USA – The New Pro-Abortion Generation

As Roe v. Wade faces its greatest challenge yet, young people are taking the reins to protect abortion access.

BY AMELIA POLLARD
AUGUST 5, 2021

Every day at the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, resembles trench warfare. Painted like a shade of bubble gum, the center has affectionately earned the nickname the “Pink House.” But its modern windows and copper roof are shielded from the street. Black plastic tarps and panels guard patients’ privacy by keeping the protesters out of eyesight.

Around a dozen anti-abortion protesters often show up with bullhorns and picket signs, while volunteers for the Pinkhouse Defenders, a nonprofit organization, thwart hecklers by blasting music and escorting patients from their cars to the clinic’s waiting room. In the last several months, volunteers have embraced TikTok as their weapon of choice, filming protesters and posting the videos on social media.

Continued: https://prospect.org/justice/the-new-pro-abortion-generation/

‘Two Americas’: Aid groups prepare for more women needing to cross state lines for abortions

Organizations are strategizing for the possibility of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and a future where even more women seek financial and logistical help.

June 26, 2021 By Adam Edelman

Last summer, Crystal Zaragoza drove a 15-year-old patient from her home in rural Georgia to Virginia, the nearest location where the teen could receive the abortion care she needed.

Zaragoza remained with the patient every step of the way, making the 650-mile trip in one, long 12-hour haul and staying with her at a hotel during and after the procedure before driving back.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/two-americas-aid-groups-prepare-more-women-needing-cross-state-n1272133

Abortion doulas help people navigate the process. They say their work was more crucial than ever in the pandemic.

They say their job shifted to help abortion-seekers navigate ever-changing laws

Tracey Onyenacho
May 27, 2021

In April 2020, a month into covid-19 stay-at-home orders, Hannah Taleb, an abortion doula with Tucson Abortion Support Collective (TASC), was driving a client to an abortion clinic in Phoenix in the early hours of the morning. According to TASC, there are only two abortion clinics in Tucson, and only one of the clinics is able to do surgical procedures, leaving appointment slots to fill up quickly.

On the two-hour drive to the abortion clinic, the two women wore masks with the windows rolled down. Her client cried as the heaviness of the moment dawned on her, Taleb said, so she pulled over to the side of the road and comforted the client, offering to talk.

Continued: https://www.thelily.com/abortion-doulas-help-people-navigate-the-process-they-say-their-work-was-more-crucial-than-ever-in-the-pandemic/

What It’s Like Being a Black Leader in the Abortion Movement

After announcing Friday she will be stepping down as head of the National Network of Abortion Funds in 2022, Yamani Hernandez reflects on her legacy.

Mar 8, 2021
Galina Espinoza

Yamani Hernandez will be departing as executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, which is made up of 80 independent organizations that work to remove barriers to abortion care.

In 2015, Yamani Hernandez earned trailblazer status when she became the first Black executive to head the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF), a collection of more than 80 independent organizations that work to remove barriers to abortion care. At the time she assumed the role, NNAF had a budget of $2.3 million and a staff of 12; under Hernandez’s leadership, the organization has grown fivefold, driving greater awareness of the vital work done by abortion funds.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2021/03/08/what-its-like-being-a-black-leader-in-the-abortion-movement/

08.03.2021

abortion funds

National Network of Abortion Funds

NNAF

Yamani Hernandez

The nefarious network of state bills trying to kill ‘Roe’ once and for all

By Ray Levy Uyeda
Feb. 22, 2021

Last year, as Maggie, a 30-something Brooklynite, navigated the coronavirus pandemic, she learned that she would have to navigate another, more personal challenge at the same time: getting an abortion. For Maggie (who declined to provide her last name for privacy reasons), finding a compassionate abortion fund to help walk her through her options wasn't difficult, and she could easily pay the out-of-pocket cost for the abortion pill. Her partner of 11 years was supportive of her decision. In the end, accessing her abortion was so easy that it actually reminded her of all the ways politicians attempt to restrict abortion access — and how many other people who might need abortion care live in states where things aren't as smooth as they are in New York.

Continued: https://www.mic.com/p/the-nefarious-network-of-state-bills-trying-to-kill-roe-once-for-all-62348743

June Medical and the Future of U.S. Abortion Rights

(1 hour podcast)
7/28/2020

With Guests:

-    Yamani Hernandez, executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds.
-    Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
-    Kathaleen Pittman, administrator of Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, La., the main plaintiff in June Medical v. Russo.
-    Mary Ziegler, Stearns Weaver Miller professor at Florida State University College of Law specializing in the legal history of reproduction, the family, sexuality and the Constitution.

