More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Nearly 800,000 Louisianans (38 percent of voters) voted “No” and over 1.2 million Louisianans (62 percent) voted “Yes” on Amendment 1, a change to the state constitution that could open the possibility for the state to criminalize abortion, should Roe v. Wade be overturned. Even after election results came in, many are still not sure what the amendment even meant.
So, what just happened in Louisiana?
Telemedicine abortion startups are springing up across the country after a federal court in July temporarily suspended FDA restrictions on distribution of the abortion pill during the pandemic. In total, people in 19 states and Washington D.C. now have legal access to telemedicine abortion from a doctor within their state.
“This is a very safe early option. You can have a telemedicine appointment with a doctor in the comfort of your home and you get something mailed to your home. … To have that ability to be able to take care of yourself at home, I think that’s just an amazing service. And it should continue to be an option.”
Abortion Clinics Online—the first abortion clinic directory—celebrates 25 years of service, despite legal restrictions, court battles and anti-abortion terrorism.
For the first time, a U.S.-based pharmacy—Honeybee Health—is distributing abortion pills directly to patients within the country by mail, now legal because of a recent federal court ruling.
This month marks 44 years of the Hyde Amendment, which bans insurance coverage for abortion care for people enrolled in Medicaid. We are united to address the systemic inequities and structural racism in our health care system that deny dignity, agency, and autonomy to Texans of color and those who are struggling to make ends meet.
The approval of medication abortion care, 20 years ago today, was supposed to usher in a new era of abortion access in this country, to lessen the political and cultural stigma of abortion, to end the vitriol, quiet the noise, and give women an important new option to end an early pregnancy. This vision has yet to be realized.
The story of how medication abortion care got approved bears re-examining today as it is both relevant and also offers a framework for confronting the ongoing, ever-escalating threats not only to legal abortion but to family planning as well.
Power to Decide launched a digital abortion finder tool that will enable women to safely and easily locate abortion service providers in their area.
Sen. Ted Cruz lead 20 Republican senators to file a letter with the FDA claiming— factually incorrectly— that the abortion pill is an “imminent hazard to the public health.”
On Friday, 12 anti-abortion extremists in Sterling Heights, Mich., formed an unyielding blockade in front of a Michigan abortion clinic. Those involved were in direct violation of the Freedom of Access Clinic Entrances (F.A.C.E.) Act.
Yet when (maskless) police arrived on the scene, they allowed the (maskless) anti-choice protesters to continue to sit in front of the clinic doors and sympathized openly with the blockade.
Federal appeals judges used Chief Justice John Roberts’s opinion in June Medical v. Russo—the Supreme Court’s recent decision protecting abortion access—to allow several Arkansas abortion restrictions to go back into effect.
