Could an Abortion Ban Put Your Life in Danger?

What you should know about your medical rights—and what still needs to change to keep you safe.

BY GARNET HENDERSON
PUBLISHED: AUG 16, 2022

In the weeks since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, alarming stories have emerged of pregnant people being denied necessary medical care in some of the 15 states that now ban all or most abortions. To name a few: a woman in Wisconsin bled for 10 days due to an incomplete miscarriage when emergency room staff refused to remove the fetal tissue; one Texas physician said they were told by hospital management not to treat ectopic pregnancies until they ruptured (a life-threatening event); and a Louisiana woman was forced to endure painful labor after her water broke at just 16 weeks, because doctors were told they could not do an abortion procedure.

Continued: https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a40860997/abortion-bans-medical-rights-hospital-pharmacy/

USA – Long uncertain, young people’s access to abortion is more complicated than ever

Megan Burbank | NPR
August 13th, 2022

For
decades, young people have faced major barriers to abortion because of state
laws requiring parental involvement in the decision to terminate a pregnancy.
But now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s
Health Organization — and the federal right to an abortion is gone — access is
even more complex for adolescents.

In states where abortion is heavily restricted, advocates are fighting back:
They’re shoring up legal support for young women seeking abortion and taking to
social media platforms like TikTok to counter misinformation.
https://www.wabe.org/long-uncertain-young-peoples-access-to-abortion-is-more-complicated-than-ever

USA – Self-induced abortions can raise medical — and legal — questions for doctors

July 7, 2022
Sarah McCammon

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As abortion becomes more difficult — or impossible — to access in many states, some patients are buying pills online and managing the process on their own. That can create new questions for healthcare providers about how to protect their patients – and themselves – if questions or complications arise.

Unlike in years before Roe v. Wade in 1973, when women sometimes died from seeking unsafe and illegal abortions, Dr. Nisha Verma says patients now have more options.

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/07/1110165323/self-induced-abortions-can-raise-medical-and-legal-questions-for-doctors

07.07.2022

self-induced abortion

self-managed abortion

USA – To get banned abortion pills, patients turn to legally risky tactics

Mail-forwarding services and telehealth appointments from border-state parking lots circumvent state bans on FDA-approved drugs

By Christopher Rowland
July 6, 2022

Before spreading the word about how to circumvent state bans on abortion pills, Elisa Wells conducted a trial run of sorts, using dried garbanzo beans.

Wells, co-founder of the nonprofit abortion advocacy website Plan C, was testing whether commercial mail-forwarding services could serve as a link in a surreptitious supply chain from abortion-friendly states to states where abortion pills are banned.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/06/abortion-pills-mail-telehealth/

USA – The Coming Rise of Abortion as a Crime

In places where abortion is now illegal, a range of pregnancy losses could be subject to state scrutiny.
By Melissa Jeltsen
JULY 1, 2022

Before last week, women attempting to have their pregnancies terminated in states hostile to abortion rights already faced a litany of obstacles: lengthy drives, waiting periods, mandated counseling, throngs of volatile protesters. Now they face a new reality. Although much is still unknown about how abortion bans will be enforced, we have arrived at a time when abortions—and even other pregnancy losses—might be investigated as potential crimes. In many states across post-Roe America, expect to see women treated like criminals.

On Friday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending abortion as a constitutional right. Nearly half of U.S. states either are in the process of implementing trigger bans—which were set up to outlaw abortions quickly after Roe was overturned—or seem likely to soon severely curtail abortion access. Reproductive-rights experts told me that in the near future, they expect to see more criminal investigations and arrests of women who induce their own abortions, as well as those who lose pregnancies through miscarriage and stillbirth.

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/07/roe-illegal-abortions-pregnancy-termination-state-crime/661420/

USA – ‘Lock it down right now’: Abortion rights advocates prepare for a new wave of digital security threats

Advocates and abortion providers are reassessing their digital security practices ahead of an expected rise in cyberattacks and surveillance.

by SAM SABIN
06/17/2022

Abortion rights groups are using software that protects privacy and are honing other strategies to combat digital threats that they expect will worsen in a post-Roe world.

Those efforts are gaining new urgency as a looming Supreme Court ruling threatens to open a new wave of security threats for people seeking abortions and their health care providers.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/17/abortion-rights-advocates-digital-security-threats-00040654

USA – She was jailed for losing a pregnancy. Her nightmare could become more common

Chelsea Becker, prosecuted for murder after her stillbirth, spent 16 months in jail: ‘Why did the hospital call police?’

Sam Levin, The Guardian
Sat 4 Jun 2022

On 4 November 2019, TV stations across California blasted Chelsea Becker’s photo on their news editions. The “search was on” for a “troubled” 25-year-old woman wanted for the “murder of her unborn baby”, news anchors said, warning viewers not to approach if they spotted her but to call the authorities.

The next day, Becker was asleep at the home she was staying in when officers with the Hanford police department arrived. “The officer had a large automatic weapon pointed at me and a K-9 [dog],” Becker, now 28, recalled in a recent interview. “I walked out and surrendered.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/03/california-stillborn-prosecution-roe-v-wade

USA – How to Protect Yourself When Seeking an Abortion. Learn your legal risks.

By
Bindu Bansinath and Katie Heaney
May 23, 2022

The illusion that anti-abortion lawmakers wouldn’t try to criminalize abortion
seekers was shattered this year with the introduction of a Louisiana bill that
would have allowed prosecutors to bring murder charges against them (the bill
was revamped and that section was dropped). Though most abortion restrictions
don’t explicitly penalize pregnant people, Dana Sussman, acting executive
director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, says the organization
has documented “over 1,700 cases from 1973 to 2020 that criminalize pregnant
people” for a number of reasons, from self-managed abortion to stillbirth to
suspected drug use. Prosecutors have also used feticide and child abuse or
neglect statutes to charge women who ended their pregnancies. In 2015, Purvi
Patel was tried on both those counts in Indiana and sentenced to 20 years in
prison after allegedly self-managing her abortion (her conviction was
eventually overturned).

https://www.thecut.com/article/abortion-legal-risks-digital-privacy.html

Dutch doctor says group will keep sending abortion pills to US women

Issued on: 16/05/2022

Washington (AFP) – Rebecca Gomperts, a 55-year-old Dutch physician, has spent years fighting for women's access to abortion around the world.

Made famous by her "abortion boat," as recounted in the 2014 documentary "Vessel," she and her Women on Waves group have anchored the ship in international waters off the coasts of Poland, Spain, Mexico and other countries, offering medical abortions to women otherwise unable to obtain them.

Continued: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220516-dutch-doctor-says-group-will-keep-sending-abortion-pills-to-us-women

Medication Abortions Are Increasing: What They Are and Where Women Get Them

Most abortions overseas involve pills, and the method is used in about half of legal U.S. abortions. It also seems to be the future of illicit abortion.

By Claire Cain Miller and Margot Sanger-Katz
May 9, 2022

Taking pills to end a pregnancy accounts for a growing share of abortions in the United States, both legal and not. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade as expected, medication abortion will play a larger role, especially among women who lose access to abortion clinics.

What is medication abortion?
It’s a regimen of pills that women can take at home, a method increasingly used around the world.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/09/upshot/abortion-pills-medication-roe-v-wade.html