USA – The Next Phase of the Abortion Wars: Targeting Pills, Helpers and Patients

The Next Phase of the Abortion Wars: Targeting Pills, Helpers and Patients
Four years after Dobbs, state lawmakers are shifting from outright bans to a sweeping strategy of lawsuits, criminal penalties and cross-state battles aimed at cutting off the last remaining routes to abortion care.

Feb 12, 2026
by Ava Slocum, Ms. Magazine

The first year of Trump’s second term marked major blows for reproductive healthcare. Medicaid funding cuts forced about 50 Planned Parenthood clinics to close throughout the U.S. and blocked 1.1 million Planned Parenthood patients on Medicaid from using their insurance to pay for reproductive healthcare. Twenty-three independent abortion clinics throughout the country also shut down in 2025, according to Abortion Care Network’s annual report.

2025 also saw some new, troubling trends in state-level reproductive healthcare policies, including restrictions on medication abortion and shield laws and criminalization for people who help patients access abortions.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2026/02/12/abortion-bans-pills-state-shield-laws-fetal-personhood/

Telemedicine abortion is winning — and that terrifies the right

by Julie F. Kay, opinion contributor
Dec 21, 2025

As we wrap up the year, let’s decree 2025 a glass-half-full year for abortion rights. The year’s headlines were consumed by doom and gloom coverage. From hits against Planned Parenthood to increasingly restrictive anti-abortion laws passing in red states, and threats to proven-safe abortion medications, the post-Roe landscape certainly appeared bleak.

Yet while news cycles focused on abortion bans and restrictions, a quiet revolution happened. Telemedicine abortion transformed the geography of abortion access nationwide. Although most pro-choice Americans remain unaware that telemedicine abortion is an option, patients seeking abortions have widely embraced it. More than a quarter of all abortions in the U.S. were provided via telemedicine in 2025.

Continued: https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/5653331-telemedicine-abortion-rights-2025/

21.12.2025

self-managed abortion

shield laws

telemedicine abortion

USA – After “Abortion”: A 1966 Book and the World That It Made

“We were all considered slightly cracked, if not outright fanatics, that first year.” —Larry Lader, Abortion II

Nov 4, 2025
By Karen Weingarten

“Abortion is the dread secret of our society.”1 So began journalist Larry Lader’s controversial book, Abortion, published in 1966 after years of rejection from publishers. If you had told Lader or the mere handful of activists then dedicated to legalizing abortion that a Supreme Court case would overturn anti-abortion laws across the US seven years later—in a January 1973 case named Roe v. Wade—they probably would have laughed. In fact, in the early 1960s when Lader began researching, it was harder to get an abortion in the US than it had been in the early decades of the twentieth century. In 1966, American doctors—who were overwhelmingly white men—tightly controlled women’s reproductive options. And women of color, primarily Black and Latina women, had even fewer choices if they found themselves accidentally pregnant. Nearly 80 percent of all illegal abortion fatalities were women of color—primarily Black and Puerto Rican.2 And, worst of all, as Lader documented, deaths from illegal abortions had doubled in the preceding decade.

Continued: https://www.publicbooks.org/after-abortion-a-1966-book-and-the-world-that-it-made/

Planned Parenthood sues Trump administration over funding cuts in big bill

The reproductive health giant has estimated that the defunding could force about 200 of their clinics to shutter

Carter Sherman and Reuters
Mon 7 Jul 2025

Planned Parenthood sued the Trump administration on Monday over a provision in Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill that would strip funding from health centers operated by the reproductive healthcare and abortion provider.

In a complaint filed in Boston federal court, Planned Parenthood said the provision was unconstitutional, and its clear purpose is to prevent its nearly 600 health centers from receiving Medicaid reimbursements.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/07/planned-parenthood-trump-lawsuit

07.07.2025

News

Alexis McGill Johnson

Defund Provision

defunding Planned Parenthood

USA – Planned Parenthood CEO warns budget bill could devastate group and slash abortion access in blue states

Alexis McGill Johnson says nearly 200 health centers could close if US House passes sweeping tax-and-spending bill

Carter Sherman
Wed 2 Jul 2025

Planned Parenthood stands to lose roughly $700m in federal funding if the US House passes Republicans’ massive spending-and-tax bill, the organization’s CEO said on Wednesday, amounting to what abortion rights supporters and opponents alike have called a “backdoor abortion ban”.

