Abortion in America: From Roe to Dobbs and beyond

Why is abortion in America so polarized? How did we get where we are today, and what lies ahead? Leading legal expert and historian Mary Ziegler, JD, weighs in.

By Stacy Weiner, Senior Staff Writer
Sept. 21, 2023

Few U.S. Supreme Court cases have ignited as much passion as the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established a constitutional right to an abortion and the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning it.

…Mary Ziegler, JD, a professor of law at the University of California, Davis, and one of the world’s leading experts on reproductive rights, has been watching — and assessing — as the abortion landscape shifts in a post-Dobbs world.

Continued: https://www.aamc.org/news/abortion-america-roe-dobbs-and-beyond

21.09.2023

Interviews/Podcasts

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

USA – The abortion issue backfires on Republicans

Aug 19, 2023
Steve Roberts

The next election is more than 14 months away, but every analyst who studies the data is coming to the same conclusion: That contest — a likely rerun between Joe Biden and Donald Trump — will be very close. Democrats start with a small advantage in the electoral map, but the latest national polls show the two contenders in a dead heat.

As Ronald Brownstein notes on CNN, all signs “point toward a 2024 presidential contest that will likely be decided by a tiny sliver of voters in a rapidly shrinking list of swing states realistically within reach for either party.” Kyle Kondik, who runs Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, tells Spectrum News: “As of right now, we’re sort of expecting a lot of continuity from 2016 and 2020 in 2024.”

Continued: https://www.goshennews.com/opinion/steven-roberts-the-abortion-issue-backfires-on-republicans/article_363ef688-3df2-11ee-afff-ff8d67cb4d03.html

19.08.2023

Opinion

Aileen Cardona-Arroyo

Amy Walter

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

opinion polls on abortion

public support for abortion

Do No Harm: Texas Court Rules in Favor of Women Harmed by Abortion Ban’s Inadequate Protection for Medical Emergencies

15 AUG 2023
JOANNA L. GROSSMAN

Earlier this year, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit, Zurawski v. State of Texas, on behalf of several women who needed emergent abortion care when their planned, wanted pregnancies went south either because the pregnancy became non-viable or its continuation threatened the woman’s life or health. In each case, the woman needed abortion care to preserve her life, health, or fertility; yet, in each case, she was turned away by doctors and hospitals because she wasn’t sick enough to make the abortion lawful. The lawsuit arises out of the Texas abortion ban that took effect in August 2022, which prohibits abortions unless a narrow, poorly defined medical emergency exception applies. The lawsuit asked the court to clarify that the exception must be broad enough to allow doctors to use their good-faith judgment about when an abortion is necessary to protect the woman’s life, health, or fertility.

Continued: https://verdict.justia.com/2023/08/15/do-no-harm-texas-court-rules-in-favor-of-women-harmed-by-abortion-bans-inadequate-protection-for-medical-emergencies

Why many IVF patients worry about the antiabortion movement

Perspective by Julianna Goldman
July 29, 2023

Whenever anyone asks whether I’m done having children, my answer is: “Yes, but … .” That’s because, although my husband and I have two young children, we also have six potential babies. The latter are embryos created years ago through in vitro fertilization and now frozen in liquid nitrogen in a Maryland lab.

While I mostly feel like our family is complete, I haven’t been able to bring myself to decide what to do with those frozen bundles of our DNA. The decision has become even more fraught since last year when the Supreme Court stripped away the federal right to an abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. It’s unclear how Dobbs could affect autonomy over the estimated 1.5 million frozen embryos nationwide, but it’s a worry.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/07/29/dobbs-abortion-ivf-embryos-impact/

Since “Dobbs” Ruling, Native People Face a Web of Obstacles to Reproductive Care

In addition to external constraints, many tribal governments appear reluctant to actively fight for abortion access.

By Jen Deerinwater , TRUTHOUT
July 17, 2023

Abortion access was already a near impossibility for people receiving services through the Indian Health Service (IHS), even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

The ruling is likely to increase already high rates of pregnancy-related mortality for Native pregnancy-capable people (NPCP) in the U.S., creating “the perfect environment for Native women to die,” Abigail Echo-Hawk, citizen of Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and executive vice president of the Seattle Indian Health Board, told Truthout.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/since-dobbs-ruling-native-people-face-a-web-of-obstacles-to-reproductive-care/

The New Threat to Abortion Access in the United States—The Comstock Act

I. Glenn Cohen, JD; Eli Y. Adashi, MD, MS; Mary Ziegler, JD
JAMA. Published online July 13, 2023. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.9360

In the wake of the US Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, there have been many legislative attempts to restrict abortion, as well as lawsuits seeking to buttress those initiatives or further restrict abortion. Such litigation has centered, among other things, on whether the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act overrides potentially conflicting state laws that seek to limit abortion exceptions for the health and life of the mother, whether the US Food and Drug Administration approval of mifepristone was unlawful, and whether abortion bans violate various state constitutions.

