Abortion Rights

Biden declares Equal Rights Amendment adopted, sparking a debate about his abortion legacy

“President Joe Biden’s Friday announcement declaring the Equal Rights Amendment part of the U.S. Constitution is reviving long-simmering tensions in the abortion-rights movement about the outgoing president’s legacy on reproductive rights. The last-minute move, three days before the end of Biden’s term, has sparked arguments between Biden’s defenders and his detractors over its significance, since even the White House acknowledged the announcement does not have the force of law. And the president’s declaration is also fueling a broader debate about whether Biden did enough to prepare for and respond to the fall of Roe v. Wade….”
Read More

Defining fetal viability among GOP priorities after Missourians overturn abortion ban

"The day he was sworn in as speaker of the Missouri House, Jon Patterson declared that defining fetal viability could be a difficult task. A surgeon serving his fourth term in the legislature, Patterson said despite the vagueness of the medical phrase, the decision by voters to overturn Missouri's abortion ban means lawmakers have no choice but to try. "What I'll tell you is, if you took 10 doctors and lined them up and said 'what's the definition of fetal viability,' you'd get 10 different answers," Patterson said at a press conference last week. "Our citizens deserve to know what…
Read More

Live Far From a Clinic? Telehealth Abortion Services Are on the Rise

Women who live far from an abortion clinic depend on telehealth and mail to obtain access to medication abortion, a new study says. Each 100-mile increase in distance from an abortion provider increased telehealth requests for abortion pills by about 61%, researchers reported in a new study published Jan. 8 in the American Journal of Public Health.
Read More

Voters Backed Abortion Rights But State Judges Have Final Say

In November, Montana voters safeguarded the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. They also elected a new chief justice to the Montana Supreme Court who was endorsed by anti-abortion advocates. That seeming contradiction is slated to come to a head this year. People on polar sides of the abortion debate are preparing to fight over how far the protection for abortion extends, and the final say will likely come from the seven-person state Supreme Court. With the arrival of new Chief Justice Cory Swanson, who ran as a judicial conservative for the nonpartisan seat and was sworn in Jan. 6,…
Read More

Thousands of people are leaving abortion-ban states, study shows

"States with strict abortion bans are losing residents, particularly younger people, which could have long-term economic implications. In the wake of the Supreme Court's 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a recent analysis published by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that the 13 states with total abortion bans collectively lost roughly 36,000 residents per quarter. That is the net difference between people leaving versus those moving into these states, a news release from CBS News shows...."
Read More

Proposal would outlaw use of abortion pills and tighten rape exception

"A new bill would further clamp down on abortions in Indiana by banning procedures using pills and requiring women to file an affidavit of rape to meet one of the state’s few exceptions. Its future is uncertain since it was filed by a Senate Republican — Indianapolis Sen. Mike Young — who has clashed with caucus leadership over Indiana’s abortion ban. The ICC reached out for comment but received no response. “This is a government intrusion into medicine and healthcare with no other purpose but to put extreme ideology into law and take medical options away from patients,” said Indianapolis OB-GYN…
Read More

House speaker fight, battles over abortion rights and taxes loom as Missouri lawmakers return

"Republican factional fights are nothing new in the Missouri General Assembly.  But what is new this year is the venue — the House of Representatives, where a sophomore lawmaker accusing his colleagues of corrupt politics seeks to upset the usually routine election of a speaker. State Rep. Justin Sparks of Wildwood admits history is against him in his attempt to prevent state Rep. Jon Patterson of Lee’s Summit from becoming speaker. Patterson, who was majority leader in the previous General Assembly, was designated as the GOP candidate for speaker months ago....
Read More

Report details struggles of independent abortion clinics nationwide after Roe

"LaDonna Prince’s new reproductive care clinic in Illinois was supposed to be open more than a year ago. Prince and her staff were prepared for Indiana to ban abortion, and started trying to move operations to Danville, Illinois, in 2023. It’s about 90 minutes across the border from her old clinic in Indianapolis, which provided abortion care for more than 40 years before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and allowed states to regulate abortion access. Today, 12 states — including Indiana — have a near-total ban on abortion, and four states have a six-week ban,…
Read More

Louisiana miscarriage patient who had to cross state lines for a D&C wants answers  

Tabitha Crowe said she woke up around 4 a.m. one Thursday in August covered in blood. She was visiting her parents in southern Louisiana when she started miscarrying her first pregnancy. She said her mom and dad drove her to a nearby hospital while she fought dizziness from the blood loss in their back seat.
Read More

Conservatives decry ‘procedural nonsense’ as NDP forces House debate on abortion

“A surprise tactical move by the NDP forced a debate in the House of Commons on abortion access Thursday, sidelining a Conservative motion designed to use NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh's own words against him. Just ahead of the time set for the Conservative motion to come up, NDP MP Heather McPherson changed the channel by launching into a debate on a foreign affairs committee report tabled in the House Thursday…”
Read More

Missouri Voters Enshrined Abortion Rights. GOP Lawmakers Are Already Working to Roll Them Back.

“One month after Missouri voters approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to abortion, Republican lawmakers in the deeply red state are already working to overturn it — or at least undermine it. One measure would ask voters to amend the state constitution to define life as beginning at conception, declaring that embryos are people with rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness….”
Read More
No widgets found. Go to Widget page and add the widget in Offcanvas Sidebar Widget Area.