‘We’re doubling down’: how abortion advocates are building on midterm wins

Pro-choice activists are focusing on expanding abortion access, voter registration and education, and shield laws for providers

Melody Schreiber
Wed 7 Dec 2022

Renee Bracey Sherman answers the phone and apologizes – is it OK if we speak while she drives? Like many abortion advocates, she tends to keep a packed schedule and talk at lightning speed – the next initiative, the next law, the next policy on the horizon. Ask advocates how they felt in June after the Dobbs decision sharply curtailed reproductive rights across the US, or in November after wins in the midterm elections signaled strong public support for abortion, and they’ll answer immediately: We knew this was coming; but the fight’s not over.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/07/abortion-supporters-building-midterm-wins

USA – Don’t Report Your Abortion Patients to Law Enforcement

— Self-managed abortion does not legally need to be reported

by Jamila Perritt, MD, MPH, and Jill E. Adams, JD
November 5, 2022

State-based abortion bans throughout the country have been choking off access to abortion care, including clinic-based and telehealth care. While these laws are designed to directly target abortion providers with civil and criminal penalties, they also indirectly increase the likelihood that other people may fall prey to the criminal legal system, particularly those who self-manage their abortion and those who support them. Although only two states have laws prohibiting self-managed abortion, politically and ideologically motivated police and prosecutors in other states are more than willing to warp existing laws and misapply them in order to punish people seeking to manage their own care. As a result, more people will be unjustly interrogated, arrested, and prosecuted for allegedly ending their own pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/101581

05.11.2022

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

American Public Health Association

criminalization of abortion seekers

If/When/How

Jamila Perritt

Jill E. Adams

law enforcement and doctors

National Advocates for Pregnant Women

reporting patients to law enforcement

reporting patients to police

self-managed abortion

Desperate pleas and smuggled pills: A covert abortion network rises after Roe

Amid legal and medical risks, a growing army of activists is funneling pills from Mexico into states that have banned abortion

By Caroline Kitchener
October 18, 2022

Monica had never used Reddit before. But sitting at her desk one afternoon in July — at least 10 weeks into an unwanted pregnancy in a state that had banned abortion — she didn’t know where else to turn.

“I need advice I am not prepared to have a child,” the 25-year-old wrote from her office, once everyone else had left for the day. She titled her post, “PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!”

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/18/illegal-abortion-pill-network/

How some providers are working around abortion bans since Roe v. Wade was overturned

Workarounds ensure doctors aren't breaking laws, experts and advocates say.

By Mary Kekatos
Video by Jessie DiMartino
October 17, 2022

Some state officials as well as abortion providers are trying to find workarounds to help patients who want to end their pregnancies after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Since the late June ruling, at least 12 states have ended nearly all abortion services, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/providers-work-abortion-bans-roe-wade-overturned/story?id=91435808

USA – The human threat to abortion seekers

Apps and data matter — but people are often a weaker link

By LUX ALPTRAUM
Oct 15, 2022

In the years before Roe v. Wade, an anonymous group of Chicago-area women known only as The Janes came together to provide safe, clandestine abortions to pregnant people in need. Over the course of several years, the group provided over 11,000 abortions. When they were finally busted by the police in 1972, it wasn’t because of police surveillance or the group’s anti-war activism or even their willingness to provide abortions to the pregnant family members of police officers. It was a family member of a Jane patient who tipped off the police.

“Some nosey bitch tried to snitch on someone who needed an abortion,” says Renee Bracey Sherman, founder and executive director of the abortion storytelling organization We Testify.

Continued: https://www.theverge.com/23385553/abortion-seekers-security-threats-human-factor

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/