Brazil/USA – Why We Must Keep Talking About Abortion Pills

As part of a delegation to Brazil, I saw how our countries’ respective struggles to maintain and expand reproductive justice are really part of the same fight.

Regina Mahone
June 16, 2025

Brasília, Brazil—We packed ourselves into a meeting room at the back of the Socialism and Freedom Party (known as PSOL) office in the National Congress building in Brasília on May 14. The bird-shaped capital of Brazil was developed in the 1950s as a modern, futuristic city, but inside the legislative building are standard government meeting spaces, with cubicle walls and drab, windowless halls.

We took our seats at the big conference table or on one of the folding chairs located along the sides. Lunch was served—an assortment of breads, including the staple pão de queijo; salads; fresh juice; and Brazilian carrot cake, which was fluffy (nothing like the traditional US version) and delicious.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/medication-abortion-misoprostol-brazil/

USA – Is the ‘tech bro-ification’ of abortion here?

Repro workers and tech experts reveal startling gaps between the promises offered by abortion technologies and the realities facing abortion-seekers and support workers

by Nicole Froio and Jade Jasmine Hurley
June 11th, 2025

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, abortion tech has emerged as a potential solution for an increasingly prohibitive reproductive rights landscape…

This exclusive Prism investigation delves into the role of tech in reproductive health care, finding gaps in how abortion workers are served by tech initiatives, a clash between funding abortion tech and industry layoffs, and tension in how best to address the changing legal landscape for abortion. Interviews with a dozen reproductive health workers, tech specialists, abortion fund staff, and reproductive rights advocates further revealed a lack of investment in backend tools for abortion support workers navigating a progressively underfunded field.

Continued: https://prismreports.org/2025/06/11/abortion-tech-repro-workers/

11.06.2025

Commentary

abortion and tech

abortion and technology

abortion apps

abortion chatbot

Abortion Freedom Fund

Abortion Policy API

Aid Access

Amy Merrill

automated abortion finder

Carolina Abortion Fund

Cathy Torres

Cecile Richards

Charley app

crisis pregnancy centers

If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice

National Network of Abortion Funds

self-managed abortion

How do we free abortion?

Bethany Rielly learns how feminist movements are organizing to put abortion back in the hands of the people – and keep it there.

17 June 2024
Bethany Rielly

In a narrow street deep in Barcelona’s Raval district is a building with an inconspicuous oval hole in its facade. Above the wooden door is the faint lettering ‘Casa d’Infants Orfes’ (House of Orphaned Infants). From the Middle Ages up to the 19th century, women would place their newborn babies in the wooden hatch and rotate it, allowing the anonymous and safe delivery of the child to the orphanage. This small window into the past is emblematic of a time when the social stigma of having an illegitimate child and extreme poverty forced many women to abandon their child in the dead of night. Today in the US, conservatives are promoting a modern-day equivalent: the ‘baby box’.

An insulated pull-out drawer installed at police and fire stations, these boxes allow desperate women to give up their babies anonymously without fear of prosecution. Introduced in the 1990s to prevent the most extreme cases of child abandonment, the religious Right are now pushing to expand these ‘safe haven’ laws as an alternative to abortion.

Continued: https://newint.org/health/2024/how-do-we-free-abortion

3 key things Biden and Harris are missing in their election campaign on abortion

Can abortion alone secure Biden’s second term? The president is making it a centerpiece of his reelection bid, but activists want more.

By Annabel Rocha
January 26, 2024

The Biden-Harris Administration is making it clear that the backs of their bid for reelection is built on restoring Roe v. Wade, attempting to appeal to the 18% of voters who told NBC News that abortion was their top issue in the upcoming election in a Nov. 2023 survey.

Yesterday Biden issued an invitation to Texas mom Kate Cox to attend the State of Union Address in March. Cox made headlines after being forced to flee the state to seek abortion to terminate her life-threatening pregnancy, and is the first pregnant adult to sue for the right to have an abortion since Roe was enacted, according to the Texas Tribune.

Continued: https://www.reckon.news/news/2024/01/3-key-things-biden-and-harris-are-missing-in-their-election-campaign-on-abortion.html

USA – No One’s Access to Abortion Is Guaranteed — No Matter Where You Live

Living in a “blue state” does not guarantee the availability of abortion care to everyone who needs it.
By Renee Bracey Sherman & Regina Mahone , TRUTHOUT

January 26, 2024

Last year, travelers to the Oakland airport were greeted by a billboard touting the availability of abortion in California paid for by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The billboard was one of many in a 2022 campaign highlighting the state government’s new website for people seeking abortions, with the majority of billboards erected on California’s dime in states that had banned abortion following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Some of the billboards, like one in Texas, featured an image of a white woman wearing a white dress in handcuffs beside the words, “Texas doesn’t own your body. You do.” (The irony is that California does prosecute women for stillbirth and other pregnancy outcomes.)

