Trump’s assault on human rights, bodily autonomy and democracy

January 25, 2025
Ipas

Late on Friday, January 24th, President Trump doubled down on his administration’s anti-abortion policies, reinstating the harmful Global Gag Rule, rejoining the non-binding Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD), and strengthening the Hyde Amendment.

“These actions add up to a violation of human rights, bodily autonomy and democracy, as well as an unprecedented attack on the reproductive rights of people in the U.S. and across the globe,” says Ipas President and CEO Anu Kumar.

Continued: https://www.ipas.org/news/trumps-assault-on-human-rights-bodily-autonomy-and-democracy/

USA – Loans and pawned belongings: abortion patients are increasingly going into debt

Abortion debt is swelling. Providers and groups trying to fill the void created by bans are buckling under the weight

Sarah Leonard
Sun 22 Dec 2024

Early this fall, a woman desperate for an abortion messaged the Wild West Access Fund, an abortion fund in Nevada, asking for support. She guessed she was nearly 20 weeks pregnant and didn’t have even a few hundred dollars to spend on the procedure. She wanted to prove she was doing everything she could to raise the money, and said she was trying to pawn her vehicle.

Over the next few weeks she bounced from clinic to clinic, trying to put the money together as the price of the abortion she sought continued to increase. The cost of a first trimester abortion is about $500, around $2,000 in the second, and a third trimester abortion can range from a few thousand dollars to around $25,000. Since the US supreme court eliminated federal protections for abortion, more than a dozen states banned the procedure completely, while others set gestational limits, increasing travel costs for pregnant people in those states.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/22/abortion-patient-debt

A Coast Guard Commander Miscarried. She Nearly Died After Being Denied Care.

by Erin Edwards for ProPublica and Robin Fields
Dec. 13, 2024

The night the EMTs carried Elizabeth Nakagawa from her home, bleeding and in pain, the tarp they’d wrapped her in reminded her of a body bag.

Nakagawa, 39, is a Coast Guard commander: stoic, methodical, an engineer by trade. But as they maneuvered her past her young daughters’ bedroom, down the narrow steps and into the ambulance, she felt a stab of fear. She might never see her girls again.

Then came a blast of anger. She’d been treated for a miscarriage before. She knew her life never should have been in danger.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/elizabeth-nakagawa-miscarriage-military-tricare-abortion-policy

USA – National Abortion Rights Groups Have the Wrong Priorities for Our Movement

There is an alarming disconnect between the agenda of our most powerful organizations and the real needs of abortion seekers and providers on the ground.

Chelsea Williams-Diggs et. Al
August 7, 2024

This piece was written and signed by a collective of abortion fund representatives. You can see the full list of writers and signatories at the bottom of the piece.

Two years after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, the crisis of abortion access in America has reached a breaking point.

At the same time, Democrats are making abortion a central issue in their election-year campaigns, and their allies at well-funded national reproductive rights and health nonprofit organizations invest millions in vague, multiyear electoral strategies.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/abortion-funds-movement-crisis/

USA – The New Autonomy of Abortion

Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, abortion freedom now hinges on access to pills.

BY ANDRÉA BECKER
MAY 23, 2024

When 18-year-old Rachel discovered she was unexpectedly pregnant, she made what she thought was a natural first step: call Planned Parenthood to schedule an abortion. “I wasn’t ready to be a parent or a mom,” she says. “And I didn’t want to go through giving birth just to give the kid away.” Even in an abortion-friendly state like Illinois, the nearest Planned Parenthood was one hour away, and there wasn’t an available appointment for another month.

When Rachel consulted ob-gyns, they either told her they wouldn’t provide an abortion or declined to provide recommendations. And since her insurance doesn’t cover abortion care, she’d have to pay the expensive fee out of pocket. “I just wanted it to be over with,” she says.

Continued: https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/access/2024/05/23/the-new-autonomy-of-abortion

The Terrifying Global Reach of the American Anti-Abortion Movement

Conservatives have not limited their attack on reproductive rights to the United States. They’ve been busy imposing their will on other countries, too—with disastrous consequences for millions of poor women.

