Abortion Care

27 Jul

Emergency contraception could have a home on every campus in Illinois

MollyUnited States, , , , , , ,
"Public university students across the state could soon have expanded access to emergency contraception on campus, if a new bill passes through the General Assembly. State Rep. Barbara Hernandez, D-Aurora, is the chief sponsor of a bill mandating that all Illinois public universities have a vending machine that dispenses emergency contraception on campus, in a place that is accessible after hours and on the weekends. HB4247 aims to ease the stress of students who need emergency contraception when the student health center or pharmacies may not be accessible. Kelly Cleland, executive director of the American Society for Emergency Contraception, testified in support…
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25 Jul

Planned Parenthood seeks injunction for two sections of NC abortion law

MollyUnited States, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
"Planned Parenthood and a Duke Health doctor have renewed their request for a preliminary injunction against portions of North Carolina’s new abortion law. Documents filed Monday in U.S. District Court target two pieces of the law that otherwise took effect July 1. Meanwhile, the judge in the case rejected defendants’ request to delay the next hearing in the case. The new law permits abortions through 12 weeks of pregnancy, but blocks the procedure with exceptions afterward. U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles issued a June 30 order temporarily blocking one portion of the law, labeled the “IUP Documentation Requirement” in court paperwork. That…
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25 Jul

Baltimore opens grant applications to abortion care services

MollyUnited States, , , , , ,
"Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott announced Tuesday the city would direct a second round of grant funding to nonprofit organizations providing abortion and abortion care services.  This year, Baltimore-based organizations will be eligible for awards of up to $30,000 from the Abortion Protection Fund, facilitated by the city in partnership with the Baltimore Civic Fund. Applications for qualified nonprofits are open through August 18...."
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24 Jul

Abortion-Rights States Begin Shielding Digital Data Near Clinics

MollyUnited States, , , , , , , , ,
"States positioning themselves as abortion safe havens are beginning to shield location information that can be gleaned from mobile phones, and to protect the privacy of other data that can show who is visiting a health-care facility. Beginning this summer, Washington, Connecticut, and New York are establishing first-of-their-kind data privacy safeguards for health-related information, in part to prevent anti-abortion groups from targeting people who terminate their pregnancies. A similar Nevada law will take effect next March...."
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24 Jul

Ohio abortion clinics continue to help out-of-state patients as bans are put in place

MollyUnited States, , , , , , , , ,
"As groups await legal battles on abortion, as well as hope for a November ballot initiative to include reproduction rights in the Ohio Constitution, abortion clinics are also looking to help surrounding states where bans have taken hold. Indiana has been the most recent state surrounding Ohio to see an abortion ban approved — set to start on August 1 — and with it struggles for Planned Parenthoods in the state to care for patients, even those seeking other reproductive services. While Ohio awaits the state Supreme Court’s decision in a case regarding an indefinite pause to the six-week abortion ban in the state,…
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22 Jul

What it’s like for doctors in Wisconsin to follow an 1849 abortion law in 2023

MollyUnited States, , , , , ,
"The three women sitting around a table at a busy lunch spot share a grim camaraderie. It’s been more than a year since an 1849 law came back into force to criminalize abortion in Wisconsin. Now these two OB-GYNs and a certified midwife find their medical training, skill, and acumen constrained by state politics. “We didn’t even know germs caused disease back then,” said Dr. Kristin Lyerly, an obstetrician-gynecologist who lives in Green Bay...."
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21 Jul

Tearful Texas doctor recalls being forced to travel out of state for abortion

MollyUnited States, , , , , , , , , ,
"Emotional testimonies from women and doctors continued into the second day of court hearings on the confusion surrounding exceptions under Texas’s restrictive abortion ban. On Thursday, Austin Dennard, an OB-GYN doctor herself, delivered a tearful testimony as she recounted her experiences of being forced to travel out of state for an abortion due to a nonviable pregnancy. Eleven weeks into the pregnancy last year, Dennard, who is pregnant again, learned that her baby had anencephaly, a rare and fatal condition affecting the development of the brain and can also pose a serious health risk to the mother. Explaining the condition,…
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20 Jul

Blue-state doctors launch abortion pill pipeline into states with bans

MollyUnited States, , , , , , ,
"...Previously, Aid Access allowed only Europe-based doctors to prescribe abortion pills to women in states where abortion is restricted and then shipped those pills internationally, leaving patients to wait weeks. The telemedicine shield laws, enacted over the past year in New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Vermont and Colorado, explicitly protect abortion providers who mail pills to restricted states from inside their borders...."
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20 Jul

Woman suing Texas over abortion ban vomits on the stand in emotional reaction during dramatic hearing

MollyUnited States, , , , , , , ,
"A hearing in a lawsuit challenging Texas' abortion ban opened Wednesday with dramatic testimony from three women who experienced serious pregnancy complications but were denied abortions. One of the plaintiffs in the suit, Samantha Casiano, vomited on the stand while discussing her baby's fatal birth defect, which she said also put her life at risk...."
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19 Jul

Biden’s HIPAA expansion for abortion draws criticism, lawsuit threats

MollyUnited States, , , , ,
"The Biden administration’s effort to wield the nation’s premier health-privacy law to protect abortion rights is under fire from Republicans who accuse the president of overreaching — and from Democrats who call it too weak. The Department of Health and Human Services is preparing to release a final rule later this year that would expand the protections of the decades old Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, with the aim of shielding people who seek, obtain or provide abortions from red state probes — one of the most concrete steps the administration has taken to defend abortion rights since…
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19 Jul

Tennessee AG asserts right to out-of-state abortion, transgender care medical records

MollyUnited States, , , , , , , ,
"Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has joined Republican counterparts in 18 states in an effort to prevent the federal government from shielding the medical records of those who cross state lines to obtain legal abortion or gender-affirming care from investigations in their home state. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has proposed a new privacy rule for certain medical records in response to the Supreme Court’s overturning of abortion rights last year...."
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17 Jul

Maryland Is Becoming the Patron State of Abortions

MollyUnited States, , , , , , ,
"...Soon after her Charleston clinic was forced to cease providing abortions, Quiñonez-Alonzo spent a day looking at potential locations for a new clinic. Standing in a parking lot of one property in rural far-western Maryland, less than two miles from the West Virginia border, the realtor pointed in the distance. “She said, ‘You see those mountains over there? That’s West Virginia, actually,’ ” Quiñonez-Alonzo recalled. The visual proximity to the state held a symbolic resonance. “That sentence really cemented in my mind: This is the building,” Quiñonez-Alonzo said. “This has to be the building where Women’s Health Center of Maryland…
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16 Jul

An illegal abortion killed my great-great-grandmother. A century later, what’s changed?

MollyOpinion, United States, , , , , , ,
"In 1921, my great-great-grandmother Anna died because abortions were illegal.  She got pregnant — with her 11th child — when she was 40 years old, a full-time homemaker, married to a produce peddler in New York City.... I’m 16 years old, a junior in high school, looking to the not-so-distant future in which I’ll be attending college far from home. What if I were to get pregnant against my will? What if I were to get pregnant in my teens, without the means of raising a child? My story is different. I am frightened by what might happen to me...."
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16 Jul

‘It’s demoralizing’: Idaho abortion ban takes toll on medical providers

MollyUnited States, , , , ,
"...Now that federal protections for abortion have been gone for more than a year and Idaho is approaching the anniversary of its near-total abortion ban, the state has seen an exodus of OB-GYNs and other medical providers, leaving Seyb as one of the last remaining maternal-fetal medicine physicians in his state...."
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