‘I would wish this on absolutely no one’: How three women dealt with pregnancy in the year since Texas’ six-week abortion ban

To mark the first anniversary of SB 8 going into effect, The 19th spoke with Texans who sought an abortion in this past year. Each has a different story. But all shared similar sentiments: anger, sorrow, frustration and fear.

Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
August 29, 2022

Tiff found out she was pregnant on New Year’s Day. Her period was three days late, just enough to suspect that something was off. Still, when she saw the two pink lines, she was shocked.

She was 16. She didn’t know what to do or what would happen with her parents, whom she describes as conservative.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2022/08/pregnancy-texas-six-week-abortion-ban/

Abortion Refugees Across America

Republican state legislatures are creating abortion refugees across America, many writing legislation that ends all abortions in their states,

SONALI KOLHATKAR
APR 18, 2022

Republican state legislatures are creating abortion refugees across America. After Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a draconian bill, SB 8, into law last year, empowering bounty hunters to sue abortion providers, those seeking care fled to the neighboring states of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

But GOP leaders were ready for them. Oklahoma’s Republican Governor Kevin Stitt on April 12 signed the nation’s strictest abortion ban into law, ending all abortions in his state except in cases of danger to the pregnant person’s life. Now, reports are emerging of Oklahomans turning to the neighboring state of Kansas for abortions.

Continued: https://www.laprogressive.com/progressive-issues/abortion-refugees-across-america

State-level Republicans are going all in on extreme anti-trans, anti-abortion laws

The GOP is trying to win votes with a wave of “anti-woke” bills.

By Natasha Isak
Mar 20, 2022

Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country are taking up anti-trans and anti-abortion bills at a shocking rate, as lawmakers seize on an enforcement mechanism first tested by Texas’s SB 8.

Multiple states — including Florida, Idaho, and Texas — have enacted, or hope to enact, new and draconian restrictions, including banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy (functionally equivalent to an outright ban on abortion), or banning gender-affirming health care for transgender children.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2022/3/20/22987539/anti-trans-anti-abortion-laws-texas-florida-idaho

Texas – Abortion rights groups sue, saying ‘extremists’ are using the courts to target them

Courts asked to block any lawsuits resulting from information gathered in depositions of leaders of groups that fund abortions

By BeLynn Hollers
Mar 18, 2022

Two abortion rights groups — Texas Equal Access Fund and Lilith Fund — have together sued two organizations outside of Texas and two private individuals who they say are targeting them as they try to aid pregnant women after the passage of SB 8, the state law that bans abortions after around six weeks. The Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based nonprofit law firm, and America First Legal Foundation, a D.C.-based advocacy group, are the two organizations listed in the lawsuit. It also names Ashley Maxwell of Hood County and Sadie Weldon of Jack County as defendants. The two women filed petitions in January and February, seeking to depose leaders of the Texas Equal Access Fund and the Lilith Fund.

Continued: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2022/03/18/abortion-rights-groups-sue-saying-extremists-are-using-the-courts-to-target-them/

A grave warning’: six months of Texas abortion ban sow fear and anguish

The state’s near-total ban has had ‘devastating’ effects, providers say, and offers a glimpse of the future if Roe v Wade is overturned

Mary Tuma
Thu 3 Mar 2022

The most restrictive abortion law in the US has inflicted “devastating” consequences in Texas since it was introduced six months ago, according to healthcare providers and pro-choice groups.

Senate Bill 8 (SB 8) bars the procedure once embryonic cardiac activity is detected, typically at six weeks of pregnancy or earlier, with no exception for rape or incest. As most people are not aware they are pregnant this early on, the unprecedented law amounts to a near-total ban.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/03/texas-abortion-ban-six-months-grave-warning

Doctors’ worst fears about the Texas abortion law are coming true

Updated March 1, 2022
Sarah McCammon and Lauren Hodges

In the days after the new Texas abortion law known as SB 8 took effect last September, Anna was planning her wedding to her fiancé, Scott. They'd set a date for this coming May — until Anna realized her period was almost two weeks late.

