USA – Abortion Fight Evolves, Overshadowed in 2020 but With Huge Stakes

Anti-abortion groups hope to keep Americans voting Republican despite anger at leaders’ handling of the coronavirus, race and the economy. Abortion-rights groups say the issues are all linked.

By Maggie Astor
Aug. 18, 2020

It would be difficult to overstate the significance of this year’s elections for the future of abortion in America. The results could eventually determine whether Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court or codified by Congress.

Normally, stakes that high would make abortion a primary focus of the 2020 campaign. But normally, the country wouldn’t be experiencing a pandemic, a recession and a civil rights movement all at once. On Night 1 of the Democratic National Convention, the sum total of the attention abortion received was the second it took Kamala Harris to say “reproductive justice” in a video montage.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/politics/abortion-2020-election.html

18.08.2020

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codifying Roe v. Wade

NARAL Pro-choice Texas

National Network of Abortion Funds

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Patient Forward

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Texas Alliance for Life

The Anti-Abortion Movement Was Always Built on Lies

The Anti-Abortion Movement Was Always Built on Lies

This week, it was revealed that Norma McCorvey, a.k.a. “Jane Roe,” admitted on her death bed that her late-career anti-abortion crusade was all a ruse funded by the Christian right. Laura Bassett takes a hard look at the house of cards the American anti-abortion movement was built upon.

By Laura Bassett
May 20, 2020

In 1973, the plaintiff “Jane Roe” brought a case to the Supreme Court that would legalize abortion throughout America. So it was quite a surprise when, in the mid-1990s, Roe, whose real name was Norma McCorvey, suddenly emerged as an anti-abortion activist. She wrote a book about her change of heart, spoke at multiple annual March for Life rallies, and even filed a motion in 2003 to get the Supreme Court to re-decide her case. “I deeply regret the damage my original case caused women,” she said at the time. “I want the Supreme Court to examine the evidence and have a spirit of justice for women and children.”

Continued: https://www.gq.com/story/jane-roe-anti-abortion-lies/

The downfall of Roe v. Wade started in 2010

The downfall of Roe v. Wade started in 2010
Abortion access in America hangs by a thread. The unraveling began a decade ago.

By Anna North
Dec 23, 2019

This year, five states passed laws banning abortion before most people know they’re pregnant. Alabama passed a ban on the procedure at any stage of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest. In Ohio, lawmakers introduced a bill that would create a crime called “abortion murder,” punishable by life in prison.

For many, restrictions like these would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. But as we look ahead to 2020, the anti-abortion movement could be on the brink of its biggest success yet: dismantling the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2019/12/23/21024312/abortion-laws-2019-ohio-georgia-roe-wade

USA – The Last Abortion Clinic in West Virginia

The Last Abortion Clinic in West Virginia

Esther Wang
Nov 18, 2019

The Women’s Health Center in Charleston, West Virginia is an unassuming, single-story beige brick building in a shabby neighborhood, just steps from the train tracks and a crisis pregnancy center, a shuttered vape shop, and a row of small homes surrounded by chainlink fences. I visited the center, the last abortion clinic in the state, on a Wednesday in June, one of the two days each week that the clinic performs abortions. Christopher McComas, 52, stood by the entrance to the clinic’s parking lot, equipped with a cell phone that he trained at everyone who approached the clinic.

“Hey brother, can I talk to you for a second? Please, for a second? Do you think it’s going to be a boy or a girl? Does it have blue eyes, or maybe brown eyes?” McComas yelled at one couple, a tall photo of a blood-covered fetus propped up by his side. “God loves you, please don’t do this ma’am! I beg you not to do this! It could be a boy or a girl,” he continued to yell at the couple as they entered the clinic, shielded by a large umbrella held by a clinic escort. “It could have brown hair!”

Continued: https://jezebel.com/the-last-abortion-clinic-in-west-virginia-1838886688

18.11.2019

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USA – Sex-selective abortions: Reproductive rights are being pitted against gender equality

Sex-selective abortions: Reproductive rights are being pitted against gender equality
Critics say the bans are "anti-abortion ruses" rooted in an effort to racially profile Asian American and Pacific Islander women.

