Month: September 2023

Planned Parenthood resumes offering abortions in Wisconsin after more than a year

"Planned Parenthood resumed offering abortion services in Wisconsin on Monday after halting them for more than a year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Providers across the state stopped offering abortions following the June 2022 decision, fearing enforcement of an 1849 state law that appears to ban the procedure but had previously been nullified by the 1973 Roe ruling. A judge ruled last month that the 144-year-old law doesn't apply to medical abortions...."
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Study: New Mexico had highest increase in abortion since 2020

"Between January 2020 and June 2023, New Mexico saw a larger increase in abortion than any other state, according to a new report. The Guttmacher Institute, a policy organization based in Washington D.C. that researches reproductive health, released a new interactive data map which shows increases in abortion state by state. New Mexico saw 6,480 more abortions between January 2020 to June 2023. That amounts to a 220 percent increase...."
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Planned Parenthood sues to expand South Carolina abortion access under strict new ban

"...The conservative state's all-male Supreme Court last month upheld a so-called "fetal heartbeat" law commonly understood to restrict access after about six weeks of pregnancy, which is before most women know they're pregnant. However, the court's majority opinion noted that the medical definitions written by the Republican-dominated state Legislature gave unclear directions to doctors about when they can provide an abortion. In a footnote, Justice John Kittredge wrote that the court would "leave for another day" whether the language "refers to one period of time during a pregnancy or two separate periods of time." Attorneys for Planned Parenthood believe they…
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Poland’s ‘witch hunt’ of women and girls

"...Women and girls have been put under intense scrutiny for alleged abortion-related activity when they seek urgent health care. Joanna, a 32-year-old woman, told HRW that the police demanded to strip search her in April after she had a self-administered medication abortion, which is legal. Two weeks later, she called her psychiatrist for help with symptoms of severe anxiety. During the call, she disclosed her abortion to her psychiatrist, who called an ambulance and contacted the police. Police arrived at Joanna’s apartment alongside a paramedic and escorted her to two different hospitals. At the second one, she was ordered to…
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Abortion Bans Fuel a Rise in High-Risk Patients Heading to Illinois Hospitals

"When she was around 22 weeks pregnant, the patient found out that the son she was carrying didn’t have kidneys and his lungs wouldn’t develop. If he survived the birth, he would struggle to breathe and die within hours. The patient had a crushing decision to make: continue the pregnancy — which could be a risk to her health and her ability to have children in the future — or have an abortion. “I don’t think I stopped crying for an entire two weeks,” she said. “The whole world felt heavy. … It’s not something anybody should have to go…
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Women, doctors announce legal action against abortion bans in 3 states

"Women in Idaho, Oklahoma and Tennessee filed legal actions against their states over abortion bans, saying they were denied abortions despite having dangerous pregnancy complications. Four women in Idaho -- Jennifer Adkins, Jillaine St.Michel, Kayla Smith and Rebecca Vincen-Brown -- and abortion providers filed a suit against the state, Gov. Brad Little, attorney general and the state's board of medicine, claiming the state's ban has "sown confusion, fear and chaos among the medical community, resulting in grave harms to pregnant patients whose health and safety hang in the balance across the state," according to a copy of the lawsuit shared with…
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Challengers seek rewrite of Missouri abortion-rights ballot measures, calling them misleading

" Abortion-rights advocates asked a judge on Monday to rewrite what they call misleading descriptions of several constitutional amendments on abortion that voters could see on Missouri’s 2024 ballot. Missouri is among several states, including Ohio, where abortion opponents are fighting efforts to ensure or restore access to the procedure following the fall of Roe v. Wade last year..."
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Telehealth medication abortion services ease access to care for underserved US communities

"Telehealth medication abortion services help make abortion care access more convenient and accessible for underserved communities in the U.S., according to a cross-sectional study published in JAMA Network Open. “Due to limited in-clinic access throughout the country, telehealth medication abortion services, including online consultations and medications delivered directly to patients, can make abortion care more convenient and accessible,” Anna E. Fiastro, MPH, MEM, PhD, research scientist in the department of family medicine at the University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues wrote. “Other areas of health care have documented disparities in telehealth access, although less is known about telehealth medication abortion services.”..."
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Justice Department asks Supreme Court to end abortion pill legal challenge that threatens widespread access

"The Biden administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to maintain broad access to a commonly used medication abortion pill. The court filing from the Justice Department sets the stage for a possible final resolution to a contentious legal fight mounted by abortion rights opponents over federal approval of the drug mifepristone. The dispute lands at the Supreme Court in time for the justices to potentially take it up, hear oral arguments and issue a decision by next summer...."
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Extreme heat exposure during pregnancy can raise risk of severe delivery complications, new study finds

Pregnant people exposed to extreme heat are at higher risk of developing life-threatening complications during labor and delivery, according to new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Thursday. The research adds to a growing body of evidence showing the impact extreme heat has on a pregnancy, while also making a distinction between long-term exposure and events like heat waves.
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