GOP legislatures in some states seek ways to undermine voters’ ability to determine abortion rights

Legislative efforts in Missouri and Mississippi are attempting to prevent voters from having a say over abortion rights

By CHRISTINE FERNANDO Associated Press
January 28, 2024

CHICAGO -- Legislative efforts in Missouri and Mississippi are attempting to prevent voters from having a say over abortion rights, building on anti-abortion strategies seen in other states, including last year in Ohio.

Democrats and abortion rights advocates say the efforts are evidence that Republican lawmakers and abortion opponents are trying to undercut democratic processes meant to give voters a direct role in forming state laws.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/gop-legislatures-states-seek-ways-undermine-voters-ability-106743537

‘Feels horrible to say no’: abortion funds run out of money as US demand surges

A lifeline for many in states with abortion restrictions, abortion funds are being pushed to the brink due to rising costs and a drop in donations

Carter Sherman
Fri 22 Sep 2023

Laurie Bertram Roberts never expected Americans to keep forking over money to pay for other people’s abortions. But the abortion fund director didn’t think it would get this dire.

When the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year, people donated tens of thousands of dollars to Roberts’ organization, the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, which is dedicated to helping people afford abortions and the many costs that come with it. But, in August, Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund had to stop funding abortions. It’s now closed until January 2024.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/22/us-abortion-funds-run-out-of-money-demand-surges

Why Aren’t Disabled Stories Included in Abortion Ban Conversations?

Disabled people exist beyond a long list of inequitably impacted communities, but our needs are largely being ignored in the reproductive rights space.

SEP 13, 2023
KELSEY RHODES

Disabled people are inequitably impacted by abortion bans. It’s a fact. But the realities of disabled communities accessing abortion care in a post-Roe environment are not the stories we hear about or learn from. To be frank, they weren’t the stories we heard about or learned from before the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right abortion, either.

In a world that continues to be rocked by COVID-19’s long-term health impacts, why aren’t the stories of disabled people accessing abortion being told? Why aren’t disabled voices being centered in media coverage of the impact since the Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization?

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2023/09/13/beyond-a-talking-point-why-arent-disabled-stories-included-in-abortion-ban-converations/

13.09.2023

Commentary

disability and abortion

disability rights

Ford Foundation

Kelsey Rhodes

Laurie Bertram Roberts

Mississippi Freedom Fund

To Protect a Mother’s Health: How Abortion Ban Exemptions Play Out in a Post-‘Roe’ World

By Christopher O’Donnell, Tampa Bay Times
JULY 31, 2023

This pregnancy felt different.

After the heartache of more than a dozen miscarriages, Anya Cook was 16 weeks along. She and husband Derick Cook spent a Sunday last December sharing the news with his parents and looking at cribs.

As they left a restaurant in Coral Springs, Florida, that evening, Cook’s water broke. Her husband rushed her to the nearest emergency room.

Continued: https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/to-protect-a-mothers-health-how-abortion-ban-exemptions-play-out-in-a-post-roe-world/

31.07.2023

Commentary

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Anya Cook

Broward Health Coral Springs

Jennifer Griffin

Laurie Bertram Roberts

Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund

Texas Policy Evaluation Project

Denied an abortion, she raised a child: One Mississippi mom shares her story

"I love my child to the ends of the earth. That doesn’t make what happened any less unfair.”

June 30, 2023
By Danielle Campoamor

Laurie Bertram Roberts remembers the emotion that consumed her when, as a 19-year-old single mom of two, she needed an abortion.

Fear.

She was only three months postpartum and recovering from a C-section when she found out she was pregnant again. She's now 45, but vividly remembers desperately searching for the nearest clinic, poring over every weathered phonebook she could find as her newborn slept in her arms.

Continued: https://www.today.com/parents/moms/abortion-mississippi-mom-had-baby-rcna90226

30.06.2023

Commentary

Equal Rights Advocates

Laurie Bertram Roberts

maternal mortality

Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund

USA – Most abortion bans include exceptions. In practice, few are granted

Jan. 21, 2023
By Amy Schoenfeld Walker, The New York Times

Last summer, a Mississippi woman sought an abortion after, she said, a friend had raped her. Her state prohibits most abortions but allows them for rape victims. Yet she could not find a doctor to provide one.

