More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Abortion providers can be independent clinics or affiliated with a hospital or larger healthcare organization. Each one provides safe, wanted abortions to pregnant people. Abortion providers often face harassment and violence, despite widespread support for abortion access.
Dr. George Tiller is one of many American abortion doctors to be assassinated by “pro-life” anti-abortion fanatics. Others, such as Emily Lyons, have been maimed for life.
Dr. Tiller’s crime was not that he killed children—which he did not—but that he brought liberty and health to women. He saved their lives and futures. That’s why every doctor in America who does abortions lives under a death threat.
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.
On Oct. 22, 2020, a group of anti-abortion extremists hailing from six different states and armed with a chain and rope forcefully pushed through the doors of the Washington Surgi-Clinic, a reproductive healthcare facility in Washington, D.C. Using furniture, they barricaded the door to the treatment area and chained themselves to each other in order to shut down clinic operations; they also injured a nurse during the course of the invasion while terrorizing staff and patients for well over an hour.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced last week criminal indictments against the nine anti-abortion extremists associated with this obstruction and violent invasion, charging them with violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
Through ingenuity, persistence and a little luck, some Texans are wading through the state’s six-week abortion ban and a sea of anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers” to find abortion healthcare in a safe and affordable way. Kelly is one of them.
“My heart goes out to those women who feel like they have no choice and they get swindled into this. I really want to prevent that from happening. … I’m telling my story because I had no idea about these ‘pregnancy health clinics.’ Women should not feel obligated to keep a pregnancy. I don’t think those women at CPCs should be saying, ‘Oh, I’m here to help women.’ They’re not helping if they’re making women feel bad for their decisions, period.”
Hey Jane provides medication abortion for anyone who is at least 18 years old, medically eligible, up to 10 weeks pregnant, and located in New York, California, Washington, Illinois, Colorado or New Mexico.
“Doctor’s appointments can be very difficult to get. With Hey Jane, we can get medication to patients in like a day.” Hanna Kim, lead nurse for Hey Jane, told Ms. “Patients feel really cared for. I remember one email that said, ‘I felt like I was talking to a mom or a sister who had all the answers.'”
Idaho has become the second state to ban abortion after six weeks.
“By the time you get to six weeks into pregnancy, chances are it is very difficult to have gotten an abortion,” said Lisa Humes-Schulz, vice president of policy and regulatory affairs for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates Northwest. “It’s not when you find out you become pregnant, but how long it takes you to get an abortion when you find out in idaho. There’s so few providers, a waiting period, you have to travel and raise money. That’s a big task.”
As abortion becomes increasingly inaccessible in much of the U.S., many more people may soon find themselves with no choice but to fly or drive long distances to access the care that they need.
People should be able to exercise their bodily autonomy and control their reproductive lives without leaving their communities. Whether people opt to make lengthy drives or to fly in the face of bans and restrictions, the environmental cost of forcing this travel will ultimately impact us all.