USA – Despite dangerous pregnancy complications, many abortions are being denied

Health News Florida | By Associated Press
November 25, 2022

Increasing numbers of physicians and families nationwide say a post-Roe fear has come to pass: Pregnant women with dangerous medical conditions are showing up in hospitals and doctors’ offices and being denied the abortions that could help treat them.

Weeks after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Dr. Grace Ferguson treated a woman whose water had broken halfway through pregnancy. The baby would never survive, and the patient’s chance of developing a potentially life-threatening infection grew with every hour.

Continued: https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/politics-issues/2022-11-25/despite-dangerous-pregnancy-complications-many-abortions-are-being-denied

Despite dangerous pregnancy complications, abortions denied in U.S.

Laura Ungar And Heather Hollingsworth, The Associated Press
Published Nov. 20, 2022

Weeks after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Dr. Grace Ferguson treated a woman whose water had broken halfway through pregnancy. The baby would never survive, and the patient's chance of developing a potentially life-threatening infection grew with every hour.

By the time she made it to Pittsburgh to see Ferguson, the woman had spent two days in a West Virginia hospital, unable to have an abortion because of a state ban. The law makes an exception for medical emergencies, but the patient's life wasn't in danger at that moment.

Continued: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/despite-dangerous-pregnancy-complications-abortions-denied-1.6161102

Frontline abortion workers in the US west are fatigued. Midterm results may make things worse

While Colorado remains a precarious sanctuary in the midwest, the west coast states have rallied to protect abortion rights

Claire Wang in Los Angeles
Fri 4 Nov 2022

States across the western US have seen a surge in women traveling for days and spending thousands of dollars to access abortion care in the five months since the supreme court overtuned Roe v Wade.

Providers and advocates are coping with the influx through a patchwork of groups providing financial and practical assistance to patients from the south, midwest and south-west, where more than a dozen states have banned or restricted abortion access.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/03/abortion-workers-fatigue-midterm-us-west

USA – It Can Already Take Weeks To Get An Abortion

And the Supreme Court could soon make it take even longer.

By Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux
Data Analysis by Holly Fuong
Charts by Elena Mejía
Published Apr. 18, 2022

Last week, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a law outlawing abortion in the state. If it isn’t blocked by the courts, the legislation — which has no exceptions for rape or incest — would be one of the harshest measures to become law at a time when anti-abortion lawmakers are all but competing with each other to pass new restrictions.

But in a sense, Oklahoma legislators who want to end
abortion don’t have much more to do in their state. New data exclusively
analyzed by FiveThirtyEight shows that it’s already very difficult to get an
abortion appointment in Oklahoma — and it has nothing to do with the state’s
new ban. Ever since the Supreme Court allowed a highly restrictive abortion law
to go into effect in Texas last September, Oklahoma’s four abortion clinics
have been overrun with demand from out-of-state patients. When a team of
academic researchers posed as pregnant people and called the Oklahoma clinics
at the beginning of March, all four told the callers they couldn’t schedule
them for an appointment.

Continued: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/it-can-already-take-weeks-to-get-an-abortion/

In a surprise move, Oklahoma approves bill to make abortion illegal

If signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt, the bill could take effect as soon as this summer.

Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
April 5, 2022

Oklahoma’s legislature has voted to ban all abortions, with narrow exceptions if the abortion is necessary to save the pregnant person’s life.

The bill now heads to the desk of Gov. Kevin Stitt, who has previously vowed to sign all anti-abortion bills. If signed, it would take effect in late August, 90 days after the legislature has adjourned.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2022/04/in-a-surprise-move-oklahoma-approves-bill-to-make-abortion-illegal/

Most Women Denied Abortions by Texas Law Got Them Another Way

New data suggests overall abortions declined much less than previously known, because women traveled out of state or ordered pills online.