In September, an Indiana woman learned that a fetal defect meant her baby would die shortly after birth, if not sooner. Her state’s abortion ban included an exception for such cases, but she was referred to Illinois or Michigan.

Continued: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/most-abortion-bans-include-exceptions-in-practice-few-are-granted/

How abortion bans could be enforced if Roe v. Wade is reversed

By Tierney Sneed, CNN
Wed June 22, 2022

(CNN)If the Supreme Court issues a ruling that would allow states to ban abortion, as is expected in the coming days, such a decision would raise new questions about how authorities would enforce such bans and whether the anti-abortion movement would stick to its public emphasis on protecting abortion-seekers themselves from prosecution.

What has been the pattern abroad in countries that ban abortion, along with United States' own experience before Roe, previews a complicated and unequal enforcement landscape.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/22/politics/roe-abortion-prosecution-tactics/index.html

Don’t Trust DIY Abortion Advice on TikTok. These are the risks involved.

By Julia Craven
May 23, 2022

Scouring the internet for answers on “how to have an abortion at home” will dredge up answers that read like school-bus gossip: Some, like douching with Coca-Cola or taking a lot of vitamin C, are unlikely to be life-threatening, but they’re also extremely unlikely to end your pregnancy.

Other methods are blatantly unsafe. They include inserting anything into the vagina, which poses a high risk of infection and sepsis; ingesting toxic substances such as turpentine, bleach, and other household chemicals; and any type of physical trauma, such as hitting oneself in the abdomen or throwing oneself down the stairs. “These are all things that people heartbreakingly try to do to end their pregnancies due to lack of access to clinical care, or lack of information or awareness of safer methods,” says Heidi Moseson, a senior research scientist at Ibis Reproductive Health.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/article/diy-abortion-what-it-is-and-its-risks.html

‘I became the abortion lady of Mississippi’: the mother of seven who devoted her life to the pro-choice cause

Raised a fundamentalist Christian, Laurie Bertram Roberts grew up believing abortion was evil. Then a pregnancy put her life at risk – and she was denied the termination she desperately needed

Emine Saner
Thu 12 May 2022

When Laurie Bertram Roberts was 17, she was sent home from hospital and almost bled to death. Pregnant and experiencing bleeding, she had gone to the emergency department of her nearest hospital in Indiana twice, and was told she was miscarrying, but, because a scan showed the foetus still had a heartbeat, she was also told there was nothing they could do. What she needed, in order to end a pregnancy that was ending anyway, was an abortion – but she says the Catholic hospital would not provide one. “They had the power to end my pregnancy right there, when I was already bleeding fairly heavily, in a tremendous amount of pain. Instead, they sent my scared 17-year-old self, a mother of two already, home.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/may/12/abortion-lady-mississippi-mother-seven-pro-choice-christian-laurie-bertram-roberts-pregnancy

12.05.2022

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Featured

Laurie Bertram Roberts

Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund

National Organization for Women

self-managed abortion

A covert network of activists is preparing for the end of Roe

What will the future of abortion in America look like?

By Jessica Bruder
APRIL 4, 2022

One bright afternoon in early January, on a beach in Southern California, a young woman spread what looked like a very strange picnic across an orange polka-dot towel: A mason jar. A rubber stopper with two holes. A syringe without a needle. A coil of aquarium tubing and a one-way valve. A plastic speculum. Several individually wrapped sterile cannulas—thin tubes designed to be inserted into the body—which resembled long soda straws. And, finally, a three-dimensional scale model of the female reproductive system.

The two of us were sitting on the sand. The woman, whom I’ll call Ellie, had suggested that we meet at the beach; she had recently recovered from COVID-19, and proposed the open-air setting for my safety. She also didn’t want to risk revealing where she lives—and asked me to withhold her name—because of concerns about harassment or violence from anti-abortion extremists.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/roe-v-wade-overturn-abortion-rights/629366/

04.04.2022