Experts believe pandemic contributing to increase in abortions

BY ASHLEY BURR
Posted Jan 12, 2021

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Professionals in the
field of reproductive health are seeing an increase in the number of abortions
and requests for information and services related to abortions.

The National Abortion Federation (NAF) — which helps women who face barriers in
accessing abortion care — says it got almost four times the amount of calls in
Canada in 2020 compared to the previous year.

Continued: https://www.citynews1130.com/2021/01/12/pandemic-contributing-increase-abortions/

12.01.2021

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Abortion Providers Watching Capitol Violence Say They’ve ‘Seen This Rage Before’

From fire bombings, shootings, and ceaseless harassment, anti-abortion violence has wreaked havoc on clinics for decades.

Jan 8, 2021
Caroline Reilly

Trump supporters laid siege to our nation’s capital on Wednesday, storming past
a flaccid and enabling law enforcement presence in an attempt to stage a coup.
As they were filling the halls of Congress—stealing lecterns and paintings, and
taking selfies at Nancy’s Pelosi’s desk—pundits lamented: This is not America;
this is not who we are. Some even marveled at the cooperation from law
enforcement, wondering how security could have been so lax.

Unfortunately, abortion providers are all too familiar with the sort of
violence that played out at the Capitol.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2021/01/08/abortion-providers-watching-capitol-violence-say-theyve-seen-this-rage-before/

The New Abortion Rights Advocates Are on TikTok

Gen Z activists have been unapologetic and confrontational, a shift in tactics for a movement at a crossroads.

By Jessica Grose
Dec. 10, 2020

In a TikTok filmed in August outside of a women’s health center in Charlotte, N.C., the uncensored version of the mid-1990s novelty rap song “Short, Short Man,” by Gillette blares: “Eenie weenie teenie weenie shriveled little short, short man.”

The camera is focused on a middle-aged white man in sunglasses, who is holding a poster depicting what appears to be a fetus with the word “abortion” printed on it. The caption on the video reads, “don’t worry, the volume was turned all the way up so he could hear :-)”

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/style/abortion-rights-activists-tiktok.html

Abortion Clinics Are Rapidly Closing. Many Won’t Come Back

BY ABIGAIL ABRAMS
DECEMBER 2, 2020

Dr. Yashica Robinson is an optimist—and that, she says, is fortuitous. As one of the last abortion providers in Alabama, a willingness to see the bright side is practically a job requirement.

For much of the past year, Robinson, who is the medical director at the Huntsville-based Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives, and her staff have fought to overcome the challenges posed by COVID-19, while simultaneously battling a state effort to suspend all abortion services during the pandemic. “We will continue to be innovative and be creative and find ways that we will make this work,” she says, with characteristic resolve.

Continued: https://time.com/5916746/abortion-clinics-covid-19/

Roe v. Wade Might Be Overturned Soon — This Is Worse Than You Think

MOLLY LONGMAN
OCTOBER 20, 2020

Angel Kai’s* heart sank when she found out she was pregnant again. The 20-year-old had delivered her second child only three months prior. She was on unpaid maternity leave from her job in Amarillo, TX, and she’d just received a $130 electricity bill in the mail that she didn’t know if she’d be able to pay. “Everything that was happening financially was just bad,” she remembers. “I couldn’t have another kid. I knew getting an abortion would be the best thing, because I couldn’t walk up the street to get a soda if I wanted one at the time. We were that tight on money.”

It turned out, though, that Angel couldn’t even afford the abortion she knew she wanted. Her health plan was offered under state-funded Medicaid, which, in Texas, only covers abortion in cases of life endangerment, rape, and incest. So, Angel Googled “abortion financial help.”

Continued: https://www.refinery29.com/en-ca/2020/10/10112297/what-happens-if-roe-v-wade-overturned-state-abortion-laws

20.10.2020

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USA – Finding an Abortion Clinic Just Got a Lot Easier

9/25/2020
by ISABELLA DALLY-STEELE

Mallory McPherson-Wehan remembers sitting on her friend’s living room floor, scouring the internet for abortion clinics. Her friend, a senior in high school at the time, had found out earlier that day that she was pregnant and made the decision to abort; the only question that remained was where she would go to do so.

