It Is Sacred Work’: Abortion Clinics Are Stepping Up After the Fall of Roe

Organizations across the country are ensuring people continue to have access to reproductive care.

by Eleanor J. Bader
November 25, 2025

In the first 100 days after the June 2022 Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, sixty-six health clinics in fifteen states stopped providing surgical abortions, and fourteen states enacted near-total bans on the procedure.

But then something unexpected happened. By 2024, twenty-one new facilities had opened in states where abortion was not completely banned, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Moreover, KFF (formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation) reports that by 2023, 226 virtual providers—including online pharmacies, feminist health centers, and help lines—had set up shop to counsel people seeking abortion services and provide abortion medication through the mail.

Continued: https://progressive.org/latest/it-is-sacred-work-abortion-clinics-are-stepping-up-after-the-fall-of-roe-bader-20251125/

USA – Amid Rise in Anti-Abortion Activism, Clinic Protections Are More Needed Than Ever

How abortion clinic staff and volunteers are working to protect patients as the anti-abortion movement mobilizes against providers.

by Eleanor J. Bader
July 23, 2025

Fifteen years ago, when Eileen learned that anti-abortion protesters were jeering at people entering Equality Health Center in Concord, New Hampshire, she decided to take action to ensure patients’ security in her city.

Eileen, who asked that her last name be withheld to protect her privacy, has been a clinic escort ever since, walking patients into the building, listening to their stories, and doing what she can to distract them from anti-choice taunts. “I can’t abide injustice or inequality,” she tells The Progressive. “Escorting is highly emotional work, but I feel privileged to be able to help. As escorts, we put our bodies on the line and make a real difference.”

Continued: https://progressive.org/latest/anti-abortion-activism-clinic-protections/

23.07.2025

Commentary

Alliance Defending Freedom

anti-choice cruelty

anti-choice harassment

anti-choice hatred

anti-choice intimidation

anti-choice misogyny

anti-choice protesters

anti-choice terrorism

anti-choice violence

Center for Medical Progress

Choices Women’s Medical Center

clinic escorts

crisis pregnancy centers

duVergne Gaines

Eleanor Bader

FACE Act

Feminist Majority Foundation

Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act

National Abortion Federation

National Clinic Access Project

Progressive Anti-Abortion uprising

The Abortion Pill Underground

Since Roe was overturned, thousands of people in red states have found a way to get an abortion—often thanks to providers operating at the edge of the law.

AMY LITTLEFIELD
May 7, 2024

When Kay found out she was pregnant at the end of last year, she knew three things clearly. “I was poor and I had an unwanted pregnancy and knew I couldn’t afford a standard abortion for hundreds of dollars,” she told me. A 29-year-old student already raising one child, Kay lives in Texas, where abortion is banned. The nearest clinic she could find was at least a 12-hour drive away. But Kay thought there might be another option. “I went to Google and started searching if it was possible somehow to receive abortion pills through the Internet.”

It was not only possible; it was much easier and more affordable than Kay had expected. She found online services that offered to ship the same medications that were available in clinics right to her doorstep in Texas for $150 or, if she couldn’t afford that, for free. It seemed so simple that Kay thought it might be a scam. “I was scared I would wait for the pills and they wouldn’t work when I got them,” she said.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/telehealth-abortion-shield-laws/

07.05.2024

Commentary

Abortion Care Network

Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine

abortion funds

abortion pills

abortion pills by mail

Abuzz

Aid Access

Center for Reproductive Rights

Choices Women’s Medical Center

in-person requirement

Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline

National Network of Abortion Funds

self-managed abortion

shield laws

Susan Yanow

telemedicine abortion

‘A generational struggle’: abortion rights pioneer offers insights to the post-Roe US

Merle Hoffman opened an abortion center two years before 1973’s Roe decision; after its fall, she takes stock of the fight for abortion in the US

Ramon Antonio Vargas
Sun 24 Dec 2023

The battle to bring back the federal right to abortion in the US hinges on much more than just the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, and winning will require proponents to be as organized and steadfast as their opponents, at least as one of the reproductive freedom movement’s most veteran voices sees it.

