Revisiting New York’s Historic Abortion Law in “Deciding Vote”

Jeremy Workman and Robert Lyons’s film reconstructs the passage of a 1970 law that made the state a sanctuary for people seeking abortions, and cost a lawmaker his career.

by Linnea Feldman Emison
November 29, 2023

In April, 1970, three years before Roe v. Wade made it legal nationwide, New York passed the most expansive abortion law in the U.S. Three other states passed similar bills in the same year, but New York’s was of particular national significance because it allowed patients to get an abortion even if they weren’t residents. This made the state a hub for people from other parts of the country seeking to safely end their pregnancies. That role has become a lasting element of New York’s political identity—in anticipation of the Supreme Court overturning Roe, in 2022, it passed a suite of laws to again become a sanctuary state for those seeking abortions—but that 1970 law almost fizzled out in the state legislature.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-documentary/revisiting-new-yorks-historic-abortion-law-in-deciding-vote

30.11.2023

sanctuary state for abortion care

Abortion access could continue to change in year 2 after the overturn of Roe v. Wade

July 3, 2023
Selena Simmons-Duffin

From the moment the Supreme Court decision overturning the right to an abortion was leaked last spring, researchers and pundits began to predict the consequences.

A year later, data is beginning to bring the real-life effects into focus. Over a dozen states have near total abortion bans, with several more state bans in the works. At least 26 clinics have closed. In Texas, nearly 10,000 more babies were born in the state since its 2021 "heartbeat bill" took effect.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/07/03/1185849391/abortion-access-could-continue-to-change-in-year-2-after-the-overturn-of-roe-v-w

A year since Dobbs, these are the many ways states are protecting abortion

June 23, 2023
By Nicole Nixon, Scott Maucione, Rick Pluta, Bente Birkeland, Mawa Iqbal, Dirk VanderHart, Dana Ferguson, Molly Ingram

In the year since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, 14 states have banned most abortions, but even more have moved to protect abortion rights in various ways.

Eleven states have passed so-called "shield laws," which can safeguard providers and patients against prosecution from other states. And at least 15 municipalities and six state governments allocated nearly $208 million to pay for contraception, abortion and support services according to data provided to NPR by the National Institute for Reproductive Health.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/06/23/1183646356/dobbs-roe-abortion-protections-illinois-maryland-michigan-colorado-minnesota

23.06.2023

News

enshrining abortion rights in constitution

pro-choice legislation

Roe v. Wade

sanctuary state for abortion care

Planned Parenthood maps strategy to protect abortion rights

Planned Parenthood leaders from across the country are meeting in California to discuss how to defend abortion rights

By SOPHIE AUSTIN and ADAM BEAM, Associated Press
September 9, 2022

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Planned Parenthood leaders from 24 states gathered in California's capital Friday to begin work on a nationwide strategy to protect and strengthen access to abortion, a counteroffensive aimed at pushing back against restrictions that have emerged in more than half of the country after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Their goal is to emulate the success liberals have had in California, where state lawmakers passed some of the most robust abortion protections in the country this year, culminating in a statewide election this fall that would make abortion a constitutional right in the nation's most populous state.

continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/abortion-leaders-gather-california-talk-strategy-89614443

“We just won’t comply”: Inside California’s push to be the ultimate abortion haven state

Gov. Gavin Newsom has implemented strict privacy measures for patients and increased California’s budget for services. But as California strives to be a sanctuary for abortion seekers from around the country, providers are still struggling to serve those in state.

BY ABIGAIL TRACY
AUGUST 5, 2022

As a growing number of states across the country continue to ravage reproductive rights after the fall of Roe v. Wade, advocates and policymakers in California are sending a message. “We’re becoming not just a haven state sort of in theory, although that’s important,” Jodi Hicks, the CEO and president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said. “But also we’re becoming a state that won’t comply with other states. We just won’t comply.”

California has long held some of the strongest protections for abortion access in the country. But last October, when the Supreme Court first chose not to halt Texas S.B. 8, which bans abortions at six weeks without exception—months before they unraveled federal abortion protections in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—the check engine light came on. The impact was immediate as patients from Texas began traveling to California seeking care. And suddenly, Hicks explained, providers were faced with a series of new legal questions regarding their care. Reproductive rights advocates went into overdrive.

