USA – Why accurate data on abortions matters — and why it’s so hard to collect

Jasmine Mithani
February 27, 2023

Collecting abortion data has always been difficult: People are often unwilling to share their experiences with researchers, and the United States has no centralized count of abortions performed. Every state collects data differently, and some refuse to share it with federal researchers due to privacy concerns. Sometimes researchers have to estimate abortion incidence based on historical trends because up-to-date data isn’t available.

It’s a challenge with broad implications for information on reproductive health, one that has been compounded by the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which allowed states to ban abortion. Less accurate abortion data means less information to share with policymakers about the impacts of restrictions — but also spills over into many areas of public health.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2023/02/abortion-data-rates-after-dobbs/

Abortion access in two ‘stalwart’ states in the South a focus of post-Roe court fights

By Tierney Sneed and Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN
Mon August 8, 2022

Just how far people in the South will have to travel to access abortion care will be defined by legal challenges unfolding in Louisiana and Georgia.

Almost every state in the Southeast bans the procedure or limits it to all but the earliest stages of pregnancy -- with laws that were allowed to go into effect with the Supreme Court's reversal this summer of Roe v. Wade. But abortion rights advocates are fighting in state court for orders blocking those restrictions.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/08/politics/abortion-south-georgia-louisiana/index.html