50 years after Roe v. Wade, many abortion providers are changing how they do business

January 22, 2023
Sarah McCammon
4-Minute Listen with Transcript

The 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision would have been a day of celebration for many abortion-rights supporters. But this milestone anniversary, on January 22, falls just short of seven months after another landmark abortion decision: the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling issued June 24 that overturned Roe.

After Dobbs, many clinics in red states where restrictive abortion laws have been enacted have been forced to close their doors and move, or stay open and dramatically shift the services they're providing.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/22/1150574240/50-years-roe-v-wade-dobbs-abortion-providers-reinvent

How some providers are working around abortion bans since Roe v. Wade was overturned

Workarounds ensure doctors aren't breaking laws, experts and advocates say.

By Mary Kekatos
Video by Jessie DiMartino
October 17, 2022

Some state officials as well as abortion providers are trying to find workarounds to help patients who want to end their pregnancies after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Since the late June ruling, at least 12 states have ended nearly all abortion services, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/providers-work-abortion-bans-roe-wade-overturned/story?id=91435808

“Chaos” for patients and providers after US abortion ruling

Susan Jaffe
July 09, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)01268-5
The Lancet - WORLD REPORT| VOLUME 400, ISSUE 10346, P85-86, JULY 09, 2022

The US Supreme Court's bombshell decision overturning Roe v Wade on June 24, 2022, assures Americans that each state can choose whether and under what conditions its residents have a right to a safe and legal abortion. So far, the result is an incoherent and volatile jumble: 16 states have severely restricted or banned the procedure and bans in ten more states are likely to take effect in a matter of weeks. Providers who violate the laws can face as much as 10 years in prison. However, in 22 Democrat-led states and the District of Columbia, abortion access is protected. Several claim to be abortion sanctuaries as they prepare for an influx of health-care refugees who can afford to travel for an abortion no longer available at home.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01268-5/fulltext

What an America Without Roe Would Look Like

Legal abortions would fall, particularly among poor women in the South and Midwest, and out-of-state travel and abortion pills would play a bigger role.

By Claire Cain Miller and Margot Sanger-Katz
Dec. 5, 2021

Last week’s Supreme Court arguments on a Mississippi abortion law raised the prospect of a return to a time half a century ago — when the procedure was illegal across most of the United States and women, perilously, tried to end pregnancies on their own or sought back-alley abortions.

If the court decides to reverse or weaken the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, it will usher in a somewhat different era. Abortion would remain legal in more than half of states, but not in a wide swath of the Midwest and the South.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/upshot/abortion-without-roe-wade.html

USA – Abortion Clinics Are Getting Nickel-and-Dimed Out of Business

Abortion Clinics Are Getting Nickel-and-Dimed Out of Business
From legal battles to securing vendors to getting the walls painted, every budget line is a struggle.

By Cynthia Koons and Rebecca Greenfield
February 27, 2020

Amy Hagstrom Miller, owner of Whole Woman’s Health in Austin, has faced many existential threats to her business. When Texas passed a law in 2013 requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, she was forced to close the clinic. She fought the measure all the way to the Supreme Court, and in 2016, she prevailed. By a 5–3 decision, the court ruled in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt that the law wasn’t medically justified. There’s an iconic photo of Hagstrom Miller descending the Supreme Court steps afterward, fist raised, smile radiant. Nine months later, she reopened her clinic.

It looked like a happy ending. But a year later the Austin clinic was on the brink again.

Continued: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-27/abortion-clinics-are-the-most-challenging-small-business-in-america

USA – Becoming An Abortion Provider Is Filled With Barriers, Too

Becoming An Abortion Provider Is Filled With Barriers, Too

By Jo Yurcaba
Jan 2, 2020

When Dr. Elise Boos was a third-year medical resident, she would drive five hours north throughout the year to a clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana — one of the three abortion clinics in the state — to learn how to provide first and second trimester abortions. She and the other residents had to stay at a nearby hotel for two weeks at a time. Boos, who is now a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, says the rotation reinforced the stigma of the procedure for her, "because you had to leave town in order to get this training," she says. "It was hard to imagine how you could do that work in the South and still be a member of the medical community."

Continued: https://www.bustle.com/p/becoming-abortion-provider-is-filled-with-barriers-too-19497228

USA – As “Abortion Reversal” Laws Spread, Doctors and Scientists are Pushing Back

As “Abortion Reversal” Laws Spread, Doctors and Scientists are Pushing Back

August 27, 2019
by Rahima Nasa

When North Dakota passed its “abortion reversal” law, Tammi Kromenaker geared up for a fight.

This March, North Dakota joined a swell of states requiring doctors to tell patients that they can reverse medical abortions. The bill is based on a contested study that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecology (ACOG) said doesn’t meet scientific standards.

Continued: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/as-abortion-reversal-laws-spread-doctors-and-scientists-are-pushing-back/

Hollywood rarely tells the truth about abortion. ‘Little Woods’ is different.

Hollywood rarely tells the truth about abortion. ‘Little Woods’ is different.

By Renee Bracey Sherman
April 23, 2019

Pop culture has made some progress since 1956, when an addition to the Motion Picture Production Code that governed Hollywood movie-making declared, “The subject of abortion shall be discouraged, shall never be more than suggested, and, when referred to, shall be condemned.” But even by contemporary standards, in which characters are allowed to have abortions and movies can depict those decisions positively, Nia DaCosta’s debut feature film, “Little Woods,” is a politically urgent revelation.

Rather than making the decision to have an abortion the major source of tension in the film, DaCosta starkly depicts the sacrifices that families make to afford health care, dramatizing the recent onslaught of restrictions on abortion. And her character’s choices place abortion in conversation with our national debate about opioid addiction and drug trafficking to illuminate these well-worn subjects in new ways.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/23/hollywood-rarely-tells-truth-about-abortion-little-woods-is-different/

USA – A Dire Situation for Women: The Future of Roe’s Legal Protections if Judge Kavanaugh Joins the Supreme Court

A Dire Situation for Women: The Future of Roe’s Legal Protections if Judge Kavanaugh Joins the Supreme Court
Fact Sheets

Aug 28, 2018

President Trump promised to nominate only Supreme Court justices who would “automatically” overturn Roe v. Wade, and his nominee Brett Kavanaugh has ruled to restrict women’s access to abortion. Kavanaugh’s confirmation would change the balance of the Supreme Court against access to abortion. Whether the newly constituted Court would overturn Roe or profess to uphold the right to abortion while severely undermining it, the result would be dire for women in this country.

Overturning Roe
If Judge Kavanaugh joins the Court and rules to overturn Roe v. Wade, women could be criminalized and punished in our country for having an abortion.

Continued: https://nwlc.org/resources/a-dire-situation-for-women/

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