More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Laws requiring parental consent for minors requiring abortion care do not help teenagers—they only delay much needed healthcare for vulnerable youth.
States overwhelmingly allow a teenager to independently consent to pregnancy care and medical treatment for her child, and even to give up her child for adoption, without notice to her parents, yet require parental notice or consent for abortion
For nearly 50 years, as anti-abortion legislators in states around the country have chipped away at the constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion, they have done so with the steady drumbeat of violence at their back. In the face of the recent leak of a draft opinion from Justice Samuel Alito that confirmed that the Supreme Court is set to overturn Roe v. Wade, abortion advocates and providers are bracing for a surge in clinic violence.
When Hana found out she was pregnant, she was five weeks along. As a college student living near Boston, she had numerous options for abortion healthcare. But she ended up at an anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy center” she thought was an abortion clinic. Despite the lies and coercion she experienced at the CPC, Hana persisted in her search for an abortion and eventually found real healthcare, but she worries about CPCs harming other people. Ms. spoke with Hana about her CPC experience, the effect it had on her, and why she’s speaking out now.
“When I found out I was pregnant, I was absolutely terrified. I am a teenager, in my first year of college, and far away from home—the one thing I knew was that I could not bring a child into my world. I felt so lost, like a child who lost their mother in a supermarket. I needed someone to help guide me through this, someone I could trust. I made the mistake of trusting these people, who did not hesitate to abuse it, and it has forever changed me.”
The release of the draft Supreme Court opinion overturning abortion rights has left many people wondering about continued access to abortion. Reproductive rights advocates have been working hard to create an infrastructure of information and support for accessing and using abortion pills, no matter what happens when the Supreme Court issues its final ruling.
Here’s an easy guide to information about abortion pills.
Late Monday night, shock waves could be felt across the U.S. after a leaked draft opinion signaled the Supreme Court’s majority decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case concerning a 15-week abortion ban out of Mississippi. The leaked opinion, if and when it takes effect at the end of the Supreme Court’s term (likely in June), represents the biggest blow to women’s constitutional rights in the last 50 years.
Reactions from feminists, lawmakers, reproductive rights advocates and legal scholars have been pouring in as America begins to grapple with the gravity of what abortion access will look like in a post-Roe world.
With a Roe v. Wade reversal imminent and states passing abortion restrictions at a breakneck pace, women are increasingly going online to access abortion pills easily and safely.
On April 13, the Kentucky legislature overrode Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear to pass a law banning abortion after 15 weeks and placing restrictions on earlier abortions that are currently impossible to meet. As a result, the two remaining abortion clinics in the state—Planned Parenthood and EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville—ceased offering abortion services on Thursday.
Planned Parenthood and EMW are currently working with clinics beyond Kentucky to direct patients out of state for care. In addition, the organization Plan C offers detailed information on their website about how people in Kentucky are finding abortion pills outside of the formal medical system.
Abortion is personal for physicians and healthcare workers, not just professional—we need to help protect abortion access.
Few details have emerged about what happened leading up to the arrest of 26-year-old Lizelle Herrera. But the criminalization of pregnant women has a long history in Texas.
“Prosecutors who bring cases like this are trying to groom people in the United States to think of those who have abortions as criminals,” said Lynn Paltrow, executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. “That stigma, eventually, is likely to stick and results in efforts to throw them in jail.”
If you Google “abortion services near me,” chances are the top of your search will show an anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy center.”
With the Supreme Court poised to reverse Roe v. Wade and states racing to pass increasingly draconian abortion restrictions, many people are unaware that fake abortion clinics now blanketing the country are an equal and escalating threat to abortion access.