Oct. 27, 2019
By Safia Samee Ali

When Dr. Colleen McNicholas treats a woman seeking an abortion in Missouri, she must, under penalty of law, ask a series of uncomfortable questions probing why the woman wants the procedure, including if it’s because of the fetus's gender.

That question, which she said patients find “absurd” and “completely inappropriate,” is a requirement that was left intact by a Missouri federal judge who halted several other restrictive measures, such as a ban on abortions after eight weeks of pregnancy, signed into law by Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, in May in an effort to block abortion access.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sex-selective-abortions-reproductive-rights-are-being-pitted-against-gender-n1067886

Five theories for the record-low US abortion rate

Five theories for the record-low US abortion rate

23 September 2019

Abortion rates have fallen to their lowest level since the pregnancy-terminating procedure was legalised in a 1973 Supreme Court decision, according to a new report. But experts say the reason for the decline can be hard to isolate.

The study released on Wednesday by the Guttmacher Institute - a research organisation that supports abortion access - found a 7% decline from 2014 to 2017.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49731167

23.09.2019

decline in abortion rates

decrease in abortion rates

Elizabeth Nash

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National Right to Life Committee

North America

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USA – Why anti-abortion groups are backing away from abortion bans

Why anti-abortion groups are backing away from abortion bans
Debate around a Tennessee bill shows a big shift in anti-abortion strategy.

By Anna North
Aug 22, 2019

When legislators in Tennessee debated a bill earlier this month that would ban abortion as soon as a pregnancy can be detected, opposition came from a surprising place: anti-abortion groups.

Though the groups National Right to Life and Tennessee Right to Life oppose abortion, they also oppose the Tennessee ban, because they believe it would never stand up in court. If such a ban were to make it to the Supreme Court, the groups worry it would fail: “There is no objective evidence that we have more than one vote to overturn Roe v. Wade,” said James Bopp, general counsel of the National Right to Life Committee, which describes itself as “the nation’s oldest and largest pro-life organization,” in testimony against the bill.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2019/8/22/20826982/abortion-tennessee-laws-2019-alabama-georgia-ohio

This dystopian trial in El Salvador is what a total ban on abortion looks like

This dystopian trial in El Salvador is what a total ban on abortion looks like

By Annalisa Merelli
August 20, 2019

When she was 18, Evelyn Beatríz Hernández Cruz, a high-school student from a poor family in Cojutepeque, El Salvador, was raped repeatedly, over the span of few months, by the member of a local gang. She unknowingly became pregnant and, in 2016, suffered a stillbirth during her third trimester.

She then spent nearly three years in prison, battling the country’s strict abortion laws.

Continued: https://qz.com/1688556/this-trial-in-el-salvador-is-what-a-total-abortion-ban-looks-like/

20.08.2019

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Evelyn Hernández

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National Right to Life Committee

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USA – 7 Days Inside an Anti-Abortion Summer Camp Training the Next Generation of Activists

7 Days Inside an Anti-Abortion Summer Camp Training the Next Generation of Activists

By Carter Sherman
Aug 7, 2019

HOUSTON — The circle of students sat quietly, scribbling down answers to the prompt they’d just been given: “Write down three similarities between the Holocaust and abortion.”

After a minute or two, they launched into discussion. Innocent people were, and are, being killed, they said. The Nazis discriminated against the Jews, just as “the unborn” face discrimination today. Bystanders aren’t doing enough to stand up against injustice.

Continued: https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8j9m/7-days-inside-an-anti-abortion-summer-camp-training-the-next-generation-of-activists

Pregnant Women Overseas Lose Access to Pre-Natal Care Due to Trump’s ‘Global Gag Rule’

Pregnant Women Overseas Lose Access to Pre-Natal Care Due to Trump's 'Global Gag Rule'

By Brian Padden
July 18, 2019

WASHINGTON - Medical providers say some pregnant women in developing countries have lost access to prenatal health care because of the Trump administration’s expanded “global gag rule” that cut aid to international organizations involved in abortion-related activities.

A recent study in the Lancet Global Health journal also reports that abortions actually increased in Africa when these aid restrictions were enacted in the past.

Continued: https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-politics/pregnant-women-overseas-lose-access-pre-natal-care-due-trumps-global-gag-rule