By Margot Sanger-Katz, Claire Cain Miller and Quoctrung Bui
March 6, 2022

The impact of the Texas abortion law was partly offset by trips to out-of-state clinics, and by abortion pills

In the months after Texas banned all but the earliest
abortions in September, the number of legal abortions in the state fell by
about half. But two new studies suggest the total number among Texas women fell
by far less — around 10 percent — because of large increases in the number of
Texans who traveled to a clinic in a nearby state or ordered abortion pills online.

Two groups of researchers at the University of Texas at Austin counted the
number of women using these alternative options. They found that while the
Texas law — which prohibits abortion after fetal cardiac activity can be
detected, or around six weeks — lowered the number of abortions, it did so much
more modestly than earlier measurements suggested.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/upshot/texas-abortion-women-data.html

When these women needed abortion care, they turned to Colorado

Nearby states have enacted abortion restrictions. But Colorado is still a ‘safe haven.’

BY: JULIA FENNELL
NOVEMBER 5, 2021

With states like Texas imposing abortion restrictions, and concern that more will follow, a greater number of out-of-state women are coming to Colorado to seek abortions.

Historically, women have come from all over the country to Colorado, which is sometimes called a “safe haven“ for abortion, to get abortion care.

Continued: https://coloradonewsline.com/2021/11/05/when-these-women-needed-abortion-care-they-turned-to-colorado/

Bulletproof glass and 24-hour surveillance: The life of an American abortion doctor

ABC News, Australia
By North American correspondent Kathryn Diss and Cameron Schwarz in Colorado
Posted Mon 11 Oct 2021

Warren Hern doesn’t live like any ordinary doctor. He keeps the location of his Colorado home secret. He sleeps with a rifle beside his bed. He wears a bulletproof vest if speaking publicly, and works behind bulletproof glass.

Every square inch of his surgery, which is protected by large security fences, is monitored with surveillance cameras 24 hours a day.

Continued: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-12/life-of-american-abortion-doctor-bulletproof-glass-surveillance/100524398

Telemedicine Abortions Are Safe — So Why Are They Still So Hard To Get?

ELIZABETH GULINOLAST
OCTOBER 20, 2020

Katie realized she was pregnant during the first week of April 2020. She decided pretty quickly that she wanted to terminate the pregnancy. She already had two kids, and she’d just been diagnosed with high blood pressure. The condition was still uncontrolled, which made her pregnancy high-risk. But it was just weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. She was in full lockdown, and she wasn’t sure if she could get an abortion.

"I was Googling abortions," she tells Refinery29. "My biggest thing was not wanting to actually go to a place." Besides being afraid of catching the virus, the nearest clinic to Katie was six hours away from her home in New Mexico, and she wasn’t sure how she’d find the time to get there.

Continued: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/10/10015435/medical-abortion-pill-telabortion-access

USA – ‘I see a danger in returning to a pre-Roe world:’ Abortion advocates view coronavirus-era restrictions as a dark sign of what could come

'I see a danger in returning to a pre-Roe world:' Abortion advocates view coronavirus-era restrictions as a dark sign of what could come

Kayla Epstein
May 15, 2020

In non-pandemic times, obtaining an abortion already presented serious legal and logistical challenges for millions of women. For patients who live in certain states, getting care means enduring state-imposed waiting periods, submitting to unnecessary ultrasounds, or rushing to receive care before an arbitrary legal deadline. For patients who already have children, care must be arranged. Those without a car need a ride, especially if the nearest clinic is hours away. Some need flights to more accommodating states. And many, many need funds.

But women seeking abortions since the coronavirus outbreak began faced a new challenge — states' attempts to temporarily limit or ban abortion outright by deeming them "non-essential" procedures, under the pretext of preserving medical supplies for COVID-19 treatment. These restrictions collided with the travel and social distancing restrictions put in place to limit the spread of the virus, leading to an even more precarious situation for abortion care than the one already in place.

Continued: https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-arkansas-abortion-bans-coronavirus-advocates-fear-lack-of-access-2020-5

15.05.2020