The Anti-Abortion Movement’s Post-Roe Agenda: Inconvenient, Illegal, Unthinkable

In the event that Roe v. Wade falls, anti-abortion advocates will almost certainly look to create broad regions of the U.S. where abortion is prohibited – and to limit its practice in places where it isn’t.

By Kaia Hubbard
April 8, 2022

Supporters of abortion access feared the worst when Texas lawmakers shocked the country with a law banning abortion beyond six weeks of pregnancy, standing in direct opposition to the precedent established in the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling. And the reduction in abortions in the first few months after SB 8 was palpable.

Since then, the situation in Texas has been heralded as a harbinger of what a post-Roe reality may bring nationwide. But more than six months after the law took effect that not only prohibits abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected but deputizes private citizens as its enforcer, studies have pointed to a much smaller reduction in abortions than expected among the state’s residents due to alternate routes of accessing the services. Texans are still getting abortions – by going out of state or by ordering pills online.

Continued: https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2022-04-08/the-anti-abortion-movements-post-roe-agenda-inconvenient-illegal-unthinkable

Inside the plan to create an abortion refuge for a post-Roe era

Abortion providers in blue-state Illinois are laying the groundwork for an influx of patients from states poised to ban abortion if the Supreme Court overturns its landmark precedent

By Caroline Kitchener
March 28, 2022

FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS, Ill. — When the woman called Planned Parenthood to schedule her abortion, Alexandria Ball picked up the phone and explained exactly what would happen next.

Ball and her colleagues would book her bus ticket to Illinois.

They would put her up in a hotel.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/28/abortion-sanctuary-roe-v-wade/

USA – Fewer medical students trained for abortion procedures

The number of med schools and residency programs where aspiring physicians can learn to perform abortion procedures continues to shrink.

March 22, 2022
By Sarah Varney

A barrage of abortion restrictions rippling across the country, from Florida to Texas to Idaho, is shrinking the already limited training options for U.S. medical students and residents who want to learn how to perform abortion procedures.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends standardized training on abortion care during medical residency, the training period after medical school that provides future physicians on-the-job experience in a particular specialty. But the number of residency programs located in states where hospital employees are prohibited from performing or teaching about abortion — or at Catholic-owned hospitals with similar bans — has skyrocketed in recent years, an overlooked byproduct of anti-abortion legislation taking root in the American South, Midwest, and Mountain states.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/fewer-medical-students-trained-abortion-procedures-rcna21003

Missouri lawmaker seeks to stop residents from obtaining abortions out of state

The measure could signal a new strategy by the antiabortion movement to extend its influence beyond the GOP-led states poised to enact tighter restrictions if the Supreme Court weakens its landmark precedent upholding abortion rights.

By Caroline Kitchener
March 8, 2022

The pattern emerges whenever a Republican-led state imposes new restrictions on abortion: People seeking the procedure cross state lines to find treatment in places with less-restrictive laws.

Now, a prominent antiabortion lawmaker in Missouri, from where thousands of residents have traveled to next-door Illinois to receive abortions since Missouri passed one of the country’s strictest abortion laws in 2019, believes she has found a solution.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/08/missouri-abortion-ban-texas-supreme-court/

Lawmakers are racing to mimic the Texas abortion law in their own states. They say the bills will fly through.

‘Copycat bills’ are a tradition that has been a hallmark of the antiabortion movement for decades

Caroline Kitchener
October 19, 2021

Less than 48 hours after Texas’s abortion law went into effect, banning almost all abortions, West Virginia state delegate Josh Holstein was reminded of the promise that got him elected in 2020.

Holstein ran as a “100 percent pro-life” Republican alternative to the two-term Democratic incumbent. He would pursue a “heartbeat bill” that would ban abortion once cardiac activity is detected, around six weeks of pregnancy. On Sept. 2, the day after Texas became the first state to successfully implement a six-week ban without court interference, a West Virginia resident called Holstein and other state delegates to task in a private post on his Facebook page. He wanted to know: Can we do the same thing in West Virginia?

Continued: https://www.thelily.com/lawmakers-are-racing-to-mimic-the-texas-abortion-law-in-their-own-states-they-say-the-bills-will-fly-through/