In Post-Roe America, Abortion Care Is Being Reborn From the Ground Up

A British doctor finds fear and legal chaos being transformed into a new, decentralized model of reproductive freedom

Sabrina Das
Jan 13, 2026

Along the broad, ceremonial expanse of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., its lanes framed by rows of evenly spaced trees, Amy Allina paused to remember how her career began. Years before she established herself as a consultant for reproductive rights nonprofits, she learned how to perform abortions with nothing more than a length of plastic tubing and a mason jar.

It was the early 1990s. She was part of a loose network of feminist health collectives — women who believed, with a conviction that feels almost radical now, that information belonged to everyone, especially when it concerned their bodies. A mentor taught her “menstrual extraction,” a low-tech method capable of removing the contents of the uterus in very early pregnancy. The procedure was performed in living rooms and kitchens, surrounded by friends. There were no machines, no metal instruments, no men in white coats.

Continued: https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/in-post-roe-america-abortion-care-is-being-reborn-from-the-ground-up/

13.01.2026

crisis pregnancy centers

Dr. Victoria Williams

self-managed abortion

Self-Managed Abortion; Safe and Supported project

shield laws

Spiritual Alliance of Communities for Reproductive Dignity

telemedicine abortion

‘Mife No Matter What’: Community Abortion Providers Pledge to Continue Sharing Free Abortion Pills, Even if FDA Imposes Restrictions

Despite growing legal threats to the accessibility of abortion pills, national networks of volunteers are working to distribute the medication, discretely and without cost to patients.

Nov 4, 2025
by Carrie N. Baker

Since Roe fell, a community-led network of care has grown into a nationwide system with the promise of “mife no matter what.”

In June 2022, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and over half of states banned or restricted abortion, grassroots activists across the country organized mutual aid groups to share free abortion pills with people living in restrictive states. Today, community providers distributing free abortion pills operate in every U.S. state and territory that bans or restricts abortion.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/11/04/free-abortion-pills-mifepristone-ban-states/

Abortion Bans Are Making It Impossible for Advocates to Help Abuse Victims

“To have to say to someone, ‘You live in a state where you’re more likely to be criminalized than the person who’s abusing you’—it’s devastating,” If/When/How’s Sara Ainsworth told Jezebel.

By Kylie Cheung
March 26, 2025

In 2007, Erica DuBois learned she was pregnant just two months after becoming cancer-free. And then the abuse began, she recalled to Jezebel. Her partner would invoke religion to justify physically harming her: “He talked about the beatings and violence like a test—if the baby survived, then it was God’s will,” DuBois said. She eventually gave birth to a healthy baby girl, but as a result of these sustained beatings, her first pregnancy was the only one that didn’t end in a miscarriage. She sometimes tried to take birth control pills, but when her abuser found them, he punished her. This violence would only escalate when she inevitably became pregnant.

Continued: https://www.jezebel.com/abortion-bans-are-making-it-impossible-for-advocates-to-help-abuse-victims

USA – Why speech could be a target for the anti-abortion movement in 2025

The anti-abortion movement is looking at ways to control information about how and where to obtain abortions

Carter Sherman
Fri 27 Dec 2024

The next front in the US abortion wars may be what people are allowed to say about it.

More than two years after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in the case Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, US abortions are on the rise, thanks in large part to the spread of abortion pills and travel across state lines. This has infuriated anti-abortion advocates, who have proposed policies to help the incoming Trump administration curtail the mailing of abortion pills and targeted individuals and groups that help women get out-of-state abortions. In a sign of how the issue is pitting states against one another, Texas earlier this month sued a New York-based doctor who allegedly provided a telehealth abortion to a Texan woman.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/27/speech-anti-abortion-movement

USA – Post-Dobbs, Abortion Bans Have Given Abusers a New Power

"Abusers could now use new laws, or confusion about those laws, to harass and threaten their partners,” the National Domestic Violence Hotline writes in a new report about how abusive partners are using abortion bans to keep their victims trapped.

By Kylie Cheung, Jezebel
June 3, 2024

It’s been almost two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and a new survey from the National Domestic Violence Hotline offers a disturbing glimpse into how abortion bans—and rampant confusion about the language of these laws and who they punish—have given abusers more control than ever.

Between October and December 2023, the Hotline conducted a survey on its website and anonymously collected domestic violence victims’ experiences with acts of reproductive coercion, or acts to control their victims’ reproductive decision-making, such as tampering with their birth control or blocking their access to abortion. The survey received 3,431 responses.

Continued: https://www.jezebel.com/post-dobbs-abortion-bans-have-given-abusers-a-new-power

Fear and confusion over abortion access persists as SCOTUS takes its first post-Dobbs case

Mifepristone will likely remain legal but could prove much harder to access. Legal and pharmaceutical experts have said this case could have far-reaching implications on approval for medications beyond abortion drugs.

by KELCIE MOSELEY-MORRIS AND SOFIA RESNICK
DECEMBER 19, 2023

This year will end on a major cliffhanger for abortion access.