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/no-ones-access-to-abortion-is-guaranteed-no-matter-where-you-live/

26.01.2024

Commentary

Chelsea Williams-Diggs

Gavin Newsom

New York Abortion Access Fund

The A Files: A Secret History of Abortion

How to Spot Abortion-Related Misinformation

Between pregnancy “crisis centers” and “abortion pill testing,” there's a lot of questionable info out there. Here's how to tell what's evidence-based and what's not.

Lux Alptraum
Oct 24, 2023

In mid-September, the New York Times Opinion section ran a piece with a shocking headline. “In Poland, Testing Women for Abortion Drugs Is a Reality. It Could Happen Here,” the paper breathlessly declared.

As I read the piece, I felt a shudder of panic go down my spine. For years, abortion advocates have been confidently assuring people that abortion pills cannot be detected in the system when they’re taken by mouth. An effective test for abortion pills could have terrifying ramifications—at a bare minimum, it could discourage people from seeking follow-up care after a self-managed abortion.

And yet, at the same, I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right here. What was the scientific justification for developing such a test?

Continued: https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-spot-abortion-misinformation/

Q&A: Renee Bracey Sherman on the history of abortion coverage

OCTOBER 11, 2023
By FEVEN MERID

In 2016, Renee Bracey Sherman founded We Testify, an organization that centers the stories of people who have abortions—particularly those from communities of color and those who face significant barriers to reproductive health resources—in the hopes of transforming the public discussion around the procedure. “Abortion is probably one of the most lied-about, misunderstood, misrepresented medical, political, personal, familial issues there is,” she told me recently.

Since she founded We Testify, Bracey Sherman has produced a documentary with Planned Parenthood and is now working on a book, Countering Abortionsplaining, with Regina Mahone, an editor at The Nation.

Continued: https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/qa_renee_bracey_sherman_abortion_archives.php

11.10.2023

Interviews/Podcasts

abortion stories

Alicia Gutierrez-Romine

Bronze Thrills magazine

Countering Abortionsplaining

women's abortion stories

United States

Activism

Human Rights

The FDA’s Abortion Announcement Is Not What You Think

The FDA just reinforced “abortion exceptionalism” in health care and added paternalistic busywork for pharmacists dispensing medication abortion.

By Renee Bracey Sherman, Dr. Daniel Grossman and Tracy Weitz
JANUARY 6, 2023

This week, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would allow mifepristone, the first pill taken in the two-drug medication abortion regimen, to be dispensed at retail pharmacies. The FDA’s decision is a welcome move that has garnered headlines, but the fine print contains significant red tape that will continue to serve as a barrier for people already struggling to access medical care.

Because of “abortion exceptionalism” allowing abortion care (and miscarriage management) to be treated differently from other health care, medication abortion has always been more regulated than it should be. When the FDA approved the drug in 2000, it did so under a little-known bureaucratic system known as the Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategy (REMS). Drugs under REMS usually carry significant side effects or are highly addictive, neither of which is true for mifepristone. Under these restrictions, clinicians who provide medication abortion must register with the FDA and then dispense mifepristone directly to the patient. As Renee and Dr. Grossman wrote last year, this requirement has made it impossible for mifepristone to be available over the counter, or at the very least to be dispensed without unnecessary certifications, despite the fact that it’s safer than Tylenol.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/fda-medication-abortion-pharmacies/

06.01.2023

Commentary

Featured

abortion exceptionalism

Daniel Grossman

Food and Drug Administration

pharmacy abortion pills

REMS

Renee Bracey Sherman

Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategy

‘We’re doubling down’: how abortion advocates are building on midterm wins

Pro-choice activists are focusing on expanding abortion access, voter registration and education, and shield laws for providers

Melody Schreiber
Wed 7 Dec 2022

Renee Bracey Sherman answers the phone and apologizes – is it OK if we speak while she drives? Like many abortion advocates, she tends to keep a packed schedule and talk at lightning speed – the next initiative, the next law, the next policy on the horizon. Ask advocates how they felt in June after the Dobbs decision sharply curtailed reproductive rights across the US, or in November after wins in the midterm elections signaled strong public support for abortion, and they’ll answer immediately: We knew this was coming; but the fight’s not over.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/07/abortion-supporters-building-midterm-wins

USA – For-Profit Abortion Telemedicine Start-Ups Are Proliferating in Wake of “Roe”

Garnet Henderson, Truthout
November 26, 2022

In 2020, a federal judge ruled that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must suspend its requirement that patients pick up mifepristone, one of the pills used in medication abortion, in person. After some back-and-forth under the Trump administration, the FDA permanently repealed the rule, which had long been decried by medical experts as unnecessary, in 2021.

This opened the door for providers to send abortion pills by mail in all but the 19 states that outlaw provision of abortion via telemedicine. (Many of those same states now ban abortion entirely.) This regulation change, along with increased popular interest in abortion access following Roe’s overturn, has led to a proliferation of telemedicine companies offering abortion pills. Some of these companies are run by people with prior experience in abortion care and connections in the reproductive health, rights and justice movements; others are not. Regardless, some abortion access advocates are raising concerns about whether the rise of for-profit telemedicine companies is the best way to serve abortion seekers.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/for-profit-abortion-telemedicine-start-ups-are-proliferating-in-the-wake-of-roe/