USA – Abortion bans are barring people from life-saving pregnancy care, medical groups warn

In a report shared first with The 19th, major medical organizations uniformly told lawmakers that the overturning of Roe v. Wade will also worsen racial inequality and create barriers to critical medical treatment.

Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
November 1, 2022

Major medical groups say that the loss of federal abortion protections has diminished access to pregnancy care such as treatment for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages. The groups are sounding the alarm that racial gaps in pregnancy-related deaths will be exacerbated, according to a new Senate report first shared with The 19th.

The analysis comes on the heels of preliminary data suggesting that in the first two months since the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — a case that eliminated federal abortion rights and opened the door for states to ban abortions entirely — abortions fell by about 6 percent, or about 10,000 abortions, across the country.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2022/11/abortion-bans-restrict-critical-pregnancy-care-senate-report/

USA – Label change for mifepristone could reduce barriers to care for miscarriages, advocates say in petition to FDA

Regulations around mifepristone, a common drug used for medication abortion, make it difficult for miscarrying patients to access it. A new petition to the FDA asks for a label change to make it easier to obtain.

Jennifer Gerson
October 4, 2022

Over 40 medical and advocacy groups submitted a petition to the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) asking for miscarriage management to be added as a use
case for mifepristone, a drug commonly used in medical abortions, and ease the
restrictions around who can prescribe it.

Groups including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
(ACOG), SisterReach, Physicians for Reproductive Health and the Expanding
Medication Abortion Access (EMAA) Project were behind the petition. The changes
they asked for Tuesday would make the drug easier to access for people
experiencing miscarriages as some doctors and pharmacies have become more
reluctant to distribute it after the end of Roe v. Wade.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2022/10/mifepristone-miscarriage-label-change-fda-petition/

‘Abortion absolutely is health care,’ U.S. House panel told as GOP pursues nationwide ban

By John L. Micek
September 29, 2022

A nationwide abortion ban would widen disparities in health care and drive up the maternal mortality rate, particularly among Black women, physicians and advocates told a U.S. House panel on Thursday.

“Women’s progress has always been inextricably linked with the ability to control our own bodies,” Jocelyn Frye, the president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, told members of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform during a three-hour-plus hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building.

Continued: https://www.marylandmatters.org/2022/09/29/abortion-absolutely-is-health-care-u-s-house-panel-told-as-gop-pursues-nationwide-ban/

How Texas’ abortion laws turned a heartbreaking fetal diagnosis into a cross-country journey

“It was just a matter of time before the baby died, or maybe I’d have to go through the trauma of carrying to term knowing I wasn’t bringing a baby home,” said 27-year-old Lauren Hall. “I couldn’t do that.”

BY ELEANOR KLIBANOFF
SEPT. 20, 2022

The protesters outside the Seattle abortion clinic waved pictures of bloody fetuses, shouting that she was a “baby killer” and begging her to choose life.
Lauren Hall, 27, fought the urge to scream back and tell them just how badly she wished life was a choice she could have made.

Continued: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/20/texas-abortion-ban-complicated-pregnancy/

Challenges increase for immigrants accessing abortion after Roe reversal

From language to travel barriers, immigrants are left with few options.

By Amanda Su
July 17, 2022

After Texas' Senate Bill 8, which banned any abortions after the detection of embryonic cardiac activity, was allowed to go into effect last year, Dr. Bhavik Kumar, a physician at Planned Parenthood Center for Choice in Houston, said interstate travel was often the only recourse he could suggest for patients seeking to terminate their pregnancy.

But for one patient, that wasn't possible. Due to her pending immigration case, the patient could not travel more than 70 miles or would risk jeopardizing both her ability to remain in the country and the security of her two children, he said.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/challenges-increase-immigrants-accessing-abortion-roe-reversal/story?id=86404717

18.07.2022

abortion for undocumented people

Bolaños Perea

Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights

Dr. Bhavik Kumar

Dr. Kristyn Brandi

immigrants and abortion

Nancy Cárdenas Peña

National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice

Physicians for Reproductive Health

Planned Parenthood Center for Choice

Seri Lee

Abortion Bans Are Limiting What Some Doctors and Med Students Are Taught

The shortage of abortion providers is expected to worsen, post-Roe

By Ella Ceron
10 July 2022

Abortion care is one of the most common medical procedures in the US, yet even before the fall of Roe v. Wade, doctors and students had to navigate tricky legal and educational hurdles to train as abortion providers. With last month’s Supreme Court decision freeing states to ban abortions, those barriers are growing.

