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Women with serious pregnancy complications sue over state abortion bans
Women and physicians in Idaho and Tennessee have sued their home states after they say they were denied abortion care despite being diagnosed with serious, life-threatening medical conditions while pregnant. The lawsuits are led by the Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., which also helped a patient in Oklahoma file […]
Anti-abortion ‘abolitionists’ take slavery rhetoric to the next level
The first time Tina Marshall heard anti-abortion protesters call themselves “abolitionists,’” she said she burst out laughing. Marshall, a Black woman who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, was counter protesting at an abortion clinic when a mostly white group — save one Black woman — surrounded her and told her they were abolitionists. “I rolled […]
Male anti-abortion religious leaders mull murder charges for pregnant people at national event
An all-male panel of anti-abortion religious leaders from around the country met Friday night to discuss the strategies that should be used to end abortion in every state at any stage of pregnancy, without exceptions for rape and incest, and with criminal punishment for the pregnant person in line with existing criminal penalties for murder, […]
Operation Save America anti-abortion event offers mixed messages of calls to violence
Protesters filled several blocks of sidewalk outside A Preferred Women’s Health Center of Atlanta on Friday morning, the fourth day of protests there this week. Many wore T-shirts and held signs to declare which side they were on, and several congregated near the parking lot entrance to speak into microphones and tell any abortion clinic […]
National abortion ban eyed as group marks ‘Siege of Atlanta’ protests 35 years ago
Members of a national anti-abortion religious organization called Operation Save America are in Atlanta this week to protest at a local abortion clinic and to discuss new strategies for achieving a national prohibition on abortion at any stage of pregnancy. Operation Save America began as Operation Rescue in 1986 and became more well known in […]
FDA approves first over-the-counter oral contraceptive
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday it has approved the country’s first daily birth control pill that can be used without a prescription, a move that reproductive health advocates celebrated after more than 20 years of advocating for an over-the-counter option. The contraceptive, called Opill, is a progestin-only oral pill that could soon […]
Study shows sharp increases in maternal deaths over two decades
A study from the University of Washington released Monday shows maternal mortality rates more than doubled in some states between 1999 and 2019, with sharp increases for some racial and ethnic groups. Researchers touted it as the first study to provide such maternal mortality calculations for every state. Previous reports have not included rates for […]
Appeals court judges embrace anti-abortion speculation
America’s major medical institutions and drug policy scholars have roundly denounced as “pseudoscience” many of the claims brought by anti-abortion groups in a high-profile federal lawsuit asking the Food and Drug Administration to revoke its 23-year-old approval of mifepristone, one half of a two-drug regimen that has become the most common form of pregnancy termination […]
Post-Roe abortion bans force pregnant people with life-threatening complications to travel
Jennifer Adkins’ first pregnancy was near-perfect. She sailed through her appointments and screenings with no complications, ticking every box and making lists of all the right questions to ask her medical professionals. By the time her unmedicated labor was over and the nurses placed her newborn son on her chest, Adkins felt like a superhero. […]
Some could use support after abortion. But quality care can be hard to find.
Alex D. turned 23 on the day the U.S. Supreme Court released the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. She was visiting the Omaha Zoo in Nebraska on vacation, riding the chairlift over the rhino exhibit when she saw the news alert on her phone. She was also eight weeks pregnant and needed an abortion. […]
Ending a pregnancy in 14 states leaves few options. Some are looking to Europe and India for help.
States with abortion bans struggle to stop mailed abortion pills from overseas The pills came in a dark salmon-colored envelope sealed with a plastic covering that traveled more than 7,000 miles, over a dozen time zones from Nagpur, India, in almost exactly one week. They were placed partially under the doormat of a home in […]
Wyoming legislature passes bills to ban medication abortion and exempt abortion as health care
New law seeks to create path around state’s constitutional health care provision adopted in 2012 Wyoming legislators approved two bills related to abortion this week, including a ban on medication abortion and a bill stating abortion is not health care, as a means of skirting the Wyoming Constitution in a court challenge to its abortion […]