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Fearing legal threats, doctors are performing C-sections in lieu of abortions
Some physicians are doing unnecessary and invasive surgery on pregnant patients “to preserve the appearance of not doing an abortion.”
SOURCE: The Nation, by Mary Tuma, 17 April 2024
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As abortion bans loom, Black families are left vulnerable
Florida’s abortion ban takes effect on 1 May.
SOURCE: 19th News, by Margo Snipe, 18 April 2024
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The fate of Arizona’s abortion access is in the throes of legal, political and legislative battles
Arizona’s Supreme Court paved the way to reinforce the Civil War-era law that criminalises nearly all abortions. The day before, the Arizona Senate took tentative steps toward a repeal of the state’s 1864 abortion ban, just hours after House Republicans blocked efforts to do so. Then, Arizona Senate Democrats, with the support of two Republican Senators, were able to introduce a bill to repeal the 1864 law.
SOURCE: Cronkite News, by Reagan Priest, Martin Dreyfuss, 17 April 2024
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Some pharmacists fear jail time over murky abortion laws
In states with abortion bans, there’s little guidance for dispensing the FDA-approved drug misoprostol, which is often prescribed for miscarriage. For example, alarm bells ring in pharmacist Matt Murray’s head when a prescription for misoprostol comes through his independent pharmacy in Boise, Idaho. “Are there directions on the prescription that show what it’s being used for?” he asks. “If not, then we would probably need to call the [doctor’s] office and confirm why it’s being prescribed.”
SOURCE: NBC News, by Erika Edwards, Marina Kopf, 18 April 2024
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The anti-abortion movement is showing its true colors
The facade of the anti-abortion movement is cracking, despite strenuous attempts to appear reasonable. Evidence has been coming fast and furious this year, thanks to courts stacked with anti-abortion judges whose radical decisions are upending years of legal precedent, and often failing to represent popular opinion.
In February this year, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos have the same legal rights as children. In March, the US Supreme Court heard a baseless case that could dramatically curtail access to medication abortion, which data from the Guttmacher Institute show accounted for 63% of all abortions in 2023. Earlier this month, a Florida court let stand a six-week abortion ban that will devastate access in that state.
SOURCE: The Hill, by Destiny Lopez & Kelly Baden, 18 April 2024
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Killing confidentiality: the Republican Party wants women’s abortions to be public record
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita says that abortion reports aren’t medical records, and that they should be available to the public in the same way that death certificates are. New Hampshire lawmakers are fighting over a Republican bill to collect and publish abortion data, and US Senator Tommy Tuberville has introduced a bill that would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to collect and provide data on the abortions performed at its facilities too. Just last week, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed legislation that would have required abortion providers to ask patients invasive and detailed questions about why they were getting abortions and report their answers to the state.
SOURCE: Abortion Every Day, by Jessica Valenti, 18 April 2024
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Colorado: Advocates for legal abortion take critical step to put constitutional amendment on the ballot
Backers of an initiative that would put the right to abortion access into the state constitution submitted signatures to the Secretary of State’s Office on Thursday, the final step in the process to qualify for the November ballot. After the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, some states moved to outlaw or restrict abortion access, while Colorado has gone in the opposite direction to protect access in state law.
SOURCE: CPR, by Bente Birkeland, 18 April 2024