A doctor’s story shows ‘late-term’ abortion access is politically charged – but crucial

September 2, 2025
Prudence Flowers, Senior Lecturer in US History, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University

Review: Beyond Limits: Stories of Third-Trimester Abortion Care – Shelley Sella, MD (Random House)

In the United States, around 1% of abortions occur after 21 weeks. Yet these abortions are intensely vilified. Recall Donald Trump’s graphic and false claim that US laws allowed doctors to “rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, on the final day”.

For two decades, Dr Shelley Sella provided abortion care in the US into the third trimester of pregnancy: that is, after 26 weeks gestation. Her new book Beyond Limits offers an intimate account of health care and politics, written from the front lines of America’s abortion wars.

In Australia, abortion after 20 weeks gestation is also statistically rare – and most Australians agree that people need abortions after 20 weeks for a variety of medical and social reasons. However, in the last year or so, the focus on later abortions seems to be intensifying here, along with misinformation.

Continued; https://theconversation.com/a-doctors-story-shows-late-term-abortion-access-is-politically-charged-but-crucial-263920

02.09.2025

anti-choice lies

anti-choice terrorism

third-trimester abortion

Tony Abbott

USA – What Would It Mean to Defend All Abortions?

Democrats love to avoid it, and Republicans love to lie about it. But later-abortion care has never been more important.

Amy Littlefield
May 13, 2025

Ayana, 28 years old and 28 weeks pregnant, eases herself onto the procedure table at Partners in Abortion Care in College Park, Maryland. She is a Black woman with the tiny bearing and erect posture of a bird. Above her head, a flock of pink and blue butterflies decorates the ceiling. In a few minutes, a doctor will perform an injection to the fetal heart to end her pregnancy.

Ayana had spent months in turmoil over this abortion. As she chased after her two older kids while lugging her 1-year-old on family outings to the arcade and the movies, she tried to imagine hauling two car seats instead of one. While she changed her baby’s diapers, she thought about what a newborn would subtract from him. The family was already stretched thin.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/defending-all-abortions/

An Abortion Provider Debunks Trump’s Debate Talking Points

By Andrea González-Ramírez, the Cut
Sept 11, 2024

One of Donald Trump’s biggest weaknesses this presidential election is his anti-abortion stance, particularly the role he played (and routinely brags about) in the overturning of Roe v. Wade. During Tuesday’s presidential debate, he attempted to neutralize that weakness by painting Democrats as the extreme party when it comes to abortion rights, repeating falsehoods about patients seeking the procedure “in the ninth month” of pregnancy and having “post-birth abortions.”

This inflammatory rhetoric hinges on voters’ unfamiliarity with abortion care later in pregnancy. Despite what 67 percent of Americans think, only a small percentage of abortions occur after 21 weeks of gestation and they become even rarer further into pregnancy. Providers say these later terminations tend to be medically complex cases that are logistically and financially challenging for many patients.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/article/trumps-abortion-debate-lies-debunked.html

Anguish, gratitude and fear of violence at a Colorado clinic for late abortions

Women are increasingly arriving at the Boulder Abortion Clinic, one of the few in the U.S. providing abortion services at or after 28 weeks of pregnancy, when their lives are in danger.

Sept. 10, 2024
By Dasha Burns, Abigail Brooks and Jason Kane

BOULDER, Colo. — Behind bullet-proof doors in a generic office park is one of only five clinics in the country where women can access the rarest — and most controversial — abortion procedures.

Women come here desperate, says Dr. Warren Hern, who has run the Boulder Abortion Clinic since 1975.
“It ranges from the 12-year-old kid who’s pregnant from her stepfather to the 45-year-old woman who desperately wants to have a baby and finds out that she has a fatal illness that is incompatible with being pregnant,” he says.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/anguish-gratitude-fear-violence-colorado-clinic-late-abortions-rcna170451

10.09.2024

Commentary

Boulder Abortion Clinic

Dr. Warren Hern

fatal fetal abnormalities

later abortions

third-trimester abortion

America’s abortion debate is being defined by Fox News

America’s abortion debate is being defined by Fox News
A new study shows how the network dominates coverage of abortion — and sets the agenda other networks follow.

By Anna North
Sep 23, 2019

Something strange happened to the abortion debate earlier this year.

Politicians, media outlets, and ordinary people began talking about “post-birth” or “fourth-trimester” abortion, claiming that doctors in America are killing babies after they’re born. This would be murder, not abortion, and it’s already illegal in every state. No abortion-rights group supports this.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2019/9/23/20875531/fox-news-abortion-cnn-msnbc-virginia