Continued: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/08/inside-californias-push-to-be-the-ultimate-abortion-haven-state

How California Plans to Serve the Nation and Safeguard Abortion

From working to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution and become a "sanctuary" for access, California is becoming a blueprint for other states

Jun 10, 2022
Xenia Ellenbogen

It’s inevitable that Roe v. Wade will be overturned, throwing abortion access and rights into further chaos in this country. Thanks to Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft opinion, whether the Supreme Court overturns Roe in its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization seems to be a matter of when, not if.

When Roe falls, the number of people of reproductive age whose nearest provider would be California would be up to 1.4 million—or a staggering increase of nearly 3,000 percent, the Guttmacher Institute estimates. Since the leak, California lawmakers have been moving to protect abortion access.

https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2022/06/10/how-california-plans-to-serve-the-nation-and-safeguard-abortion/

How California Created The Nation’s Easiest Abortion Access — And Why It’s Poised To Go Further

By Kristen Hwang | CalMatters
Apr 21, 2022

By this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court will issue a decision on the most consequential challenge to Roe v. Wade since the landmark ruling in 1973 guaranteed the constitutional right to obtain an abortion.

If federal abortion protections are eliminated or severely weakened— as legal experts expect — a cascade of absolute bans will follow in more than a dozen states. Already, six more states are considering so-called “trigger bans” in the lead-up to this summer’s decision, while dozens of other state legislatures are considering 15-week bans, abortion pill bans and bans modeled after Texas’ controversial law that allows private citizens to sue anyone who helps someone obtain an abortion after six weeks.

Continued: https://laist.com/news/health/how-california-created-the-nations-easiest-abortion-access-and-why-its-poised-to-go-further

Only One Blue State Is Fully Preparing for the Next Phase of the Abortion Wars

Republican legislators are already plotting to punish reproductive health providers across state lines. Connecticut has a plan to fight back.

BY MARK JOSEPH STERN
APRIL 20, 2022

At least 26 states will ban most or all abortions if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this summer, as it appears poised to do. Many blue states have strengthened abortion rights in the run-up to Roe’s potential demise. But few are planning for red states’ campaign to punish abortion providers and patients in places where it remains legal.

Connecticut, however, will not be caught off guard. On Tuesday, the state’s House of Representatives passed a bill spearheaded by Rep. Matt Blumenthal that would transform Connecticut into a sanctuary for legal abortion. The measure, H.B. 5414, bars state courts from enforcing another state’s penalties against someone who performed or facilitated an abortion that’s legal in Connecticut. It allows people sued under vigilante abortion bans, like Texas’ S.B. 8, to countersue in Connecticut court, collecting both damages and attorneys’ fees if they prevail. And it broadly prohibits state authorities from complying with another state’s request to investigate, penalize, or extradite individuals for providing or facilitating reproductive health services.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/connecticuts-abortion-protection-blueprint.html

The States Shoring Up Abortion Rights for the End of Roe

By Ed Kilgore, NY Magazine
FEB. 19, 2022

As we await the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which is widely expected to strike down or at least significantly weaken Roe v. Wade, there has been a flurry of legislative activity in the states, which may soon control abortion policy, as they did in the days before the landmark 1973 ruling. Most of the attention has been on Republican-run states, some of which have long had “trigger laws,” designed to reimpose abortion restrictions the minute the Supreme Court allows them. Now there is even some infighting between red states emulating the Mississippi law the Court is likely to approve, which bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, and those pushing for even more restrictive laws that would ban abortion after six weeks, like Texas’s devious vigilante enforcement statute.

Continued: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/blue-states-protecting-abortion-rights-end-of-roe.html

State legislatures in U.S. poised to act on abortion rights

Wilson Ring, The Associated Press
Published Tuesday, December 28, 2021

MONTPELIER, VT. -- Early in the new year, the Vermont House of Representatives is due to begin debate on an amendment that would enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution and send the question to voters in the fall.

Because the process began two years ago, it's a coincidence that Vermont lawmakers will be considering the Reproductive Liberty Amendment while the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case that could severely erode a right that has stood for half a century.

Continued: https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/state-legislatures-in-u-s-poised-to-act-on-abortion-rights-1.5721182