Last November, anti-abortion activists via a powerful conservative Christian law firm asked a federal court to effectively ban or widely restrict the abortion drug mifepristone. Finally on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take the case, making Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration the high court’s first abortion-related case since overturning the federal right to an abortion in June 2022.

Continued: https://www.thelundreport.org/content/fear-and-confusion-over-abortion-access-persists-scotus-takes-its-first-post-dobbs-case

USA – Stigma Makes Abortion Criminalization Possible

A Nebraska mother and daughter were put behind bars for self-managing an abortion, but not because of what the law says is illegal.

ELIZABETH LING
Oct 4, 2023

Self-managed abortion is not a crime in Nebraska, and yet a teenager in Nebraska was recently sentenced to three months in jail and two years of probation for self-managing her own abortion when she was 17 to escape parenting with an abusive partner. In September, her mom was sentenced to two years in prison for supporting her with ending her pregnancy.

I work on If/When/How’s Repro Legal Helpline, and every day I talk to people who are worried that their decision to end a pregnancy might put them or their loved ones at legal risk. Many are terrified, and all are confused. Not because their actions are necessarily illegal, but because the anti-abortion stigma that seems to be everywhere—even in ourselves—is fueling an atmosphere of mistrust and surveillance. And their fears aren’t unfounded. People have been criminalized for self-managing their own abortion for decades, often without much needed supportive public attention or outrage.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/stigma-abortion-criminalization/

04.10.2023

Opinion

abortion stigma

criminalization of abortion

Elizabeth Ling

If/When/How

prosecuting women for abortion

Repro Legal Helpline

self-managed abortion

Nebraska Mom Gets 2 Years in Prison After Buying Abortion Pills for Her Teen Daughter

“Here's the audacity: Self-managed abortion is not even a crime in fucking Nebraska,” an advocate told Jezebel. The case is a harbinger of more criminalization.

By Susan Rinkunas
Sep 22, 2023

On Friday, a Nebraska judge sentenced Jessica Burgess to two years in prison after she bought abortion pills for her teen daughter and helped bury the fetal remains in early 2022, according to reporters from Norfolk Daily News and Courthouse News. The sentencing went forward without a court-ordered psychological evaluation that the judge canceled for lack of funding last week. Burgess had faced up to five years in prison after she accepted a plea deal. With good behavior, she could be released in a year.

Burgess pled guilty in July to three charges (tampering with human remains, false reporting, and abortion after 20 weeks’ gestation) in exchange for prosecutors dropping two others (concealing the death of another person and abortion by someone other than a licensed physician). States have criminalized people for their pregnancy outcomes for decades—even, as in this case, while Roe v. Wade stood—but advocates worry these types of charges, against people seeking abortion and those who help them, will only become more frequent as millions of people live under state abortion bans.

Continued: https://jezebel.com/nebraska-abortion-case-mom-sentenced-1850864511

One Woman’s Story Of Self-Managing Her Abortion In An Anti-Choice State

Managing your own abortion is not a crime in Ohio, but a politically motivated prosecutor might believe Julia should be punished for what she did.

By Alanna Vagianos
Aug 7, 2023

SOMEWHERE IN OHIO — It’s a pretty short drive to the polling site from the cabin where Julia has been self-managing her abortion. Julia took the last of her abortion pills the day before, which she believes have ended her unwanted pregnancy. She still has some minor cramping and is tired from the whole ordeal, but she feels reasonably OK — well enough to go vote on a ballot referendum that could help decide the fate of abortion rights in Ohio.

Issue 1, a ballot initiative to raise the threshold to alter the state constitution from a simple majority — the standard in Ohio for over a century — to 60%, is a preemptive attempt to block a pro-choice constitutional amendment that Ohioans will vote on in November.

Continued: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/one-womans-story-of-self-managing-her-abortion-in-an-anti-choice-state_n_64c03e6be4b053a7009335eb

USA – Abortion-rights attorneys help patients and providers navigate legal chaos

BY: SOFIA RESNICK
APRIL 20, 2023

These days Kylee Sunderlin is often the first person people will talk to about needing or wanting to terminate a pregnancy, even though she’s not a nurse or doctor or a loved one. She’s a lawyer.

This is Sunderlin’s third year overseeing a national hotline dedicated to helping people navigate legal questions around abortion in their states. Calls have been at an all-time high, she said, as have callers’ fear and confusion.

Continued; https://georgiarecorder.com/2023/04/20/abortion-rights-attorneys-help-patients-and-providers-navigate-legal-chaos/