How Overruling Roe is Already Risking Women’s Lives

Sian Norris
25 August 2022

It’s two months since the US Supreme Court ended the nationwide right to abortion, and the horror stories are already piling up. Worse is yet to come, reports Sian Norris

It’s now two months since the US Supreme Court decided on Dobbs v Jackson’s Women’s Health Organisation – a case on abortion rights that ultimately overruled Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision that allowed for nationwide access to safe and legal terminations. The Dobbs decision was written by the conservative Justice Samuel Alito, and allows for abortion laws to be made at a state, rather than federal level.

Within the first two months, nine states have implemented bans on abortion – some, like Missouri, within 24 hours. It, along with Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Dakota have outlawed abortion in all cases, including when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest.

Continued: https://bylinetimes.com/2022/08/25/how-overruling-roe-is-already-risking-womens-lives/

25.08.2022

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Centre for Reproductive Rights

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Ireland’s Struggle for Abortion Rights Should Be an Inspiration for the US

Ireland’s Struggle for Abortion Rights Should Be an Inspiration for the US

BY SINÉAD KENNEDY
Aug 22, 2022

Irish pro-choice activists had to overcome a rigid constitutional ban on abortion that was in place for more than 30 years. They succeeded by putting mass mobilization and a confident assertion of the right to choose at the heart of their campaign.

In May 2018, the Irish electorate voted by a two-to-one majority to remove or “repeal” the prohibition on abortion, known as the Eighth Amendment, from the country’s constitution. While opinion polls had suggested that pro-choice campaigners would win, most predicted a nerve-rackingly close result; certainly no one anticipated the sheer scale of the victory and the support for abortion access found across every section of society, from young to old, urban to rural.

Continued: https://jacobin.com/2022/08/ireland-abortion-rights-repeal-campaign-us-roe

The Irish Lesson

If the purpose of abortion bans is to actually reduce the rate at which women terminate pregnancies, the Irish experience shows how utterly ineffectual they are.

Fintan O’Toole
August 18, 2022 issue, NY Books (posted July 27)

In 1973, soon after the US Supreme Court established a right to abortion in Roe v. Wade, Charles E. Rice concluded that “the essential remedy to the abortion problem is a constitutional amendment.” Rice is an important figure in the intellectual history of the antiabortion movement that is now, with the recent overturning of Roe, enjoying its moment of triumph. He was a cofounder of the Conservative Party of New York State, formed by those who considered the Republican Party too liberal; one of his scholarly tracts is an attack on the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As a professor of constitutional law, he established Notre Dame University in Indiana as a redoubt of the conservative Catholic legal thinking whose influence most fully blossomed when Donald Trump appointed Rice’s colleague and associate Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

Continued: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/08/18/the-irish-lesson-fintan-otoole/

Ireland – This woman died because of an abortion ban. Americans fear they could be next.

I think maternal mortality will go up,” said the expert who wrote Ireland's official report on the death of Dr. Savita Halappanavar, who was denied an abortion.

July 4, 2022
By Patrick Smith

After the Supreme Court’s historic decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, some doctors are highlighting the 2012 death of a pregnant woman in Ireland and warning that the same thing could happen on a large scale in the United States.

Dr. Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian-born dentist, died in 2012 in Galway, on Ireland’s west coast, after she was denied an abortion by doctors who cited the country’s strict laws, despite there being no chance of her baby’s survival, according to Ireland’s official report on the case.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/woman-died-ireland-abortion-ban-warning-americans-roe-v-wade-rcna35431

Death and Suffering: The Story Behind Ireland’s Abortion Ban and its Reversal

The death of Savita Halappanavar in an Irish hospital in 2012 after she was denied an abortion during a miscarriage caused outrage across Ireland.

June 27, 2022
By Gretchen E. Ely

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the U.S., the nation may find itself on a path similar to that trodden by the Irish people from 1983 to 2018.