Some abortion advocates are warning that recent moves could aggravate the nationwide shortage of trained abortion providers, making the procedure scarcer — even in blue states that are acting to guarantee access — than first thought.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-10/abortion-bans-are-limiting-what-some-doctors-and-med-students-are-taught

Inside the Effort to Promote Abortion Pills For a Post-Roe America

BY ABIGAIL ABRAMS AND JAMIE DUCHARME
MAY 31, 2022

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this summer, as a leaked draft opinion suggests it may, abortion will likely be banned or severely restricted in about half of the United States. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the country will return to a world before 1973, when the landmark Supreme Court case enshrined a constitutional right to abortion.

Abortion pills, which can be ordered online and delivered by mail, have already fundamentally changed reproductive rights in America. The regimen of two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, can in theory be safely taken anywhere, including in the privacy of people’s homes, eliminating the need to undergo a procedure, travel out of state, take time off work, or confront protestors outside of a clinic. In part because of this convenience, abortion pills—also known as medication abortion—are now the most common method of ending a pregnancy in the U.S.

https://time.com/6181162/abortion-pill-access-roe-v-wade/

31.05.2022

abortion pills by mail

Aid Access

Bixby Center for Global and Reproductive Health

Food and Drug Administration

Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline

nnovating Education in Reproductive Health

Physicians for Reproductive Health

Plan C

Repro Legal Helpline

Reproductive Health Education in Family Medicine

Roe v. Wade

self-managed abortion

social media and abortion

telemedicine abortion

Texas – Abortion restrictions threaten care for pregnant patients, providers say

Women’s health care providers are holding back when counseling pregnant patients about treatment options, doctors report pharmacists are hesitant to distribute some prescriptions, and OB-GYN training is diminishing for Texas medical school students.

BY SNEHA DEY AND KAREN BROOKS HARPER ,Texas Tribune
MAY 24, 2022

Teresa Kim Pecinovsky is terrified she will have a miscarriage.

The 38-year-old Houston mother of two children is in the second trimester of a high-risk pregnancy, but uncertainty about Texas abortion laws means that she — and her gynecologist — are worried about her access to proper medical care if that nightmare were to come true.

Continued: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/24/texas-abortion-law-pregnancy-care/

Washington doctor on leading edge of abortion rights turns to next frontier after Roe: Pills

May 8, 2022
By Nina Shapiro, Seattle Times staff reporter

Several years ago, an abortion rights activist got in touch with Dr. Suzanne Poppema, a reproductive rights leader retired from her Seattle-area practice. As states were passing abortion restrictions, plans were in the works for an offshore internet service that would supply abortion pills to women who couldn’t get them at home.

Would Poppema get involved?

Continued: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/washington-doctor-on-leading-edge-of-abortion-rights-turns-to-next-frontier-after-roe-pills/

USA – Abortion advocates’ strategy depends on pills. An information gap threatens their efforts.

With SCOTUS decision looming, confusion and fear hinder post-Roe plans.

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN and MEGAN MESSERLY
04/24/2022

Mail-order abortion pills could help millions of people discretely terminate their pregnancies should the Supreme Court strike down Roe v. Wade in the coming months, providing a way to circumvent mounting state-imposed restrictions.

But the majority of patients and many doctors remain in the dark or misinformed about the pills, how to obtain them, where to seek follow-up care and how to avoid landing in legal jeopardy, according to medical groups, abortion-rights advocates and national polls.

Continued; https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/24/abortion-advocates-strategy-depends-on-pills-an-information-gap-threatens-their-efforts-00027309

24.04.2022