Jodi Enda
March 18, 2024

Because Editar Ochieng knew the three young men, she didn’t think twice when they beckoned her into a house in an isolated area near the Nairobi River. One was like a brother; the other two were her neighbors in the sprawling Kenyan slum of Kibera.

Ochieng did not know the woman who performed her abortion. She and a friend scoured Nairobi until they found her, an untrained practitioner who worked in the secrecy of her home and charged a fraction of what a medical professional would. Mostly, what Ochieng remembers is the agony when this stranger inserted something into her vagina and “pierced” her womb. “It was really very painful. Really, really, really painful,” she told me. Afterward, Ochieng said, she cut up her mattress to use in place of sanitary pads, which she could not afford. She was 16 years old.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/179485/american-anti-abortion-movement-terrifying-global-reach

18.03.2024

Bethany Van Kampen Saravia

Biden Amendment

Caitlin Ryan Horrigan

Center for Women and Work

Council for Global Equality

Family Life Association of Eswatini

Feminist for Peace Rights and Justice Centre

Fòs Feminista

Foundation for AIDS Research

Geneva Consensus Declaration

Initiative for Strategic Litigation

Institute for Women’s Health

Marjorie Dannenfelser

maternal deaths

Mexico City policy

Mike Pence

MSI Reproductive Choices

Nelly Munyasia

Nerima Were

PEPFAR

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Population Action International

population control

President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief

Project 2025

Reproductive Health Network Kenya

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America

Terry McGovern

Torchlight Collective

Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health

U.N. Fund for Population Activities

U.S. Agency for International Development

The Supreme Court Ruling the Right Is Using to Eradicate Transgender People

The high court’s infamous abortion decision is now being wielded against gender-affirming care—in the first of many attacks on our rights to come.

Zane McNeill, New Republic
February 14, 2024

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with its now infamous ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the adverse disruptions to both the legal landscape of abortion and the quality of life of both abortion-seekers and pregnant patients across the country were nearly immediate. But the dystopia of the Dobbs holding isn’t limited to reproductive freedoms—it has also endangered other constitutional privacy matters that determine the right to purchase and use contraception, the right of same-sex intimacy and marriage, and the right to marry across racial lines. However, what’s become clear is that the far right intends to test the judicial system for future breaches by first targeting transgender people’s access to gender-affirming care.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/178681/dobbs-ruling-war-trans-community

Indigenous women, facing tougher abortion restrictions post-Roe, want Congress to step in

Sudiksha Kochi, USA TODAY
Dec 12, 2023

April Matson was a single mother of two on a six-hour interstate quest to find a legal abortion.

Matson loved being a parent, but the 25-year-old Native American couldn’t afford another child on her small salary as a food co-op manager. So, in 2016, Matson and a friend set out from Rapid City, South Dakota, for the long drive to Fort Collins, Colorado, for a $650 abortion. To save money, Matson spent two nights after the procedure recovering in a tent at a campsite.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/12/12/indigenous-women-abortion-restrictions/71333894007/

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 – The Hyde Amendment Continues to Be a Barrier for Accessing Abortion Care

Many people enrolled in public programs—such as Medicaid—must pay out-of-pocket for their abortion care.

10/23/2023
by TERRI-ANN THOMPSON and CARMELA ZUNIGA

Abortion is an essential healthcare service in the United States, with close to one million performed in 2020. While the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision eliminated the constitutional right to abortion and resulted in abortion bans in multiple states, people continue to seek abortion care. Even in states where abortion is still legally protected, many in need of financial support may not be able to obtain abortion care due to the Hyde Amendment.

This amendment, passed 47 years ago last month, prevents federal funds from being used to cover the cost of abortion services except in very limited circumstances. Many people enrolled in public programs—such as Medicaid—have to pay out-of-pocket for their abortion care.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/10/23/hyde-amendment-abortion-medicaid/

23.10.2023