Abortion was first prohibited in Ireland through what was called the Offenses Against the Person Act of 1861. That law became part of Irish law when Ireland gained independence from the U.K. in 1922. In the early 1980s, some anti-abortion Catholic activists noticed the liberalization of abortion laws in other Western democracies and worried the same might happen in Ireland.

Continued: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2022-06-27/the-story-behind-irelands-abortion-ban-and-its-reversal

27.06.2022

Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act

US woman left traumatised after Malta hospital refuses life-saving abortion

‘Desperate’ tourist who fell foul of country’s total ban fears for her life if complications set in while she waits for transfer to UK

Megan Clement and Weronika Strzyżyńska
Wed 22 Jun 2022

Doctors have denied an American woman on holiday in Malta a potentially life-saving abortion, despite saying her baby had a “zero chance” of survival after she was admitted to hospital with severe bleeding in her 16th week of pregnancy.

Despite an “extreme risk” of haemorrhage and infection, doctors at the Mater Dei hospital in Msida told Andrea Prudente that they would not perform a termination because of the country’s total ban on abortion.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jun/22/us-woman-left-traumatised-after-malta-hospital-refuses-life-saving-abortion

What Ireland’s Past Can Tell Us About A Post-Roe America

By Monica Potts
JUN. 8, 2022

Before 2018, most women in the Republic of Ireland were able to get abortions only if they traveled to a clinic in England or Wales or had a self-managed abortion at home, but figuring out how to do either of those options was difficult.

Information on abortion was censored in the first years of the ban, which took effect in 19831. Certain books were prohibited, and even the Irish edition of Cosmopolitan magazine had blank pages instead of adverts for British clinics. Meanwhile, those who sought abortions faced isolation, stigma and limited help from medical professionals. And for the few who were able to overcome those barriers and somehow reach one of the feminist networks that could help with information, logistics and fundraising, they still might pay hundreds of pounds or more for the procedure, transportation, meals and a hotel.

Continued: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-irelands-past-can-tell-us-about-a-post-roe-america/

Ireland and Latin America Can Inspire the US Abortion Fight

Analysis by Clara Ferreira Marques | Bloomberg
May 30, 2022

For decades, activists across the world have looked to Roe v. Wade, the landmark US ruling on abortion, as a model worthy of emulation. With the Supreme Court now set to overturn that decision, roles need to reverse: US rights groups must now turn to successful campaigns in Latin America and in Ireland for inspiration and advice on mobilizing voters, galvanizing legislators and widening support.

The impact of these popular movements is hard to overestimate. The Latin American marea verde, or green wave, emerged in Argentina in response to high rates of violence against women with the Ni Una Menos campaign, or Not One Less, and mass street protests. It expanded to include a demand for legal and safe abortions, and took its name from the green scarves women began to wear …

Continued: (unblocked) https://wapo.st/3wYPzTZ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ireland-and-latin-america-can-inspire-theusabortion-fight/2022/05/30/500ffa4c-dfef-11ec-ae64-6b23e5155b62_story.html

Irish doctor says “women will die” if Roe v. Wade overturned in U.S.

MAY 23, 2022
CBS NEWS

Dublin, Ireland — Americans are waiting for a final Supreme Court decision that could overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling making abortion legal nationwide. If the justices do overturn the 1973 ruling, it would see the U.S. buck the international trend, as other countries have been making the procedure more widely available.

CBS News senior foreign correspondent Holly Williams recently visited Ireland, which is one of those countries, and met Amy Callahan, who shared her own difficult experience.

Continued: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/abortion-law-us-supreme-court-ireland-mothers-doctor-on-life-illegal-abortion/

23.05.2022

fatal fetal abnormality

Abortion: the story of suffering and death behind Ireland’s ban and subsequent legalization

Published: May 16, 2022
Gretchen E. Ely

If the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the U.S., the nation may find itself on a path similar to that trod by the Irish people from 1983 to 2018. A draft decision signed by the majority of conservative justices was leaked in May 2022, and indicates the court may do just that.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/abortion-the-story-of-suffering-and-death-behind-irelands-ban-and-subsequent-legalization-182812