Abortion Bans Are Making It Impossible for Advocates to Help Abuse Victims

“To have to say to someone, ‘You live in a state where you’re more likely to be criminalized than the person who’s abusing you’—it’s devastating,” If/When/How’s Sara Ainsworth told Jezebel.

By Kylie Cheung
March 26, 2025

In 2007, Erica DuBois learned she was pregnant just two months after becoming cancer-free. And then the abuse began, she recalled to Jezebel. Her partner would invoke religion to justify physically harming her: “He talked about the beatings and violence like a test—if the baby survived, then it was God’s will,” DuBois said. She eventually gave birth to a healthy baby girl, but as a result of these sustained beatings, her first pregnancy was the only one that didn’t end in a miscarriage. She sometimes tried to take birth control pills, but when her abuser found them, he punished her. This violence would only escalate when she inevitably became pregnant.

Continued: https://www.jezebel.com/abortion-bans-are-making-it-impossible-for-advocates-to-help-abuse-victims

Could ASHAs bridge India’s abortion support gap? Chhattisgarh shows how

These frontline health workers, with their close knowledge of the communities they work in, could help ensure safe access to the much-needed procedure.

Menaka Rao, IndiaSpend.com
Feb 22, 2025

As a “Mitanin” in Dhamtari town in Chhattisgarh, Bhavika Dhruv has been working with women facing domestic violence for 12 years. Mitanin, or “friend” in Chhattisgarhi, is the name given to Accredited Social Health Activists or ASHA workers in the state.

One such woman Dhruv worked with was her 30-year-old client, M. At first, M did not open up to her, Dhruv said. When M was pregnant with her second child, about three years ago, Dhruv helped take her to the hospital for check ups and delivery, as Mitanins do. It was during these hospital visits that M started talking to her about her situation at home.

Continued; https://scroll.in/article/1079317/could-ashas-bridge-indias-abortion-support-gap-chhattisgarh-shows-how

USA – Abortion Bans Can Be Deadly for Victims of Domestic Violence

Abusers often use pregnancy as a tool to exert control. When abortion is no longer an option, countless women and children are at even greater risk.

10/15/2024
by Gia Elise Barboza-Salerno, Ms.Magazine

As the 2024 election approaches, voters face a critical decision: whether to protect reproductive rights at the ballot box. In many states, abortion access is on the line, either through direct ballot measures or by electing candidates whose policies will determine the future of these rights. But what is often overlooked in this debate is the dangerous ripple effect abortion bans have on domestic violence.

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned the constitutional right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy, abortion bans have made pregnant individuals more vulnerable to abuse and, in some cases, deadly violence.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2024/10/15/abortion-bans-domestic-violence-women-die/

15.10.2024

Commentary

domestic violence

intimate partner abuse

intimate partner violence

USA – Post-Dobbs, Abortion Bans Have Given Abusers a New Power

"Abusers could now use new laws, or confusion about those laws, to harass and threaten their partners,” the National Domestic Violence Hotline writes in a new report about how abusive partners are using abortion bans to keep their victims trapped.

By Kylie Cheung, Jezebel
June 3, 2024

It’s been almost two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and a new survey from the National Domestic Violence Hotline offers a disturbing glimpse into how abortion bans—and rampant confusion about the language of these laws and who they punish—have given abusers more control than ever.

Between October and December 2023, the Hotline conducted a survey on its website and anonymously collected domestic violence victims’ experiences with acts of reproductive coercion, or acts to control their victims’ reproductive decision-making, such as tampering with their birth control or blocking their access to abortion. The survey received 3,431 responses.

Continued: https://www.jezebel.com/post-dobbs-abortion-bans-have-given-abusers-a-new-power

USA – How abortion bans are undercutting efforts to prevent domestic violence

OB-GYNs are often the first or only doctors to learn if a patient is facing intimate partner violence. As they leave places with abortion bans, domestic violence victims are feeling the impacts.

By Jennifer Gerson, Shefali Luthra
November 13, 2023

As more abortion bans have gone into effect across the country, it has become far more difficult to perform a standard element of gynecological care: screening patients for domestic abuse.

Research shows that OB-GYNs are often the first or only doctors to learn if a patient is facing intimate partner violence. While women of all ages experience intimate partner violence, it is most prevalent among women of reproductive age, the people most likely to see an OB-GYN. Meanwhile, abortion bans have contributed to reproductive health care providers leaving states, retiring early or declining to practice where the procedure is restricted.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2023/11/abortion-bans-hindering-domestic-violence-screenings-prevention/

USA – Abortion access a lifeline for domestic violence survivors

Abortion bans give abusers the tools to continue to manipulate their partners

Sylvia Ghazarian, American Forum
Oct 29, 2023

National Domestic Violence Awareness Month serves as a sobering reminder of the countless survivors who have endured the horrors of domestic violence. As we stand in solidarity during October, we must recognize that the battle against this extends far beyond this designated month. The voices of survivors, once muffled by fear and shame, must be amplified relentlessly. Accountability must be thrust upon the perpetrators, and the survivors must be liberated from the guilt that they carry.

