The Trump Administration Is Giving Up Its Fight To Prevent Undocumented Teens From Getting Abortions

The administration issued a new policy explicitly preventing ORR staff from blocking minors in its care from obtaining abortions or disclosing their pregnancies.

Ema O'Connor and Zoe Tillman
September 29, 2020

After three years of arguing in court to block pregnant, undocumented teenagers in government custody from obtaining abortions, the Trump administration dropped the fight on Tuesday, announcing it had officially changed its policy.

The new policy makes clear that the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the branch of the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees undocumented minors and those seeking asylum in the US, must allow teenagers in its custody to obtain abortions.

Continued: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emaoconnor/trump-undocumented-teens-abortion-orr-lawsuit-immigration

’Let down’: calls for Gibraltar’s Covid-delayed abortion vote to take place

Pro-choice activists demand decriminalisation referendum happen despite conservative opposition

Darcy Jimenez
Tue 29 Sep 2020

Earlier this year, pro-choice activists in Gibraltar were hopeful that their territory’s abortion laws – the harshest in Europe – could soon be overturned.

Terminations are banned in the tiny British territory, even in the cases of rape, incest, or foetal abnormality where the foetus will not survive. Abortions are punishable by life imprisonment, except when the woman’s life is in danger.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/29/the-gibraltarians-demanding-covid-delayed-abortion-vote-takes-place

USA – How Politics And Bureaucracy Halted The Promise Of The Abortion Pill

Twenty years after medication abortion was approved in the U.S., patients are still jumping through hoops to access it.

By Melissa Jeltsen, HuffPost US
09/28/2020

Twenty years ago today, the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone, a drug used to terminate early pregnancies that held the promise of revolutionizing abortion care in the U.S.

Colloquially called the abortion pill, mifepristone is taken in combination with another drug, misoprostol, and allows patients under 10 weeks pregnant to have an abortion in the privacy of their home, instead of inside an abortion clinic. Reproductive rights activists lobbying for the drug envisioned a future where women could have the pills prescribed by their primary physician and dispensed at their local pharmacy, transforming abortion into just another part of normal health care.

Continued: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/abortion-pill-mifepristone_n_5f720134c5b64e0666608a12?ri18n=true

Argentina president under pressure to keep election promise on abortion

Over 1,000 public figures call for Alberto Fernández to stay true to his election pledge despite distraction of coronavirus pandemic

Uki Goñi in Buenos Aires
Mon 28 Sep 2020

Pro-choice campaigners are renewing pressure on president Alberto Fernández to make good on his electoral pledge to legalise abortion in Argentina.

More than 1,000 public figures, writers, journalists and artists added their names to an advert published in three Argentinian newspapers on Sunday, calling for the government to keep its commitment.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/sep/28/argentina-president-under-pressure-to-keep-election-promise-on-abortion

28.09.2020

Trump walks abortion tightrope on SCOTUS pick

He needs to both nod to anti-abortion groups, while not turning off the moderate religious voters and Republicans who support legal abortion.

By MERIDITH MCGRAW and NANCY COOK
09/25/2020

In 2016, President Donald Trump vowed to appoint Supreme Court justices who would “automatically” overturn Roe v. Wade. Now, the White House is insisting there is no such abortion litmus test for Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s replacement. The change in tone reflects the tightrope Trump is currently walking on abortion with conservatives — and especially religious conservatives — ahead of the November election. Trump needs to both nod to concerns of powerful religious groups that have spent years trying to overturn Roe, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that cemented legal abortion, while not turning off the sizable faction of more moderate religious voters and Republicans who support legal abortion.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/25/trump-supreme-court-abortion-421443

Trump promises ‘born alive’ executive order in appeal to anti-abortion voters

By Associated Press
September 23, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump promised Wednesday to sign an executive order that would require health care providers to provide medical care to all babies born alive as he makes an election-year push to appeal to voters who oppose abortion.

The White House did not release further details about the order, but Trump’s announcement follows numerous attempts by GOP lawmakers in Washington and in state capitals around the country to pass legislation that threatens prison for doctors who don’t try to save the life of infants born alive during abortions.

Continued: https://www.nbc12.com/2020/09/23/trump-promises-born-alive-executive-order-appeal-anti-abortion-voters/

23.09.2020

National Catholic Prayer Breakfast

Planned Parenthood Action Fund

The Trump administration’s war on abortion rights is worse than you think

BY MICHELLE ONELLO, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
09/22/20

The Trump administration has been executing a coordinated attack on what it sees as a critical public health issue. Unfortunately, the offensive is not targeting the COVID-19 pandemic, which has infected over six million people and claimed almost 200,000 lives in the US. Instead, the campaign has its sights set on women’s sexual health and reproductive rights, especially abortion. With the recent death of Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg threatening the fate of Roe v. Wade, the security of abortion rights has never been more precarious.

The administration’s brazen anti-abortion agenda includes not only well-publicized executive actions such as the expansions of the global and domestic gag rules, “conscience” exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, and the packing of courts with anti-abortion judges.

Continued: https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/517664-the-trump-administration-war-on-abortion-rights-is-worse-than-you-think

Brazil: Revoke Regulation Curtailing Abortion Access

Reporting Rape Survivors to Police Can Endanger Their Health

September 21, 2020

Human Rights Watch

Brazilian authorities should revoke a Health Ministry regulation that erects
new barriers to legal abortion access, Human Rights Watch said today.

Among other measures in the August 27, 2020 regulation that could discourage
women and girls from accessing legal abortion, it requires medical personnel to
report to the police anyone who seeks legal termination of a pregnancy after
rape, regardless of the rape survivor’s wishes. The Ministry of Family, Women,
and Human Rights has also announced it will create a hotline for medical
personnel that could be used to report women and girls whom they suspect had an
illegal abortion.

Continued: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/21/brazil-revoke-regulation-curtailing-abortion-access

Abortion Was Back-Burnered in the Presidential Race. Not Anymore.

The battle over the Supreme Court brings back a volatile issue with political risks for both sides, even as it energizes parts of their bases.

By Lisa Lerer and Elizabeth Dias
Sept. 20, 2020

For Joshua Hon, the prospect of another open seat on the Supreme Court was the moment he’s been waiting for since voting for President Trump four years ago.

“I would not say that I love Trump, but I do believe that abortion is killing babies,” said Mr. Hon, 35, who lives in Durham County in North Carolina.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/us/abortion-supreme-court-trump-biden.html