USA – ‘A Virtual Abortion Doula in Your Pocket’: Aya Contigo Helps Latinas Find Abortion Care

5/26/2024
by Carrie N. Baker

U.S. abortion bans impact 6.7 million Latinas in the United States—the largest group of women of color impacted by these bans. Many lack insurance, cannot travel and face language and cultural barriers to reproductive healthcare.

To address these barriers, two Canadian physicians—Dr. Roopan Gill and Dr. Genevieve Tam—co-created Aya Contigo, an app with an embedded live virtual chat to help people access contraception and abortion. A project of Vitala Global, the app provides resources for obtaining and using abortion pills, and the chat is staffed by professional counselors who walk users through the process. Launched originally in Venezuela, Aya Contigo began serving the United States in September 2023 with plans to expand to Guatemala.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2024/05/26/spanish-abortion-support-usa-venezuela-latina-women/


For people with higher body weights, abortions can be more costly or out of reach

By: Sofia Resnick
March 25, 2025

Lexis Dotson-Dufault’s second pregnancy, like her first, was marked by incessant vomiting.

She suffered from the pregnancy-related condition hyperemesis gravidarum, and she wasn’t prepared to parent. So in late summer of 2022, after deciding to terminate at a California reproductive health clinic where she was already a patient, she was surprised when the doctor refused to perform the scheduled abortion procedure, or to even meet her. All because of one metric in her chart: her body mass index (BMI).

Continued: https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/03/25/repub/for-people-with-higher-body-weights-abortions-can-be-more-costly-or-out-of-reach/


SCOTUS Just Gave Abortion Clinics a Rare Win

But more significant threats from Trump’s Department of Justice remain.

Feb 24, 2025
Julianne McShane,  Mother Jones

On Monday, the Supreme Court handed abortion rights advocates a rare win when they declined to take up a pair of cases seeking to challenge a decades-old decision limiting protesters’ actions near the entrances of abortion clinics. But, experts say that even though this result is positive, the decision’s reach is limited and does nothing to roll back the near impunity the Trump administration has extended to anti-abortion protesters who target abortion clinics.

Anti-abortion activists who brought the cases sought to overrule Hill v. Colorado, a 2000 decision in which a majority of the justices upheld a Colorado law requiring that abortion protesters obtain consent before coming within eight feet of another person to speak to them or distribute leaflets within 100 feet of the entrance of a health care clinic, including abortion clinics.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/scotus-just-gave-abortion-clinics-a-rare-win/


Trump expected to quickly revive ‘global gag rule’ on abortion

by Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech
01/19/25

President-elect Trump is expected to reinstate a controversial policy soon after taking office that would further bar foreign nongovernmental organizations that perform, counsel on or provide information on abortions abroad from receiving U.S. funding.  

The Mexico City Policy, referred to as the global gag rule by its opponents, was first introduced during the second Reagan administration and has been rescinded by every Democratic president and reinstated by every Republican president since then. Trump previously restored the policy four days into his first term before President Biden rescinded it again a week into his own. 

Continued: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5092735-trump-abortion-mexico-city-policy/


USA – ‘Perfect storm’ of crises is leading to cutbacks in abortion care, advocates say

By: Kelcie Moseley-Morris and Sofia Resnick
August 14, 2024

Advocates for abortion access say compounding crises of abortion bans, rising economic costs and systemic health care issues are beginning to cause significant funding challenges and potential disruptions to reproductive care of all kinds.

Several people described it as a “perfect storm” of problems with the U.S. health care system, particularly post-pandemic, and the rise of abortion bans and other reproductive care restrictions in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022. Many individuals must now travel hundreds or thousands of miles to seek abortion care, and the consolidation of demand at a smaller number of clinics is increasing wait times, which means pregnancies progress to a more advanced stage and the costs balloon further.

