Texas – The girls of San Benito, the center where Trump sends pregnant migrant minors

The Department of Health is transferring them to Texas, where abortion is virtually banned, despite objections from officials at the federal agency responsible for them

Jesús Jank Curbelo
Houston - MAR 13, 2026

Since last July, the Trump administration has been sending all unaccompanied migrant girls who show up pregnant at the U.S. border to a single center located in San Benito, a small border town in South Texas, the state with one of the strictest abortion bans in the country. In recent months, more than a dozen girls have been transferred to this facility. At least half of them became pregnant as a result of rape. Some are 13 years old.

In theory, everyone who arrives at the San Benito center has the right to be informed of their options, including abortion, through a notification called a Garza notice. In practice, however, that right is in jeopardy, according to Sarah Corning, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “We remain concerned that doctors will refuse to perform abortions for fear of prosecution, something we’ve seen happen far too often since the ban went into effect” in the state, she says.

Continued; https://english.elpais.com/usa/2026-03-13/the-girls-of-san-benito-the-center-where-trump-sends-pregnant-migrant-minors.html

Men’s Catholic order gave secret millions to ‘deceptive’ anti-abortion centres

Revealed: Tax filings show Knights of Columbus ploughed at least $10.8m into ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ in six years

Open Democracy – by Diana Cariboni, Angelina De Los Santos, Mónica Cordero
14 February 2024

A multi-billion-dollar all-male Catholic order in the US has handed at least $10.8m to hundreds of anti-abortion centres in six years, openDemocracy can reveal – several times what was previously known.

Founded in the 19th century to assist Irish widows and orphans in the US, the Knights of Columbus – named after Christopher Columbus – funded at least 485 of the 2,500 so-called ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ in America between 2017 and 2022, our analysis of hundreds of documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) found. The order claims to have two million members.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/knights-of-columbus-crisis-pregnancy-centres-anti-abortion-us-daf/

The Trump Administration Is Giving Up Its Fight To Prevent Undocumented Teens From Getting Abortions

The administration issued a new policy explicitly preventing ORR staff from blocking minors in its care from obtaining abortions or disclosing their pregnancies.

Ema O'Connor and Zoe Tillman
September 29, 2020

After three years of arguing in court to block pregnant, undocumented teenagers in government custody from obtaining abortions, the Trump administration dropped the fight on Tuesday, announcing it had officially changed its policy.

The new policy makes clear that the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the branch of the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees undocumented minors and those seeking asylum in the US, must allow teenagers in its custody to obtain abortions.

Continued: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emaoconnor/trump-undocumented-teens-abortion-orr-lawsuit-immigration

A new film goes inside the war on civil rights, and this time ACLU lawyers are the stars

By Geoff Edgers
July 23, 2020

That night in Brooklyn, Elyse Steinberg, headed down to the courthouse and joined the crowd protesting newly inaugurated President Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban.” She watched as ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt emerged onto Cadman Plaza to announce a federal judge had granted those stranded in airports an emergency stay.

And the next morning, Steinberg, co-director of the 2016 documentary “Weiner,” headed into the office and straight to the white board.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/a-new-film-goes-inside-the-war-on-civil-rights-and-this-time-aclu-lawyers-are-the-stars/2020/07/22/d8c9cd6c-cb43-11ea-91f1-28aca4d833a0_story.html

23.07.2020

ACLU

American Civil Liberties Union

Reproductive Freedom Project

Scott Lloyd

The Fight film

Weiner film

Revealed: US-linked anti-abortion centres ‘lie’ and ‘scare women’ across Latin America

Revealed: US-linked anti-abortion centres ‘lie’ and ‘scare women’ across Latin America
Lawmakers in Mexico, Ecuador and Argentina demand action following “truly scandalous” misinformation revealed by openDemocracy..

Isabella Cota
12 February 2020

“Come on in my love, someone will be with you shortly,” a woman says, welcoming me into a ‘crisis centre’ for women with unwanted pregnancies in a suburb of Mexico City. "I'm going to give you a hug," she adds, with a kiss on the cheek.

The woman’s greeting is warm and it chimes with the centre’s online advertising, on a website called interrumpir-embarazo.com (‘interrupt-pregnancy.com’), as “a group of women who know how difficult it is to face an unwanted pregnancy”, who promise to “accompany you, with security and discretion”.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/revealed-us-linked-anti-abortion-centres-lie-and-scare-women-across-latin-america/

