Inside the $100 million plan to restore abortion rights in America

Leaders of the coalition say they want to make the procedure more accessible and affordable than ever before.

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
06/24/2024

A new coalition of abortion-rights groups is marking the second anniversary of the fall of Roe v. Wade with a pledge to spend $100 million to restore federal protections for the procedure and make it more accessible than ever before.

In plans shared first with POLITICO, groups including Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and Reproductive Freedom for All are banding together to form Abortion Access Now — a national, 10-year campaign that will both prepare policies for the next time Democrats control the House, Senate and White House, and build support for those policies among lawmakers and the public. At a private event Monday evening in Washington, they will pitch a group of influential progressives on going on offense at a time when abortion is outlawed in a third of the country.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/24/abortion-rights-advocates-launch-100-million-campaign-00164528

This Alabama Health Clinic Is Under Threat. It Doesn’t Provide Abortions.

Former abortion clinics in red states are trying to pivot to other services after Dobbs. But they’re finding it’s not so easy.

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
05/29/2023

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Patients arriving for an appointment at the West Alabama Women’s Center one year ago would brave a gauntlet of chanting protesters, skirt an idling police car, take seats in a crowded waiting room and wait for one of the clinic’s dozen busy staff members to help them terminate a pregnancy. Over the clinic’s nearly 30-year history, visits also included the risk of being shot, bombed or rammed by a vehicle.

But when Abigail arrived on a Tuesday morning in April, nearly 11 months after the fall of Roe v. Wade, the parking lot was so quiet you could hear the clinic’s windchime tinkling faintly in the hot breeze.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/05/29/alabama-abortion-clinic-problem-00096020

Ohio Lawmakers Have Introduced An Abortion Ban That Goes Even Further Than The Texas Law

“It is changing a constitutional definition of when a person is recognized in the law to a fertilized egg starting at conception,” one reproductive rights advocate said.

Nicole Fallert, BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on November 18, 2021

A group of Ohio lawmakers want to pass an abortion law that would be even more restrictive than the six-week ban in Texas, a move reproductive rights advocates say has already had a chilling effect among those in the state’s right-to-choose community.

Ohio House Bill 480 would make abortion at any stage of pregnancy illegal. It also includes some of the same elements as the six-week abortion ban, known as SB 8, that went into effect in Texas on Sept. 1 — namely, that it would allow virtually anyone to file lawsuits against any person who “knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion” for up to $10,000.

Continued: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolefallert/ohio-texas-abortion-bill

USA – The Capitol Insurrection Was Fed by the Anti-Abortion Movement

BY Tina Vásquez, Prism
February 2, 2021

Reproductive justice advocate Jordyn Close watched with the rest of the nation on Jan. 6 as Donald Trump supporters invaded the Capitol. Some were outfitted in tactical gear and had zip ties at the ready. Others brought nooses and pitchforks and Confederate flags. The insurrectionists broke windows, ransacked lawmakers’ offices, and spread feces on the Capitol walls. By the end of it all, five people died.

The escalation from rhetoric to violence at the Capitol has shocked many Americans. Close, who works with Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity (URGE), is an abortion storyteller with We Testify, and who serves on the board of the abortion fund Women Have Options Ohio, is less surprised. Very early into the news coverage of the insurrection, Close saw a number of familiar faces. Overwhelmingly, these were white men who — when not trying to overthrow the government — spend a great deal of their time harassing people outside of abortion clinics.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/the-capitol-insurrection-was-fed-by-the-anti-abortion-movement/

02.02.2021