Abortion Ban

Annual Ohio abortion report shows double-digit decrease

"With the end of Roe v. Wade and the battle over abortion bans still waging in the state, the Ohio Department of Health’s annual abortion report showed some of the effects. From 2021 to 2022, the state saw a 15% decrease in “induced pregnancy terminations,” according to the state agency that has tracked abortion statistics since 1976. The data comes as campaigns are in full swing for and against a ballot initiative that would add reproductive rights including abortion into the Ohio Constitution. Voters will decide on the issue during the Nov. 7 general election, after the Ohio Supreme Court…
Read More

New OB-GYNs are avoiding abortion-restrictive states like Utah

"After completing her residency in New York City, OB-GYN Alex Woodcock came home to Utah in the summer of 2022 to start a complex family planning fellowship at the state’s flagship university. Just as she arrived, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the longstanding precedent that held that abortion access was constitutionally protected. She immediately wondered: “How is this going to impact other people that are applying for fellowships, or even applying for jobs, from the class below me, and where are they going to go? Are people going to want to come to states that are restricted?”…
Read More

Idaho can enforce abortion ban in medical emergencies, court rules

"Idaho can fully enforce its near-total abortion ban after a U.S. appeals court lifted a lower court order that had partially blocked it. A unanimous panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the state ban on abortion, which includes a narrow exception for abortions that are necessary to prevent the mother's death, does not conflict with a federal law on emergency care...."
Read More

With no opposition in the room, a rural Texas county makes traveling for an abortion on its roads illegal

"Commissioners in this rural Texas county that borders New Mexico on Thursday gave their unanimous blessing to a legally dubious policy that effectively outlaws travel on its local roads to seek an abortion. The five-member panel in Cochran County, which sits about an hour west of Lubbock, agreed with Mark Lee Dickson, founder of the “sanctuary cities” initiative, who said the ordinance was needed to finish the work started in the state’s near-total ban, often referred to as Senate Bill 8...."
Read More

Missouri judge rejects secretary of state’s ‘problematic’ summary of abortion initiative petitions

"A Cole County judge rewrote the ballot titles for six initiative petitions seeking to enshrine the right to abortion in the Missouri Constitution, ruling that 13 phrases in the summaries written by Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft are “argumentative” or unfairly biased. In a ruling issued Monday morning, Circuit Judge Jon Beetem wrote that the summaries crafted by Ashcroft completely ignored the initiative proposals’ protections for contraceptives and other reproductive health needs...."
Read More

A Nebraska mother who provided an illegal abortion for her daughter and helped dispose of the fetus gets 2 years in prison, report says

"A Nebraska mother who was accused of helping her 17-year-old daughter have an illegal abortion and disposing of the fetus was sentenced to two years in prison on Friday, the Norfolk Daily News reported. The sentence comes after Jessica Burgess, 42, pleaded guilty in July to two felonies – removing, concealing or abandoning a dead human body, and performing an abortion beyond 20 weeks – and a misdemeanor charge of false reporting. CNN has reached out to Burgess’s attorney, the Madison County attorney and the Madison County District Court for comment...."
Read More

Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban takes center stage in gubernatorial election

"Abortion access has rarely been a focal point for Democrats in Kentucky, but that's all changing in the run up to this November's gubernatorial election. In the past few weeks, incumbent Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, has turned the issue into a centerpiece of his campaign against his opponent, Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who has vocally supported Kentucky's near-total ban on abortion. As written, that law currently includes exceptions only for risk of death or debilitating injury to the pregnant person. It has no exceptions for cases of rape and incest– something Beshear has seized on, prompting Cameron to…
Read More

Ohio Supreme Court rules ‘unborn child’ wording can remain in abortion ballot language

"The Ohio Supreme Court handed a partial victory to the state's GOP-controlled ballot board on Tuesday, ruling that the term "unborn child" can remain in the ballot language for a November vote on whether to enshrine abortion protections in the state's constitution. The ruling comes after Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights and five petitioners sued the board over ballot wording that omitted the term "fetus," which is used in the full text of the proposed constitutional amendment. The state Supreme Court rejected the petitioners' argument that the ballot's language "introduces an ethical judgment," saying that it "does not establish that the ballot board’s language constitutes improper persuasion."…
Read More

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…
Read More
No widgets found. Go to Widget page and add the widget in Offcanvas Sidebar Widget Area.