12.02.2020

Commentary

Featured

Ana Maria Camarillo

anti-choice counselling

anti-choice cruelty

anti-choice intimidation

anti-choice lies

anti-choice misinformation

anti-choice misogyny

anti-choice scare-mongering

CAM network

CAMILE

Centros de Ayuda para la Mujer

Colectivo de Asociaciones para la Interrupción Legal del Embarazo

crisis pregnancy centres

European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights

GIREHuman Rights Watch

Grupo de Informacion en Reproduccion Elegida

Heartbeat International

Hillary Margolis

Human Life international

Marta Lamas

Mike Pence

misleading advertising

Mónica Macha

Neil Datta

Oliva López

openDemocracy report on CPCs

Patricia Mercado

Regina Tamés

Scott Lloyd

unethical anti-choice advertising

Exclusive: Trump-linked religious ‘extremists’ target women with disinformation worldwide

Exclusive: Trump-linked religious ‘extremists’ target women with disinformation worldwide
Lawmakers demand action as openDemocracy reveals global spread of false and “manipulative” activities, posing “grave risks” to women and democracy.

Claire Provost and Nandini Archer
10 February 2020

A global network of ‘crisis pregnancy centres’, backed by US anti-abortion groups linked to the Trump White House, has been condemned by lawmakers, doctors and rights advocates for targeting vulnerable women with “disinformation, emotional manipulation and outright deceit”.

There are thousands of such centres in the US. Many have been criticised for posing as neutral health facilities for women with crisis pregnancies while hiding their anti-abortion and religious agendas. But the global scale of these controversial activities has not been mapped until now.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/trump-linked-religious-extremists-global-disinformation-pregnant-women/

USA – “Failed” abortions, a period-tracking spreadsheet, and the last clinic standing: the controversy in Missouri, explained

“Failed” abortions, a period-tracking spreadsheet, and the last clinic standing: the controversy in Missouri, explained
Hearings will determine if Missouri will be the first state without an abortion clinic.

By Anna North
Oct 31, 2019

At a hearing over an investigation of Missouri’s lone abortion clinic, a state official testified to something that has disturbed reproductive health advocates in the state and beyond: With the help of state medical records, his office had created a spreadsheet tracking patients’ menstrual periods.

The goal, according to the Kansas City Star, was to investigate “failed” abortions, instances in which the patient needed to return a second time to complete the procedure. The idea was apparently that, by gathering data on patients’ periods, state officials would know who was still pregnant after a scheduled abortion.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2019/10/31/20939890/missouri-abortion-clinic-hearing-periods-roe-wade

USA – Do Migrant Teenagers Have Abortion Rights? Two Volatile Issues Collide in Court

Do Migrant Teenagers Have Abortion Rights? Two Volatile Issues Collide in Court

By Robert Pear
Sept. 29, 2018

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is claiming broad new authority to block access to abortions sought by undocumented immigrants under age 18 who are in its custody.

In a case that brings together two of the most volatile issues in American society, immigration and abortion, the Justice Department argued this past week before a federal appeals court that the government “has a strong, legitimate and profound interest in the life of the child in the womb.”

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/29/us/politics/court-abortion-immigrants.html

USA – Self-Managed Abortion Care Becomes Urgent as Threats to Roe v. Wade Mount

Self-Managed Abortion Care Becomes Urgent as Threats to Roe v. Wade Mount

by Katie Klabusich, Truthout
Published August 19, 2018

When President Trump took office just over a year and a half ago, activists could only make educated guesses about whether his promised onslaught against reproductive health care would truly come to pass. The current picture is worse than expected due to attacks from rogue agency heads throughout the Trump-Pence administration who are collaborating to deny access to care to people across the country.

These agency heads include Betsy Devos at the Department of Education, who is working in tandem with the new division of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights to reduce access to contraception; Scott Lloyd, who has directed the Office of Refugee Resettlement to deny abortion care to immigrant minors; and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has announced a “religious liberty task force” to shore up already existing “conscience clauses” allowing employees to refuse care.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/self-managed-abortion-care-becomes-urgent-as-threats-to-roe-v-wade-mount/

USA – The Struggle to Save Abortion Care

The Struggle to Save Abortion Care

Carole Joffe
First Published August 1, 2018
https://doi.org/10.1177/1536504218792522

Abstract: Resisting both physical attacks and widespread policy proscriptions, mission-driven abortion care providers continue working to help their patients.

“Some will rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen.” This line from an old Woody Guthrie song is an apt description of the vulnerability of abortion providers in the United States. Clinics have long been subject to physical attacks: eleven individuals have been murdered by anti-abortion extremists, thousands more have been terrorized at their homes and offices, and numerous clinics have been vandalized, even destroyed by fire-bombings. More recently, a harsh new regulatory regime—Guthrie’s “pen”—comprising onerous restrictions passed by state legislatures and hostile inspections by health departments threaten the ability of providers to keep their facilities open and to sustain their vision of “woman-centered” care. As a longtime abortion clinic administrator told me, “Regulatory interference is the new frontier of the anti-abortion movement.”

Continued: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1536504218792522

01.08.2018