‘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 – How to Protect Yourself When Seeking an Abortion. Learn your legal risks.

By
Bindu Bansinath and Katie Heaney
May 23, 2022

The illusion that anti-abortion lawmakers wouldn’t try to criminalize abortion
seekers was shattered this year with the introduction of a Louisiana bill that
would have allowed prosecutors to bring murder charges against them (the bill
was revamped and that section was dropped). Though most abortion restrictions
don’t explicitly penalize pregnant people, Dana Sussman, acting executive
director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, says the organization
has documented “over 1,700 cases from 1973 to 2020 that criminalize pregnant
people” for a number of reasons, from self-managed abortion to stillbirth to
suspected drug use. Prosecutors have also used feticide and child abuse or
neglect statutes to charge women who ended their pregnancies. In 2015, Purvi
Patel was tried on both those counts in Indiana and sentenced to 20 years in
prison after allegedly self-managing her abortion (her conviction was
eventually overturned).

https://www.thecut.com/article/abortion-legal-risks-digital-privacy.html

Lizelle Herrera’s case highlights the misunderstood realities of abortion access, criminalization, and advocacy in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley

Cross-movement collaboration at the intersections of criminal and reproductive justice helped local organizers mobilize quickly

by Tina Vásquez
April 21st, 2022

On April 8, a small news outlet covering Texas’ Rio Grande Valley published a story that sent shockwaves through the reproductive justice movement. A woman named Lizelle Herrera was arrested April 7 by the Starr County Sheriff’s Office and charged with murder for allegedly having a self-induced abortion, which is when a person chooses to perform their own abortion outside of a medical setting. According to her indictment, Herrera “intentionally and knowingly” caused “the death of an individual.” She was held at the Starr County Jail, and her bond was set at $500,000.

In the days since Herrera’s story was made public, there has been a great deal of reporting about whether her criminalization was simply “a hasty error” by a district attorney or a case that should be treated as “a warning” that “foreshadows [a] post-Roe future.” But for reproductive justice advocates in Texas who are forced to navigate some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation, Herrera’s case isn’t merely a sign of what’s to come; it’s a reality that low-income women of color overwhelmingly shoulder. It’s also the inevitable result of complicated, convoluted anti-abortion laws.

Continued: https://prismreports.org/2022/04/21/realities-navigating-texas-anti-abortion-laws/

How Grassroots Activists Forced a Texas District Attorney to Drop Murder Charges for Self-Induced Abortion

4/18/2022
by CARRIE N. BAKER

On Thursday, April 7, Texas police in the Rio Grande Valley arrested a woman and charged her with murder for allegedly self-inducing an abortion last January. The Starr County Sherriff’s Department detained 26-year-old Lizelle Herrera in a jail near the Texas-Mexico border on a $500,000 bail bond.

Reproductive justice advocates in the community organized a protest at the Starr County Jail on Saturday morning and urged people to call the jail demanding the release of Herrera. Calls poured in from across the country. By Saturday afternoon, If/When/How’s Repro Legal Defense Fund paid Herrera’s bail and she was released.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2022/04/18/frontera-fund-lizelle-herrera-murder-abortion-texas-activists/

250 Ads for Self-Managed Abortion Pill Info Launch in NYC Subway System

4/15/2022
by CARRIE N. BAKER, Ms. Magazine

Reproductive health, rights and justice advocates have teamed up to plaster New York City subways with information about how to find abortion pills and access free legal advice about using them. From Queens to the Bronx, in Brooklyn and Manhattan—including Times Square—over 250 posters are now sharing abortion pill information in English and Spanish with the millions of people passing through subway stations and riding the trains each day.

“As politicians and courts continue their assault on abortion access, we are spreading the word that these medically safe and effective pills are available by mail in all 50 states,” said Elisa Wells, co-founder and co-director Plan C, which organized the ad campaign. “Everyone deserves access to this modern medical technology, and we provide the information that people need to take back control of their reproductive autonomy.”

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2022/04/15/self-managed-abortion-pill-ads-nyc-subway-plan-c-medication-abortion/

21 Years After FDA Approval, Abortion Pill Is More Critical Than Ever

With the Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the fight for access to the abortion pill has become a matter of life and death.

9/27/2021
by CARRIE N. BAKER

Twenty-one years ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the abortion pill mifepristone for distribution in the United States. As states are now passing laws to ban abortion and the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the abortion pill is what will make a post-Roe world very different from the pre-Roe world, when thousands of women died each year from illegal abortions, and many more were left permanently harmed by unsafe and illegal abortions.

Abortion pills are safe and effective, widely accessible online and easy to use. A grassroots movement led by the organization Plan C is now working to ensure that women across the country know how to get abortion pills and how to use them.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2021/09/27/fda-approval-abortion-pill-anniversary-medication-abortion-biden-texas-ban/

Criminal convictions for abortion, miscarriage? Texas abortion ban previews life without Roe v. Wade

Defense attorneys say there’s a history of criminal convictions over abortion, miscarriage and stillbirth that will only be exacerbated if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

Barbara Rodriguez
September 2, 2021

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this week not to block a Texas law that bans most abortions raises questions about the future of Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling guaranteeing the right to an abortion. And it worries criminal defense attorneys, who have been sounding the alarm on the legal ramifications of restricting reproductive rights.

Their warning: If the 1973 ruling is overturned, far more people will face criminal charges, including pregnant people seeking abortions and those who help them access them — even people who inadvertently end a pregnancy.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2021/09/criminal-convictions-abortion-miscarriage-texas-abortion-ban/

If You’re Jailed for Having an Abortion, This Fund Will Help With Bail

The Repro Legal Defense Fund is a new initiative that will support people who are investigated, arrested, or prosecuted for self-managed abortions.

Jun 9, 2021

Rafa Kidvai, Rewire

Since 2000, dozens of people have been unjustly accused of a crime for ending
their own pregnancy—that is, self-managing abortion outside of a clinical
setting—or for helping a loved one do so. And those are just the cases we know
of to date.

As lawyers and advocates for reproductive justice who fight attacks on
self-managed abortion, we’ve tracked these unjust investigations, arrests, and
prosecutions across the United States, both in localities where self-managed
abortion is explicitly criminalized and in places where police and prosecutors
have manipulated laws to target people.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2021/06/09/we-need-bail-funds-for-abortion-now-heres-why/

09.06.2021