USA – What Would It Mean to Defend All Abortions?

Democrats love to avoid it, and Republicans love to lie about it. But later-abortion care has never been more important.

Amy Littlefield
May 13, 2025

Ayana, 28 years old and 28 weeks pregnant, eases herself onto the procedure table at Partners in Abortion Care in College Park, Maryland. She is a Black woman with the tiny bearing and erect posture of a bird. Above her head, a flock of pink and blue butterflies decorates the ceiling. In a few minutes, a doctor will perform an injection to the fetal heart to end her pregnancy.

Ayana had spent months in turmoil over this abortion. As she chased after her two older kids while lugging her 1-year-old on family outings to the arcade and the movies, she tried to imagine hauling two car seats instead of one. While she changed her baby’s diapers, she thought about what a newborn would subtract from him. The family was already stretched thin.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/defending-all-abortions/

Why ‘viability’ is dividing the abortion rights movement

By Associated Press AP
Jan. 16, 2024

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Reproductive rights activists in Missouri agree they want to get a ballot measure before voters this fall to roll back one of the strictest abortion bans in the country and ensure access. The sticking point is how far they should go.

The groups have been at odds over whether to include a provision that would allow the state to regulate abortions after the fetus is viable, a concession supporters of the language say will be needed to persuade voters in the conservative state.

Continued: https://ny1.com/nyc/brooklyn/ap-top-news/2024/01/16/disputes-over-viability-are-dividing-abortion-rights-groups-and-complicating-ballot-measure-efforts

USA – Conservatives move to keep abortion off the 2024 ballot

“We don’t believe those rights should be subjected to majority vote.”

by ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN and MEGAN MESSERLY
12/18/2023

Conservatives are testing new tactics to keep abortion off the ballot following a series of high-profile defeats.

In Arizona, Florida, Nevada and other states, several anti-abortion groups are buying TV and digital ads, knocking on doors and holding events to persuade people against signing petitions to put the issue before voters in November.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/18/first-rule-of-the-anti-abortion-playbook-dont-let-the-public-vote-on-abortion-00132049

Restore Roe, or Go Beyond It? The Question Is Fracturing the Abortion Rights Movement

“We have an opportunity here to build something better, and we’re not even talking about it.”

MADISON PAULY
SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

Not long after Election Day last November, Pamela Merritt joined a call with other abortion-rights activists in Missouri to discuss a daring proposal: sidestepping the state’s ruling Republicans by directly asking voters whether to add abortion rights to their state constitution. The group hoped to capitalize on a recent trend. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June of 2022, pro-choice voters had been showing up to the polls in force, rejecting anti-abortion ballot initiatives in Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana. They went even further in California, Michigan, and Vermont, passing state constitutional amendments to guarantee, among other things, the right to choose abortion.

This unbroken string of victories has energized advocates who see ballot initiatives as a key tool in the post-Roe world, especially in states controlled by Republicans. Even in Missouri, where the anti-abortion movement was so successful that only one clinic remained by 2022, national progressive organizations smell opportunity. “Right now, every single state is dealing with a pro-abortion, riled-up base that wants a Kansas,” Merritt says, referring to the special election about abortion last year that drew greater turnout than any primary in the state’s history. “There’s pressure.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/09/roe-v-wade-abortion-rights-amendment-missouri-pro-choice-ohio-arizona-planned-parenthood-viability-limits/

11.09.2023

Commentary

Abortion Action Missouri

ACLU of Missouri

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Arizona for Abortion Access

ballot initiatives on abortion

Medical Students for Choice

Paitent Forward

Pamela Merritt

Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood Action Fund

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona

Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri

Reproductive Health Act of 2019

USA – ’Abject failure’: Abortion rights movement fractures over post-Roe future

By James Oliphant

WASHINGTON, June 24 (Reuters) - Badly stung by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday, the abortion rights movement finds itself splintered, demoralized and faced with a startling landscape in which the procedure may be outlawed in half the country.

Angry grassroots activists are calling past efforts an “abject failure." They say national abortion rights advocacy groups were so consumed with winning federal elections they allowed conservatives to chip away at abortion rights through state-level legislation over decades.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/abject-failure-abortion-rights-movement-fractures-over-post-roe-future-2022-06-24/

State Democrats, abortion-rights activists ‘incredibly frustrated’ with federal inaction

Democratic inaction at the federal level could complicate the party’s efforts to run this fall as champions of reproductive rights.

By MEGAN MESSERLY and ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
05/23/2022

State-level Democratic officials and abortion-rights advocates are discouraged by how little their allies in Congress and the White House have done since a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade became public.

Instead of executive actions that could increase access to abortion pills or help protect people’s medical information, national Democrats have largely highlighted what they can’t do in the Senate and focused on fueling midterm-election turnout, angering state and local leaders who feel the burden to protect and expand access is falling almost entirely on their shoulders.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/23/state-democrats-abortion-rights-activists-federal-inaction-00034191