Healthcare

Biden’s top priority for a second term: Abortion rights

“The president has been adamant that we need to restore Roe. It is unfathomable that women today wake up in a country with less rights than their ancestors had years ago,” Fulks said. Biden has been poised to run on what has been described as the strongest abortion rights platform of any general election candidate as he and his allies look to notch a victory in the first presidential election since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
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Court Says Texas Can Ban Certain Emergency Abortions. What That Means

"Texas hospitals cannot be required to perform emergency abortions to stabilize the life of a patient, a federal appeals court ruled, despite federal guidance to the contrary.  The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists and Christian Medical and Dental Associations. The judges wrote in their opinion that the Biden Administration's guidance—which says hospitals receiving Medicare must provide abortions if they were a necessary medically stabilizing treatment—oversteps its authority and runs counter to state laws...."
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Thousands of women stocked up on abortion pills, especially following news of restrictions

"Thousands of women stocked up on abortion pills just in case they needed them, new research shows, with demand peaking in the past couple years at times when it looked like the medications might become harder to get. Medication abortion accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., and typically involves two drugs: mifepristone and misoprostol. A research letter published Tuesday in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at requests for these pills from people who weren't pregnant and sought them through Aid Access, a European online telemedicine service that prescribes them for future and immediate use...."
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‘Jane Roe’ is anonymous no more. The very public fight against abortion bans in 2023

As 2023 comes to a close, so too does the first full year of the post-Roe era in America. Some of the year's developments were expected, like more conservative states enacting abortion restrictions. Others were surprising, like the fact that there were more abortions nationally in the year after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health decision than the previous one.
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How abortion rights fared in 2023 is a mixed bag

The absence of a constitutional guarantee to the right to an abortion has led to a deeply inconsistent landscape of reproductive policy across the map. This year, voters in many states resoundingly elected officials who stood for abortion rights over those who vowed to enact restrictions. Yet, state lawmakers elsewhere implemented draconian abortion bans that would have been unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade, and we saw officials go to great lengths to prosecute, intimidate and shame individuals under those laws.
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Florida’s abortion rate increases despite 15-week ban

"A 15-week ban on abortion in Florida hasn't decreased the number of procedures done in the state as women from surrounding states with more restrictive bans head here for their procedures.  “We are seeing a lot of in-state and out-of-state individuals who are having to travel farther to receive care,” said Miranda Colavito, with Planned Parenthood communications. Colavito has been doing advocacy work for women’s rights for five years...."
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A woman who had a miscarriage is now charged with abusing a corpse as stricter abortion laws play out nationwide

"An Ohio woman who had sought treatment at a hospital before suffering a miscarriage and passing her nonviable fetus in her bathroom now faces a criminal charge, her attorney told CNN. Brittany Watts, 33, of Warren, has been charged with felony abuse of a corpse, Trumbull County court records show. “Ms. Watts suffered a tragic and dangerous miscarriage that jeopardized her own life. Rather than focusing on healing physically and emotionally, she was arrested and charged with a felony,” her attorney, Traci Timko, told CNN in an email...."
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North Dakota judge to decide whether to temporarily block part of abortion law that limits doctors

"A North Dakota judge said Wednesday he will decide soon whether to temporarily block a part of the state's revised abortion laws so doctors can perform the procedure to save a patient's life or health. The request for a preliminary injunction asks state District Court Judge Bruce Romanick to bar the state from enforcing the law against physicians who use their “good-faith medical judgment” to perform an abortion because of pregnancy complications that could pose "a risk of infection, hemorrhage, high blood pressure, or which otherwise makes continuing a pregnancy unsafe.”
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Amarillo City Council says it needs more time to debate abortion travel ban

"The Amarillo City Council prolonged its debate over a so-called abortion travel ban on Tuesday, spending more than two hours in front of a packed room reviewing draft rules that would attempt to block access to Colorado and New Mexico, two states where a Texas woman could legally obtain an abortion. The five-member council discussed three different drafts of the ordinance, with varying measures in each, and left the table without resolution. Abortion rights activists and legal scholars have sharply criticized the ordinances, calling the rules unconstitutional...."
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Report: Minnesota sees spike in out-of-state patients seeking abortions

"The number of people crossing state lines to Minnesota to get an abortion spiked after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, new data show. The number of out-of-state patients jumped from 9% in 2020 to 30% in 2023 over the same time period, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. Nationwide, one in five patients are traveling out of state for an abortion...."
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What does the Texas Supreme Court ruling on emergency abortions mean for patients?

"Monday's ruling from the Texas Supreme Court denying a woman's request for an emergency abortion shines a spotlight on the medical exceptions contained in many U.S. states' abortion bans. Here are some of the most important facts about the case, and what it could mean: WHAT IS TEXAS' MEDICAL EXCEPTION? Texas has banned nearly all abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court last June overturned its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which had guaranteed abortion rights nationwide. Texas' ban includes an exception allowing the procedure if, in a doctor's "reasonable medical judgment," the mother has a "life-threatening condition" related to the pregnancy…
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