In this Episode:

In June Medical v. Russo, the Supreme Court struck down a challenge to abortion rights in Louisiana, a state in which reproductive health care access is already fraught. The law would have required all doctors performing abortions to obtain hospital admitting privileges. Even though this case has put such challenges to rest, lawmakers in Louisiana have effectively undercut women’s access to reproductive healthcare, causing clinic closures and more. As our guests make clear, Roe is not enough.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/podcast/june-medical-and-the-future-of-u-s-abortion-rights/

USA – Abortion funds see an increase in calls during the coronavirus pandemic

Abortion funds see an increase in calls during the coronavirus pandemic
The increase in need comes as unemployment reaches new highs.

By Alexandra Svokos
15 May 2020

As the novel coronavirus continues to impact most aspects of American life, including health care, abortion funds across the country are reporting that calls for assistance have increased.

Abortion funds provide money and other forms of assistance to patients seeking abortions, including to help cover the cost of the procedure itself as well as associated costs like transportation, child care and hotel stays as getting an abortion for many U.S. patients involves traveling long distances to clinics and multi-day processes due to state laws.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/abortion-funds-increase-calls-coronavirus-pandemic/story?id=70703745

USA – The Abortion Doctor and His Accuser

The Abortion Doctor and His Accuser
What does it mean to take women’s claims of sexual assault seriously?

By Katha Pollitt
March 2, 2029

Until March 25, 2019, Dr. Willie Parker was a highly respected and much-loved abortion provider in Alabama, the celebrated author of a best-selling book, Life’s Work, in which he defended abortion from a Christian perspective, and a frequent, charismatic speaker and honoree at pro-choice conferences and events. An imposing middle-aged black man who grew up poor in Alabama, he was the movement’s rock star. That all changed overnight, when Candice Russell, a 35-year-old Latina volunteer in Dallas, posted an article on Medium, “To All the Women Whose Names I Don’t Know, About the Pain We Share, the Secrets We Keep, and the Silence That Shouldn’t Have Been Asked For.”

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/willie-parker-abortion-me-too/

USA – The #MeToo Case That Divided the Abortion-Rights Movement

The #MeToo Case That Divided the Abortion-Rights Movement
When an activist accused one of the most respected physicians in the movement of sexually assaulting her, everyone quickly took sides.

Story by Maggie Bullock
March 2020 Issue, Atlantic Magazine
(Posted Feb 21, 2020)

On a 92-degree morning in September, three clinic escorts gathered in the meager shade of a tree outside the Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives. They arrive here at 8:30 a.m. on the dot, regular as clock-punchers, on the three days a week the Huntsville clinic is open to perform abortions. The women and girls arrive dressed for comfort in sweatpants and shower slides, carrying pillows from home or holding the hand of a partner or friend. The escorts, meanwhile, wear brightly colored vests and wield giant umbrellas to block the incoming patients from the sight, if not the sound, of the other group that comes here like clockwork: the protesters.

Sometimes there are as many as a dozen. This day there were four: one woman, three men, all white. Four doesn’t sound like that many until you’re downwind of them maniacally hollering: Mommy, don’t kill me! You’re lynching your black baby! They rip their arms and legs off! They suffer! They torture them!

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-abortion-doctor-and-his-accuser/605578/

21.02.2020

Abortion Access Front

Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives

Amanda Reyes

Candice Russell

Cherisse Scott

Christine Blasey Ford

Laurie Bertram Roberts

Leana Wen

Life’s Work: A Moral Argument for Choice

Loretta Ross

Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund

Naral Pro-Choice America

NARAL Pro-choice Texas

National Network of Abortion Funds

National Women’s Law Center

Physicians for Reproductive Health

Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

Robin Marty

Roe v. Wade

sexual assault allegations

USA – Abortion After the Clinic

Abortion After the Clinic
As Republican lawmakers try to legislate it out of existence, the future of reproductive healthcare may be at home.

By Irin Carmon
Nov 11, 2019

When Leana Wen introduced herself to America as the new president of Planned Parenthood last fall, she had a story she liked to tell — one that showed exactly why abortion access mattered. It was a sad tale of “a young woman lying on a stretcher, pulseless and unresponsive, because of a home abortion.” Wen, an emergency physician who had been plucked from Baltimore’s Health Department to take over the century-old institution, said the young woman had arrived at her ER in “a pool of blood” because “she didn’t have access to health care, so she had her cousin attempt an abortion on her at home. We did everything we could to resuscitate her, but she died.”

Wen was talking about a time when abortion was technically legal, yet the story rhymed with the pre-Roe era, when doctors and lawyers spoke of being radicalized by women filling their wards with blood and desperation, the same nightmare the familiar pro-choice rhetoric warns will soon be upon us. Behind the scenes, however, a vanguard of the abortion-rights movement implored Wen, directly and through intermediaries, to stop talking about “home abortion” in such dire terms.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2019/11/future-abortion-access-america.html

11.11.2019