"I just remember laughing to myself because I was like, wow, for as responsible as I think I am all the time, I had no idea that I was pregnant — and that late," says Anna. NPR is using only her first name because of the sensitivity of her story.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2022/02/28/1083536401/texas-abortion-law-6-months

USA – Six Months in a State of Emergency

By Andrea González-Ramírez
Mar. 1, 2022

During the past six months, Kathaleen Pittman has often noticed some of her staff at Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, Louisiana, are on the verge of tears. Every day, more and more patients reach out hoping to schedule an abortion at one of the state’s three remaining clinics, and the one closest to the Texas border. And every day, the employees who answer the phone have to tell callers — who are already frustrated by having to plan around a 24-hour waiting period that forces them to book two appointments — that the clinic may not be able to fit them into its schedule because of overwhelming demand.

“We’re compassionate people. Hearing these women, who are so afraid and so upset, has certainly taken its toll on the staff,” says Kathaleen Pittman, the clinic’s administrator. She’s been working at Hope since 1992, when she started as a part-time patient’s advocate. Over the past three decades, she’s witnessed a full-scale assault on abortion access in Louisiana: TRAP laws, a 20-week ban, mandatory waiting periods, a prohibition on telemedicine, and requiring parental consent for minors. And yet, Pittman tells me, “Never have I been so afraid of what’s happening.”

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2022/03/sb8-texas-abortion-ban-effects-six-months.html

If the Supreme Court lets other states copy Texas’s abortion law, it’ll be chaos

The court is accelerating our country’s polarization.

By Jon D. Michaels
January 10, 2022

Last summer, Texas lawmakers gambled on a long-shot legal workaround. Unable — yet — to ban abortions outright, they crafted SB 8, which authorized any private individual to bring civil suit against those who facilitate abortions. To encourage such private enforcement actions, Texas prescribed large monetary bounties.

The effects of SB 8’s enactment were immediate and palpable: Clinics across the state canceled appointments and shuttered their doors — a devastating blow to those in need of abortions. While acknowledging those hardships, many observers nonetheless presumed that SB 8’s effects would be short-lived. Surely, they thought, the Supreme Court would not permit such a blatant circumvention of a long-standing (and rather popular) federal constitutional protection. Yet that’s precisely what a majority of the court did.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/01/10/court-legal-vigilantes-polarize/

10.01.2022

Featured

Opinion

bounty hunting of abortion providers

Abortion support group aims to strengthen partnerships to meet heightened need

December 18, 2021
Heard on All Things Considered (7 minute listen)

NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer speaks with Odile Schalit, executive director of the abortion support services group The Brigid Alliance, about how her work has changed since the passage of SB 8.

SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
The fight over SB 8 and abortion rights more broadly continues at the Supreme Court. Last week, the justices issued a ruling that lets abortion providers challenge the restrictive Texas abortion law. Meanwhile, however, the Texas law remains in effect, and that's made it nearly impossible to get an abortion in that state. So what are women who want to end a pregnancy doing? We're going to put that question to a practical support provider. These are individuals or groups that help people seeking abortions with everything from transportation - often out of state - to lodging to child care to funding for the procedure itself. Odile Schalit is executive director of the Brigid Alliance, an organization that supports people who want abortion care. Odile, thank you for talking with us about this.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2021/12/18/1065547264/abortion-support-group-aims-to-strengthen-partnerships-to-meet-heightened-need

The supreme court’s abortion ruling is even more unsettling than it may seem

In allowing Texas’s outrageous abortion ban to stay in place, the court signaled that it is willing to sacrifice its own legitimacy and power in order to destroy Roe

Moira Donegan
Sat 11 Dec 2021

Don’t be fooled by the supreme court’s nominal hedging on its endorsement of SB8, the Texas abortion ban that deputizes private citizens to sue anyone who assists in an abortion after six weeks’ gestation. In a ruling on Friday, the court held that a lawsuit by Texas abortion providers could go forward – but only on narrow grounds. Only those state officials responsible for licensing medical providers may be sued, the court ordered – no one else involved in the state’s practical maintenance of SB8 is liable. The ruling said, for instance, that the providers could not sue court clerks, those bureaucrats tasked with actually docketing the lawsuits that would enforce SB8.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/11/supreme-court-abortion-ruling-unsettling