Abortion Pill Providers Experiment With Ways to Broaden Access

These new efforts, which test the legal boundaries, have sprung up since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and many states restricted abortion.

By Pam Belluck
Sept. 3, 2022

As bans and restrictions proliferate across the country, abortion pill providers are pushing the envelope of regulations and laws to meet the surging demand for medication abortion in post-Roe America.

Some are using physician discretion to prescribe pills to patients further along in pregnancy than the 10-week limit set by the Food and Drug Administration. Some are making pills available to women who are not pregnant but feel they could need them someday. Some are employing a don’t-ask-don’t-tell approach, providing telemedicine consultations and prescriptions without verifying that patients are in states that permit abortion.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/03/health/abortion-pill-access-roe-v-wade.html

Doctors report compromising care out of fear of Texas abortion law

A new paper from the Texas Policy Evaluation Project says the confusion may be a harbinger for a post-Roe v. Wade world.

BY ELEANOR KLIBANOFF
JUNE 23, 2022

Doctors worried about getting sued under Texas’ restrictive abortion law have delayed treating pregnancy complications until patients’ lives were in danger, according to a paper from the Texas Policy Evaluation Project.

The law, which empowers private citizens to file suit against anyone who “aids or abets” in an abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, has caused confusion among providers and complicated treatment for patients facing pregnancy complications, the study found.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/23/texas-abortion-law-doctors-delay-care/

23.06.2022

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USA – ‘Lock it down right now’: Abortion rights advocates prepare for a new wave of digital security threats

Advocates and abortion providers are reassessing their digital security practices ahead of an expected rise in cyberattacks and surveillance.

by SAM SABIN
06/17/2022

Abortion rights groups are using software that protects privacy and are honing other strategies to combat digital threats that they expect will worsen in a post-Roe world.

Those efforts are gaining new urgency as a looming Supreme Court ruling threatens to open a new wave of security threats for people seeking abortions and their health care providers.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/17/abortion-rights-advocates-digital-security-threats-00040654

A call, a text, an apology: How an abortion arrest shook up a Texas town

The arrest and since-dropped murder charge against a 26-year-old woman stoked widespread outrage and confusion.

By Caroline Kitchener, Beth Reinhard and Alice Crites
April 13, 2022

Calixtro Villarreal’s phone rang Saturday afternoon, about 48 hours after his client, Lizelle Herrera, was arrested and charged with murder — over what local authorities alleged was a “self-induced abortion.”

It was Gocha Ramirez, the district attorney in Starr County, Tex., a remote area on the border with Mexico. Herrera should never have been charged, Ramirez told the lawyer, according to a person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private interactions.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/04/13/texas-abortion-arrest/

Texas Will Dismiss Murder Charge Against Woman Connected to ‘Self-Induced Abortion’

A district attorney said on Sunday that the woman “cannot and should not” be prosecuted.

By Giulia Heyward and Sophie Kasakove
Published April 10, 2022

The murder charge against a woman in Texas in connection with a “self-induced abortion” will be dismissed, a Texas district attorney announced Sunday.

Gocha Allen Ramirez, the district attorney of Starr County, said in a statement that, after reviewing the case, he will file a motion on Monday to dismiss the indictment against the woman, Lizelle Herrera, 26.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/us/texas-self-induced-abortion-charge-dismissed.html

USA – The Pseudoscience That Could Kill Women

MAR. 15, 2022
By Sarah Jones, New York Magazine

Here is a scientific fact: Ectopic pregnancies are not viable. They occur when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus, which dooms the pregnancy and, without treatment, can doom a woman, too. Ectopic pregnancies can lead to hemorrhage and are the leading cause of death for women in the first trimester of pregnancy. Here’s another fact: There is one way to save a woman from an ectopic pregnancy, and that is through termination — an abortion.

A proposed Missouri bill ignores these facts outright. H.B. 2810 would make it a felony, punishable by ten-years-to-life in prison, to perform an abortion after ten weeks of pregnancy, including in cases of ectopic pregnancy, the Springfield News-Leader reports. The bill’s architect, state representative Brian Seitz, offered a familiar justification for his work. “This bill is about protecting life,” he told the newspaper. In a confusing email to Bloomberg News, Seitz claimed that his bill had been misrepresented by critics and that it would do nothing “to curtail that LEGAL activity, as it can present a clear and present danger to the mother.”

Continued: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/03/the-anti-abortion-movements-deadly-pseudoscience.html

Most Women Denied Abortions by Texas Law Got Them Another Way

New data suggests overall abortions declined much less than previously known, because women traveled out of state or ordered pills online.

By Margot Sanger-Katz, Claire Cain Miller and Quoctrung Bui
March 6, 2022

The impact of the Texas abortion law was partly offset by trips to out-of-state clinics, and by abortion pills

In the months after Texas banned all but the earliest
abortions in September, the number of legal abortions in the state fell by
about half. But two new studies suggest the total number among Texas women fell
by far less — around 10 percent — because of large increases in the number of
Texans who traveled to a clinic in a nearby state or ordered abortion pills online.

Two groups of researchers at the University of Texas at Austin counted the
number of women using these alternative options. They found that while the
Texas law — which prohibits abortion after fetal cardiac activity can be
detected, or around six weeks — lowered the number of abortions, it did so much
more modestly than earlier measurements suggested.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/upshot/texas-abortion-women-data.html

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

Anti-abortion lawyers target those funding the procedure for potential lawsuits under new Texas law

Attorneys who helped design Texas’ novel abortion ban have asked a judge to allow them to depose the leaders of two abortion funds, seeking information about anyone who may have “aided or abetted” in a prohibited procedure.

BY ELEANOR KLIBANOFF
FEB. 23, 2022

For nearly six months, as Texas’ novel abortion law has wended its way through the courts, abortion providers and opponents have been locked in a stalemate.

The law, known as Senate Bill 8, empowers private citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. With one exception as soon as the law went into effect, abortion providers in Texas have stopped performing these prohibited procedures — so opponents haven’t tried to bring one of these enforcement suits.

Continued: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/23/texas-abortion-sb8-lawsuits/

What the fallout from the Supreme Court’s Texas abortion ruling means for the future of Roe

By Tierney Sneed
Sat January 22, 2022

(CNN)As the Roe v. Wade ruling celebrates its 49th anniversary on Saturday, the vast majority of abortions have been outlawed for nearly five months in the second most populous state in the country.

The way the Supreme Court has handled Texas' ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy signaled that its Roe precedent -- a landmark abortion rights decision -- does not stand to be fully intact by its 50th anniversary. The fallout from the Texas legal fight has also provided a preview of what abortion access will look like across the country if Roe is dismantled.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/22/politics/texas-supreme-court-roe-abortion/index.html