“We had no option other than Google,” McPherson-Wehan, who is a volunteer at the DC Abortion Fund told Ms. So Google, they did.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2020/09/25/finding-an-abortion-clinic-just-got-a-lot-easier/

USA – Abortion Regulation in the Age of COVID-19

Both abortion advocates and opponents have used the COVID-19 crisis to further their policy goals.

Carrie N. Baker
Sep 21, 2020

The gendered dimensions of the political response to the COVID-19 crisis are manifesting clearly in efforts to close abortion clinics, as well as in campaigns led by doctors, lawyers, and reproductive rights advocates to expand access to telemedicine abortion during the pandemic and beyond.

Anti-abortion politicians in states across the country have used the COVID-19 pandemic to attempt to restrict abortion, arguing that abortion is not essential health care and that banning the procedure will conserve personal protective equipment for COVID-19 cases. In March and April of 2020, 12 states tried to restrict abortion, including Alaska, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, and West Virginia, among others. Legislators in Kentucky passed a bill to allow the state’s Attorney General to block abortion access during COVID-19, but the Kentucky governor vetoed the bill.
Continued: https://www.theregreview.org/2020/09/21/baker-abortion-regulation-covid-19/

‘I Can’t Focus on Abortion Access if My People Are Dying’

Some Gen Z and millennial women said they viewed abortion rights as important but less urgent than other social justice causes. Others said racial disparities in reproductive health must be a focus.

By Emma Goldberg
June 30, 2020

Like many young Americans, Brea Baker experienced her first moment of political outrage after the killing of a Black man. She was 18 when Trayvon Martin was shot. When she saw his photo on the news, she thought of her younger brother, and the boundary between her politics and her sense of survival collapsed.

In college she volunteered for the N.A.A.C.P. and as a national organizer for the Women’s March. But when conversations among campus activists turned to abortion access, she didn’t feel the same sense of personal rage.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/us/politics/abortion-supreme-court-gen-z.html

USA – The Fight to Protect Abortion Access Amid the Pandemic

The Fight to Protect Abortion Access Amid the Pandemic

Jordan Smith
June 15 2020

It wasn’t much past 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning in late April, and anti-choice protesters outside the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, were already cantankerous: There were three men with bullhorns, including one on top of a ladder; a 1,200-watt speaker pointing toward the clinic’s front door; and another protester blowing a shofar. “Welcome to the circus,” said Kim Gibson, a clinic escort who works to keep the mayhem away from patients.

Even as the coronavirus pandemic has gripped the nation (new cases are still on the rise in Mississippi), protesters disregarded Jackson’s stay-at-home order and have consistently failed to wear masks or keep appropriate social distance — not only from one another, but also from patients, whose cars they readily approach in an effort to “counsel” them and hand out anti-abortion propaganda.

Continued: https://theintercept.com/2020/06/15/coronavirus-pandemic-abortion-acces

15.06.2020

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Abortion Clinic Protests Are Still Happening in the Pandemic: ‘They Accost Patients Face to Face’

Abortion Clinic Protests Are Still Happening in the Pandemic: ‘They Accost Patients Face to Face’
“They don’t social distance. They block, stalk, push, shove, talk, scream. It’s business as usual out there for them.”

by Carter Sherman
May 26 2020

When Kelly Benzin arrived at the Grand Rapids, Michigan, abortion clinic where she works one recent Wednesday morning, everything seemed normal. Even in the midst of the pandemic, the Heritage Clinic for Women had been drawing about five to 15 protesters a day, she said. One was just setting up his chair as Benzin pulled in.

But around 8 a.m., when the clinic officially opened, Benzin realized that about 25 to 35 people had started to gather outside. Soon, they started to approach patients, handing out roses and trying to talk them out of getting abortions.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/889nnp/abortion-clinic-protests-are-still-happening-in-the-pandemic-they-accost-patients-face-to-face