“We are facing down the reality that nearly 200 health centers are at risk of closure. We’re facing a reality of the impact on shutting down almost half of abortion-providing health centers,” Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood Federation of Americas’s CEO, said in an interview Wednesday morning. “It does feel existential. Not just for Planned Parenthood, but for communities that are relying on access to this care.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/02/planned-parenthood-abortion-ban-trump-bill

02.07.2025

Commentary

Abortion Care Network

Alexis McGill Johnson

funding for abortion

Maine Family Planning

Supreme court paves way for South Carolina and other states to defund Planned Parenthood

Decision could embolden red states in US to block clinics that provide abortions from receiving Medicaid funds

Carter Sherman
Thu 26 Jun 2025

The US supreme court has paved the way for South Carolina to kick Planned Parenthood out of its Medicaid program over its status as an abortion provider, a decision that could embolden red states across the country to effectively “defund” the reproductive healthcare organization.

The case, Medina v Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, centers around a 2018 executive order from South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, that blocked clinics that provide abortions from receiving Medicaid reimbursements. Medicaid is the US government’s main health insurance program for low-income people. About 80 million people rely on it.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/26/supreme-court-planned-parenthood-decision

Why are so many European microstates against abortion?

In Andorra and Liechtenstein, abortion is still banned. In Monaco, it is illegal to perform an abortion. San Marino is an exception: in 2022 abortion was finally legalised. From the seaside principality of Monaco to the hilly enclave of San Marino, ENTR set out to meet those who fought sometimes insurmountable battles in the smallest of countries to break one of the biggest taboos.

June 12, 2025
By: Renée BERTINI, Jade BRIEND-GUY

“I didn't actually know I was pregnant, because I was on the pill". Under the already scorching May sun, Juliette Rapaire, 30, begins her story with a scenario common to many who choose to have an abortion. "It was the end of 2022, I went to see a gynaecologist for ovarian cysts, and he told me that I was pregnant. I was almost a month pregnant, so it was still within the legal time frame to get an abortion in France."

The young Monegasque woman then decided to contact a French gynaecologist practicing just across Monaco’s borders. On paper, abortion has been decriminalised in the microstate since 2019. People choosing to terminate their pregnancy no longer risk a fine or imprisonment. But doctors and midwives who conduct abortions still risk sanctions: five to ten years in prison and a blanket ban on practicing medicine. This means people from Monaco trying to get an abortion still do so elsewhere, mainly in France.

Continued: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20250612-why-are-so-many-european-microstates-against-abortion-monaco-san-marino

Why so many clinics that provide abortion are closing, even where it’s still legal

May 16, 2025
Michigan Public Radio, by Kate Wells
4-Minute Listen, with Transcript

On the last day of patient care at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Marquette, Mich., a port town on the shore of Lake Superior, dozens of people crowded into the parking lot and alley, holding pink homemade signs that read "Thank You!" and "Forever Grateful."

"Oh my god," physician assistant Anna Rink gasped, as she and three other Planned Parenthood employees finally walked outside. The crowd whooped and cheered. Then Rink addressed the gathering.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/05/16/nx-s1-5397314/planned-parenthood-clinics-abortion-close-telehealth-rights

USA – What Would It Mean to Defend All Abortions?

Democrats love to avoid it, and Republicans love to lie about it. But later-abortion care has never been more important.

Amy Littlefield
May 13, 2025

Ayana, 28 years old and 28 weeks pregnant, eases herself onto the procedure table at Partners in Abortion Care in College Park, Maryland. She is a Black woman with the tiny bearing and erect posture of a bird. Above her head, a flock of pink and blue butterflies decorates the ceiling. In a few minutes, a doctor will perform an injection to the fetal heart to end her pregnancy.

Ayana had spent months in turmoil over this abortion. As she chased after her two older kids while lugging her 1-year-old on family outings to the arcade and the movies, she tried to imagine hauling two car seats instead of one. While she changed her baby’s diapers, she thought about what a newborn would subtract from him. The family was already stretched thin.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/defending-all-abortions/

USA – ‘Rolling Thunder’: Inside conservatives’ strategy to curb abortion pill access

Abortion opponents hope a new report will spur the GOP to ban abortion pills and defund Planned Parenthood.

By Alice Miranda Ollstein
May 7, 2025

The nation’s most influential anti-abortion groups have a new plan to roll back access to the procedure for millions of Americans in what they’re calling the “biggest opportunity for the pro-life movement” since toppling Roe v. Wade.

The effort, which the groups have privately named “Rolling Thunder,” is the movement’s first concerted attempt under the second Trump administration to target abortion pills, and aims to convince the FDA, Congress and courts to crack down on their use.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/07/anti-abortion-pill-gameplan-rolling-thunder-00331933

07.05.2025