One in three women and one in four men experience partner physical violence, partner sexual violence and/or partner stalking. On an average day, there are more than 20,000 phone calls placed to domestic violence hotlines nationwide. In the end, studies have shown that there is a correlation between intimate partner violence and depression. At WRRAP last year approximately 15% of those we provided funding to were survivors of domestic violence. And, for the first half of this year we have over 16% who have reported they are survivors of DV.

Continued: https://www.news-press.com/story/opinion/2023/10/29/abortion-access-a-lifeline-for-domestic-violence-survivors/71316908007/

29.10.2023

Opinion

abortion bans enable abusers

domestic violence

gender-based violence

National Domestic Violence Awareness Month

reproductive coercion

Ghana – 6,000 Adolescents In Volta Region Pregnant – Stakeholders Urged To Address Trend

20-May-2023

According to Ghana Statistical Service data from the 2021 Population and Housing Census, about 79,733 girls in Ghana aged 12 to 17 have been in a union, either married or living together with a man. Out of this number, 25,999 are girls of junior high school-going age (12 to 14 years).

In the Volta Region, it states that one out of four girls are married or are in a union before 18 years. According to the GHS District Health Information Management System (DHIMS), over 6,000 girls got pregnant between 2020 and 2021 alone.

Continued: https://www.peacefmonline.com/pages/local/news/202305/487762.php

20.05.2023

News

adolescent pregnancy

domestic violence

gender-based violence

Ghana Health Service

Hilda Kotoh

Thywill Eyra Kpe

United Nations Fund for Population Activities

‘Women are treated like walking incubators’: Malta’s fight for abortion

The island nation is the only country in the EU in which termination is still illegal under any circumstances, forcing women to have the procedure abroad or else risk prosecution. But women’s rights groups are pushing for change

by Rachel Cooke
Sun 19 Jun 2022

Elle doesn’t find it easy to talk about her
abortion, not because she regrets it – she would do the same again without any
hesitation – but because the memory of the terrible, almost overwhelming, fear
and isolation she experienced at the time still makes her feel so angry. “I’m
privileged,” she says, twisting the ring on her index finger. “I could afford
to travel. But what about those less fortunate than me? I know of a woman who
felt so desperate when she found out she was pregnant again, she put her three
children in front of some cartoons on the TV, and went straight upstairs to the
bathroom to begin launching herself from the toilet on to the floor in the hope
of inducing a miscarriage.” She’s fighting tears now. “That woman almost killed
herself. What about her? Does anyone want to hear her story?”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/19/the-fight-for-abortion-in-malta

Polish Woman Faces Jail Time for Sending Pregnant Domestic Violence Victim Abortion Pills

“I had my abortion at 12 weeks and I have also been in an abusive relationship,” the activist said. “Helping her was my first human response.”

By Kylie Cheung
March 28, 2022

More than a year after Poland enacted a near-total abortion ban, the first Polish abortion rights activist to be charged with breaking the law will stand trial this week. Justyna Wydrzyńska, an organizer at Poland’s Abortion Dream Team (ADT), gave a pregnant woman experiencing domestic violence medication abortion pills in February 2020, and now faces up to three years in jail.

Notably, even before Poland’s abortion ban took effect in January 2021, laws dating back to the 1990s prohibited “aiding an abortion,” an ADT spokesperson told The Guardian, and these laws have primarily targeted abortion providers, because for years, surgical abortions were the only option available to people seeking abortion. Since Polish law criminalizes abortion providers but not patients, ADT evaded criminalization by referring people seeking abortion care to international groups that mailed medication abortion pills. But at the onset of the covid pandemic in early 2020, this was no longer an option when Poland’s postal service suspended international packages.

Continued: https://jezebel.com/polish-woman-faces-jail-time-for-sending-pregnant-domes-1848715625

Polish woman is first activist to face trial for violating strict abortion law

Justyna Wydrzyńska, who gave a woman experiencing domestic violence miscarriage-inducing pills, could be jailed for three years

Weronika Strzyżyńska
Mon 28 Mar 2022

The first pro-choice activist to be charged in Poland for breaking the country’s strict abortion law by providing miscarriage-inducing tablets to a pregnant woman is due to face trial next week.

Justyna Wydrzyńska, from the Polish group Aborcyjny Dream Team (ADT), is charged with illegally aiding an abortion and faces up to three years in prison if she is found guilty.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/28/polish-woman-is-first-to-face-trial-for-violating-strict-abortion-law