In a liberal US state, my life-saving abortion cost $55,000

I was flabbergasted by the cost of medical care I could have died without – but surprise fees are standard in a system motivated first and foremost by profit

Robin Buller
Sun 16 Apr 2023

On 27 January, I was just under six weeks pregnant. My fertility app – one of several pinned on my phone’s home screen, I am reluctant to admit – told me that the embryo growing inside me was the size of a green pea.

That morning, I felt both elated and nervous. Between Zoom calls and spurts of distracted writing, I thought about spilling the beans to my sister, but resisted. After two miscarriages, I was wary of sharing the news too early.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/16/cost-of-abortion-us-expense

Dobbs’ Effect on Military Women: ‘Our Fighting Force Is Hindered and Our Security Is at Risk’

12/19/2022
by CARRIE N. BAKER

Thousands of active duty and civilian women in the U.S. military need abortion healthcare each year. After the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision this summer, many now live in states banning abortion. Increased obstacles to accessing abortion not only harm the health and careers of military women stationed in these states, but also threatens national security, according to military experts.

“Let’s be clear: Women who are active-duty service members do not get to choose what state they live in, which means they could lose abortion access at the whim of any state with an abortion ban,” said Ashley Ehasz, a West Point grad and former Apache helicopter pilot. “Now that women in uniform have lost their reproductive rights, our country’s fighting force is hindered and our security is at risk.”

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2022/12/19/dobbs-military-women-abortion/

21.12.2022

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Galvanized by Dobbs, more doctors are distributing abortion pills by mail

A new president could reverse an FDA rule change that made it possible.

By RUTH READER
09/21/2022

Doctors at online and brick and mortar primary care companies are slowly starting to prescribe medication abortion pills via telemedicine in states where it’s still legal following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision ending the constitutional right to the procedure.

The FDA has yet to update its rules to make way for large retail pharmacies to dispense medication abortion, limiting how patients can get pills. In the meantime, these companies are leaning on two mail-order pharmacies to fill their prescriptions.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/21/dobbs-abortion-pills-roe-00057877

Inside the Nation’s Only Abortion Fund For Native Americans

Founded by reproductive rights activist Rae Lorenzo, Indigenous Women Rising is a safe space for Indigenous people to tell their own stories—on their terms.

BY KATE NELSON
SEP 1, 2022

At 13 weeks pregnant, Rae Lorenzo ended up in the emergency room with contractions, extreme pain, and excessive bleeding. “I didn’t fully understand my rights as a patient or the protocols of hospitals—what they’re legally obligated to do or how they can restrict care based on personal beliefs,” says Lorenzo, a 32-year-old queer New Mexico reproductive rights activist (Mescalero Apache/Laguna Pueblo/Xicana) who uses the pronouns they/them.

As the pain become more and more unbearable, it became clear to them that an abortion was necessary. But the white male ER doctor refused, telling Lorenzo: “I know what you need right now, but I can’t help you.” They were left alone to wait it out, bleeding through the hospital bed sheets and suffering without proper pain management. It took 90 minutes for a female obstetrician to step in and provide the necessary abortion care. Lorenzo calls the experience, which happened back in 2013, “dehumanizing.”

Continued: https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a41032856/indigenous-women-rising-abortion/

01.09.2022

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Abortion providers are trying to open new clinics as close as possible to states with bans

Providers hope the new clinics can help serve the surge of patients now expected to travel for abortions.

Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
July 11, 2022

Whole Woman’s Health announced plans to close its four Texas abortion clinics and open one in neighboring New Mexico.

CHOICES, based in Memphis, Tennessee, is opening a clinic in Carbondale, Illinois, the closest state expected to protect abortion rights.

https://19thnews.org/2022/07/abortion-providers-new-clinics-borders-states-bans/

Biden braces for Supreme Court to overturn Roe after months of planning for next steps

By Kevin Liptak and Jasmine Wright, CNN
Thu June 23, 2022

President Joe Biden is bracing for a Supreme Court ruling that would strip away nationwide abortion rights in the US, potentially setting off mass protests and heaping pressure on the White House to act, according to officials, even as there remains little he can do through executive action to fully mitigate the anticipated decision.

