Croatian women have experienced this. In response, Minister of Health, Milan Kujundzic, said “it does not work like that in Croatian hospitals.” Little did he know.

Within three days, Parents in Action – RODA, a group that advocates for dignified pregnancy, parenthood and childhood, collected and sent the Minister 400 testimonies from women who had had similar experiences. The slogan of the movement to stop violence against women in hospitals is #BreakTheSilence / #PrekinimoŠutnju.

Continued: http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/croatia-movement-to-stop-violence-against-women-in-hospitals/

Self-managed Abortion Highlights Need to Decriminalize Abortion Worldwide

Self-managed Abortion Highlights Need to Decriminalize Abortion Worldwide
Most of the world's decades-old abortion laws don't reflect the advent of the abortion pill, and they permit the punishment of people who end their own pregnancies and nonmedical providers.

Nov 12, 2018
Patty Skuster, Kinga Jelinska & Susan Yanow

In countries with a range of laws regulating abortion, there is growing evidence that people are safely self-managing their abortions outside a clinical context—sourcing and using misoprostol alone or in combination with mifepristone, on their own and with the help of family and friends, or with community-based support.

Recognizing the potential of abortion pills to expand access to safe abortion, feminist collectives across the world have mobilized to create reliable resources about self-managed abortion. Activists run telephone hotlines, email help desks, and groups to provide information about self-management. Women often obtain the medicines through online services, community distribution networks, or pharmacies.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2018/11/12/self-managed-abortion-decriminalize/

DRC – September 27, 2018 News Release

Complications from Unsafe Abortion Common in Kinshasa
New evidence demonstrates need to improve access to safe abortion and postabortion care

September 27, 2018
News Release

A new study using data from 2016 found that the majority of women in Kinshasa who seek postabortion care following an unsafe abortion experience severe or moderate complications. In 2016, 37,900 women obtained treatment for complications from abortion in Kinshasa, the capital and largest urban area of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Kinshasa and the New York-based Guttmacher Institute, documents for the first time the immediate health consequences of complications resulting from unsafe abortion among women admitted to health facilities in Kinshasa, as well as the type of treatment these patients received. Researchers found that women receiving postabortion care were most commonly treated using outdated methods not recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Continued: https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2018/complications-unsafe-abortion-common-kinshasa