Continued: https://alaskabeacon.com/2024/08/14/perfect-storm-of-crises-is-leading-to-cutbacks-in-abortion-care-advocates-say/


Kamala Harris, once Biden’s voice on abortion, would take an outspoken approach to health

By Stephanie Armour, Julie Appleby, Julie Rovner, KFF Health News
July 21, 2024

Throughout Joe Biden's presidency, he leaned on the outspoken former prosecutor and senator he selected as his vice president, Kamala Harris, to be the White House's voice of unflinching support for reproductive health rights.

Now, as Democrats rebuild their presidential ticket just a few months before Election Day, Harris would widely be expected to take an aggressive stance in support of abortion access if she became the party's new presumptive nominee — hitting former President Donald Trump on an issue that could undermine his chances of victory. Biden endorsed Harris on Sunday when he announced his decision to leave the race.

Continued: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kamala-harris-campaign-abortion-outspoken-approach-health/


The Terrifying Global Reach of the American Anti-Abortion Movement

Conservatives have not limited their attack on reproductive rights to the United States. They’ve been busy imposing their will on other countries, too—with disastrous consequences for millions of poor women.

Jodi Enda
March 18, 2024

Because Editar Ochieng knew the three young men, she didn’t think twice when they beckoned her into a house in an isolated area near the Nairobi River. One was like a brother; the other two were her neighbors in the sprawling Kenyan slum of Kibera.

Ochieng did not know the woman who performed her abortion. She and a friend scoured Nairobi until they found her, an untrained practitioner who worked in the secrecy of her home and charged a fraction of what a medical professional would. Mostly, what Ochieng remembers is the agony when this stranger inserted something into her vagina and “pierced” her womb. “It was really very painful. Really, really, really painful,” she told me. Afterward, Ochieng said, she cut up her mattress to use in place of sanitary pads, which she could not afford. She was 16 years old.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/179485/american-anti-abortion-movement-terrifying-global-reach


Appeals court says abortion pill mifepristone should remain on the market but rules in favor of limiting access

By Tierney Sneed
Wed August 16, 2023

A federal appeals court on Wednesday wiped away a lower court’s ruling that would’ve taken the medication abortion drug mifepristone off the market, but upheld aspects of the ruling that could cut back access to the pills.

The ruling from a conservative three-judge panel of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals will not affect the current availability of mifepristone, as the Supreme Court has already said that the drug and regulations that make it accessible will remain in place for the time being.

Continued :https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/16/politics/abortion-pill-mifepristone-5th-circuit/index.html


This Trump Judge Could Effectively Ban the Abortion Pill

Matthew Kacsmaryk could revoke the FDA's approval of Mifepristone after anti-abortion groups filed a dubious lawsuit in Texas

BY TESSA STUART
JANUARY 18, 2023

THE ALLIANCE FOR Hippocratic Medicine does not have a robust online presence. Its website consists of a generic landing page that appeared in July, a month before the organization was legally incorporated in Amarillo, Texas. There’s no phone number, no email, no physical address, no board of directors listed. A single button, labeled “Learn more about AHM,” just reloads the page. According to records filed with the Texas Secretary of State, the group’s mailing address is located several states away, in Tennessee, but the decision to incorporate in Texas — in Amarillo, specifically — may prove critical in determining the fate of a lawsuit filed in November challenging the Food and Drug Administration’s 22-year approval of Mifepristone, a key component of the abortion pill.

Continued: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-judge-matthew-kacsmaryk-ban-abortion-pill-1234658423/


State Abortion Rulings Post-Dobbs Begin Defining Scope of Rights

Jan. 17, 2023
Mary Anne Pazanowski

State top courts have begun weighing in on whether their laws provide greater protection for abortion rights than the federal constitution, with mixed results.

A majority of South Carolina’s Supreme Court justices recently held that the state constitution’s guarantee against unreasonable invasions of privacy extends to abortion. But the Idaho Supreme Court reached the opposite conclusion, holding that there’s no fundamental right to abortion in the state constitution.

Continued:: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/state-abortion-rulings-post-dobbs-begin-defining-scope-of-rights