Invoking scenes that played out all across the country after the supreme court’s Dobbs decision eliminated nationwide abortion rights, Merle Hoffman recently said: “It looks like thousands of people marching in the streets all over the country … [But] you can’t just do one action.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/24/merle-hoffman-abortion-rights-pioneer-post-roe-united-states

24.12.2023

Interviews/Podcasts

Merle Hoffman

post-Roe America

Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights

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/

USA – COVID-19: An Opportunistic Attack on Reproductive Health

By: Alyssa Fisher
Aug 23, 2020

Entering her 50th year at Choices Women’s Medical Center, founder Merle Hoffman has witnessed a lot. Imagine launching a reproductive health center providing abortions two years before Roe v. Wade legalized it in 1973.

But it’s the COVID-19 pandemic, she says, that has been “one of the most, most challenging times that we’ve faced, I’ve faced.”

Continued: https://womensenews.org/2020/08/covid-19-an-opportunistic-attack-on-reproductive-health/

Trump abortion ‘gag rule’ leaves poor patients ‘with nowhere to go’ in US

Trump abortion ‘gag rule’ leaves poor patients ‘with nowhere to go’ in US
Impact will vary greatly from state to state after Planned Parenthood withdraws from federal funding program over abortion referral bans

Miranda Bryant
Thu 22 Aug 2019

Last year alone, 37,000 low-income patients in Utah received subsidized family planning under Title X, the federal program which distributes grants to clinics.

But as of Monday, when Planned Parenthood withdrew from the longstanding scheme over new Trump administration rule banning clinics from referring patients for abortions, the US non-profit’s Utah branch must now look elsewhere for the $2m annual grant it used to depend on to provide essential services like birth control, STD and breast and cervical cancer tests to poor women.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/22/planned-parenthood-trump-abortion-gag-rule-harms-patients

Women fear strict U.S. laws will increase unsafe abortions and deaths

Women fear strict U.S. laws will increase unsafe abortions and deaths
Nine states have passed strict laws restricting abortion access this year, seen as part of a multistate effort to have the high court reconsider Roe v. Wade ruling

by Ellen Wulfhorst, Thomson Reuters Foundation
Wednesday, 5 June 2019

VANCOUVER, Canada, June 5 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - New laws restricting abortion access in the United States raise the specter of women ending unwanted pregnancies with coat hangers and knitting needles in unsafe, back-alley procedures, reproductive rights experts said on Wednesday.

Women now may get medical abortions using pills, which is considered very safe, and find information online on handling unwanted pregnancies, delegates said this week at Women Deliver, the world's largest conference on gender equality.

Continued: http://news.trust.org/item/20190605212116-boccy/

New York abortion law: Why are so many people talking about it?

New York abortion law: Why are so many people talking about it?

By George Pierpoint BBC News, Washington
28 January 2019

On the 46th anniversary of the landmark US ruling that made abortion legal, New York state signed into law a new abortion rights bill. Why is it so controversial?

The Reproductive Health Act (RHA) has been seen by some as a necessary move to safeguard abortion rights should the Supreme Court overturn the ruling, known as Roe v Wade.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46994583

USA – Federal Judge Sides With New York Anti-Choice Protesters, Dismissing Clinic Workers’ Testimony as ‘Unreliable’

Federal Judge Sides With New York Anti-Choice Protesters, Dismissing Clinic Workers’ Testimony as ‘Unreliable’
Federal Judge Carol Bagley Amon "diminished, she negated, she threw under the bus every lived experience of the staff, myself, and the escorts," said clinic founder Merle Hoffman.

Jul 25, 2018
Auditi Guha

A federal district court judge last week denied a preliminary injunction to prevent anti-choice protesters from demonstrating outside a clinic in Queens, New York, saying they did not “harass, annoy, or alarm” people during Saturday protests that have become routine since 2012.

Protesters outside the Choices Women’s Medical Center have for years blocked the sidewalk with large posters of dismembered fetuses, preaching loudly, forcibly handing out fliers, and issuing veiled death threats, according to testimony in the anti-harassment federal lawsuit brought by former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2018/07/25/federal-judge-sides-with-new-york-anti-choice-protesters-dismissing-clinic-workers-testimony-as-unreliable/