In this Viewpoint we discuss an issue that that has received less attention and is being litigated in several courts—the Comstock Act. … We explain the history of this old law, its use by those seeking to restrict abortion, and why it threatens abortion access in the US.

Continued: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2807457

13.07.2023

Editorial

Comstock Act

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act

Jonathan F. Mitchell

mailing abortion pills

Anti-abortion killer James Kopp files court papers arguing Supreme Court decision should set him free

In a court filing, Kopp argues his federal life sentence should be dismissed.

By Jon Wells, Hamilton Spectator
Friday, June 30, 2023

James Kopp, who took the war over abortion literally, killing an obstetrician in Buffalo and allegedly shooting and wounding three doctors in Canada, is attempting to use a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision as a get-out-of-jail card.

In court papers filed in June, Kopp argues his 2007 federal court life sentence should be dismissed, in light of the high court’s decision last summer in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that struck down the constitutional right in the U.S. to terminate pregnancies established in the 1973 Roe vs. Wade case.

Continued: https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/anti-abortion-killer-james-kopp-files-court-papers-arguing-supreme-court-decision-should-set-him/article_a822f29c-57bb-5909-a490-bb5f46609d84.html

01.07.2023

News

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

FACE Act

Federal Access to Clinic Entrances Act

A year after Dobbs, the pro-choice movement has never been stronger

By Jennifer Rubin
June 26, 2023

A year after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization stripped women of nearly 50 years of constitutional protection to make their own health-care decisions, women have faced trauma and near-death experiences and been deprived of medical care. That includes women who never contemplated having an abortion. The Dobbs-aggravated shortage of doctors practicing obstetrics-gynecology, especially in rural areas, leaves millions of women without access to health care.

A recent KFF survey of 569 OB/GYNs underscores the health-care crisis Dobbs has wrought. Twenty percent of respondents “report they have personally felt constraints on their ability to provide care for miscarriages and other pregnancy-related medical emergencies since the Dobbs decision.” Forty-four percent of doctors “and six in ten practicing in states where abortion is banned or where there are gestational limits, say their decision-making autonomy has become worse since the Dobbs ruling.” And 36 percent nationally “say their ability to practice within the standard of care has become worse.”

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/26/dobbs-ruling-anniversary-health-political-fallout/

26.06.2023

Opinion

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Women’s Health Protection Act

These 1,572 US politicians have helped ban abortion since Roe fell. They’re mostly men

These are the faces of lawmakers and governors whose votes helped pass bans on abortion

Ava Sasani, graphics by Andrew Witherspoon
Thu 22 Jun 2023

It’s been one year since the US supreme court ended the constitutional right to abortion. The procedure is now prohibited in 14 states and restricted in six more, leaving large swaths of the midwest and south without access to basic reproductive care.

To mark the first anniversary of the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, the case that overturned Roe v Wade, the Guardian has created a visual directory of state legislators who embraced the opportunity to restrict abortion access. These are the faces of lawmakers and governors whose votes helped pass bans on abortion at conception or after six weeks, before most women know they are pregnant.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2023/jun/22/abortion-ban-politicians-who-voted-for-restrictions-who-are-they-men-women

22.06.2023

News

anti-choice lawmakers

anti-choice legislators

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

One year after the fall of Roe v. Wade, abortion care has become a patchwork of confusing state laws that deepen existing inequalities

June 21, 2023
Heidi Fantasia

In the year since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson ruling struck down the constitutional right to abortion, society has been seeing the results of a post-Roe world.

While there is no law in the U.S. that regulates what a man can do with his body, the reproductive health of women is now more regulated than it has been in 50 years. And the scope of reproductive health care that women can receive is highly dependent on where they live.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/one-year-after-the-fall-of-roe-v-wade-abortion-care-has-become-a-patchwork-of-confusing-state-laws-that-deepen-existing-inequalities-207390

21.06.2023