The nearing announcement -- which is expected to come within the next two weeks as the Supreme Court concludes its term -- will punctuate months of contingency planning at the White House and lobbying efforts by abortion rights advocates, who want Biden to take immediate action.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/23/politics/joe-biden-abortion-supreme-court/index.html

Tribal Land Is Suddenly at the Center of the Fight for Abortion Access

Oklahoma's governor is warning tribes about "setting up abortion clinics" on their sovereign land.

By Kylie Cheung
May 17, 2022

Across the country, Republican governors are champing at the bit to end abortion rights in their states once Roe v. Wade falls. And in Oklahoma, the state with the second highest population of Indigenous people, Gov. Kevin Stitt is taking this crusade a step further—threatening tribes that continue to offer abortion care on their sovereign land.

“Oklahomans will not think very well of that if tribes try to set up abortion clinics,” Stitt said in a Fox News interview on Sunday. “They think that you can be 1/1,000th tribal member and not have to follow the state law.”

Continued: https://jezebel.com/tribal-land-is-suddenly-at-the-center-of-the-fight-for-1848937428

Lizelle Herrera’s case highlights the misunderstood realities of abortion access, criminalization, and advocacy in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley

Cross-movement collaboration at the intersections of criminal and reproductive justice helped local organizers mobilize quickly

by Tina Vásquez
April 21st, 2022

On April 8, a small news outlet covering Texas’ Rio Grande Valley published a story that sent shockwaves through the reproductive justice movement. A woman named Lizelle Herrera was arrested April 7 by the Starr County Sheriff’s Office and charged with murder for allegedly having a self-induced abortion, which is when a person chooses to perform their own abortion outside of a medical setting. According to her indictment, Herrera “intentionally and knowingly” caused “the death of an individual.” She was held at the Starr County Jail, and her bond was set at $500,000.

In the days since Herrera’s story was made public, there has been a great deal of reporting about whether her criminalization was simply “a hasty error” by a district attorney or a case that should be treated as “a warning” that “foreshadows [a] post-Roe future.” But for reproductive justice advocates in Texas who are forced to navigate some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation, Herrera’s case isn’t merely a sign of what’s to come; it’s a reality that low-income women of color overwhelmingly shoulder. It’s also the inevitable result of complicated, convoluted anti-abortion laws.

Continued: https://prismreports.org/2022/04/21/realities-navigating-texas-anti-abortion-laws/

USA – Early Abortions Are Getting More Expensive

— And fewer insurers are covering the procedure, study finds

by Shannon Firth, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today
April 13, 2022

Patients paid increasingly more for medication abortion and first-trimester procedural abortion from 2017 to 2020, while the percentage of facilities accepting health insurance declined, researchers found.

From 2017 to 2020, median patient charges for medication abortion rose from $495 to $560, representing a 13% increase, which was higher than healthcare inflation alone, at 8%, according to Ushma Upadhyay, PhD, MPH, and colleagues from the University of California San Francisco, who reported their findings in Health Affairs.

Continued: https://www.medpagetoday.com/obgyn/pregnancy/98201?trw=no

13.04.2022

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To Be Pro-Choice, You Must Have the Privilege of Having Choices

April 11, 2022
By Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective

As a queer woman who grew up in North Carolina, I learned at an early age that my Blackness could be a source of great joy — but it could also pose a threat to my safety and autonomy.

In middle school, white boys laid their hands on me without my consent when I sharpened my pencil. To travel through town, I had to pass a building dedicated to Senator Jesse Helms, a champion of modern-day anti-abortion laws. It was all a daily reminder of the tight grip that whiteness had on my full liberation. I did not consent to that either.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/11/opinion/abortion-black-brown-women.html