Sexual and Reproductive Health

Supreme Court of Georgia Rules to Reinstate the State’s Six-Week Abortion Ban

PUBLISHED 10/1/2024 by | UPDATED 10/7/2024 at 11:50 A.M. PT

The Supreme Court of Georgia will reinstate the state’s six-week abortion ban starting 5 p.m. Monday, just a week after a trial court struck down the law. 

Some abortion providers in the state had resumed offering abortions past six weeks of pregnancy since the state’s lower court struck down the ban. The lower court ruling had temporarily allowed legal abortion up to 22 weeks of pregnancy. Monday’s decision means the ban will remain in effect while the case challenging Georgia’s law makes its way through the state court system.

War on Women Report: More Women Die From Abortion Bans; Senate Republicans Block IVF Bill; Texas AG Sues Biden Over Teen Birth Control Access

PUBLISHED 9/30/2024 by and

U.S. patriarchal authoritarianism is on the rise, and democracy is on the decline. But day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. The fight is far from over. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report… Former Rochester police officer Shawn Jordan, convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl, was sentenced to just 10 weekends in jail; at least 11 states will ask voters to weigh in on abortion and reproductive healthcare access by way of ballot measures; a scarcity of research on tampon safety reveals a lack of women’s health prioritization in medicine and law; Taysha Wilkinson-Sobieski, a 26-year-old woman in Indiana, died in October 2023 after being unable to access timely care for her ectopic pregnancy; the gender pay gap has widened significantly for the first time in 20 years; and more.

A Conservative Blueprint Calls for More Abortion Surveillance

PUBLISHED 9/26/2024 by

Dr. Nisha Verma wants her patients to know that they don’t have to tell any doctor that they have ever had an abortion. She wants them to know that no doctor can tell the difference between a natural miscarriage and one caused by medication, and she wants her patients to know that they don’t have to report what’s causing their bleeding if, for some reason, they visit an emergency room for care.

Verma, of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe has made women scared to seek reproductive care. November’s election results could make matters profoundly more serious. So it’s OK for women to protect their medical information from a threat of increased government surveillance, she said in an interview.

Almost 100 Percent of U.S. Women Use Contraception—So Why Doesn’t Birth Control Have More Republican Support?

PUBLISHED 9/25/2024 by

As if the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the ensuing introduction of total abortion bans in 14 states, isn’t dystopian enough, the United States has become a country where there isn’t enough congressional support for contraception in order to pass a bill protecting the right of patients to use it and the right of providers to prescribe it. This should horrify everyone.

Abortion Opponents Use Deaths of Two Georgia Women to Push Dangerous Lies About Abortion Pills

PUBLISHED 9/25/2024 by

After reports emerged that two women died as a result of Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, abortion opponents are callously using these tragic deaths to fuel false claims that abortion pills are dangerous and to push for FDA removal of mifepristone from the market.

Rather than calling on legislators to clarify life-saving exceptions, abortion opponents are doubling down on misinformation they’ve been peddling for years about the safety of abortion pills.

Crossing State Lines to Get an Abortion Is a New Legal Minefield, With Courts to Decide if There’s a Right to Travel

PUBLISHED 9/25/2024 by and

Almost half of the states in the country have made it harder to get an abortion since the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the federal right to get an abortion. Fourteen states ban abortions in almost all circumstances, and another eight in almost all cases after 6 to 18 weeks of pregnancy.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the 2022 Dobbs decision that states cannot legally prevent their residents from going to another state to get an abortion, because he believes there is a “constitutional right to interstate travel.”

The U.S. Constitution does not, however, explicitly recognize a “right to interstate travel.” But the Supreme Court has issued decisions as far back as 1867 that can be interpreted to protect this right—and some scholars are confident that such a right exists.

Utah’s Near-Total Abortion Ban Placed on Hold… for Now

PUBLISHED 9/19/2024 by | UPDATED 9/20/2024 at 8:45 A.M. PT

In early August, the Utah Supreme Court ruled to place a near-total abortion ban on hold, effectively blocking the law until a lower court can assess its constitutionality. For now, abortion will remain legal in the state until 18 weeks. 

“This is an individual choice, and it should be between that individual and their healthcare provider, and their healthcare providers should not be afraid that they’re going to be put in prison,” Utah House Minority Leader Angela Romero told Ms.

New York’s Prop 1 Closes the ‘Pregnancy’ Loophole—Protecting More Than Abortion

PUBLISHED 9/18/2024 by

No one—not even New Yorkers—can count on having a right to an abortion. This is why, New Yorkers must vote yes on Prop 1 to “protect abortion permanently.”

Proposal 1, however, does far more than establish constitutional protection for abortion. New York’s Prop 1 explicitly protects women who experience miscarriages and stillbirths, as well as those who carry their pregnancies to term and give birth. Prop 1 will also ensure equality for all those who want to travel—even if they happen to be pregnant. Proposal 1 will, for the first time, close the pregnancy loophole that has been used to deny pregnant patients equal rights to follow their religious beliefs.

Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable.

PUBLISHED 9/17/2024 by

Tasked with examining pregnancy-related deaths to improve maternal health, a panel of experts, including 10 doctors, deemed Amber Nicole Thurman’s death “preventable” and said the hospital’s delay in performing the critical procedure had a “large” impact on her fatal outcome.

Thurman’s case marks the first time an abortion-related death, officially deemed “preventable,” is coming to public light.

Their reviews of individual patient cases are not made public. But ProPublica obtained reports that confirm that at least two women have already died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state. There are almost certainly others. Though Republican lawmakers who voted for state bans on abortion say the laws have exceptions to protect the “life of the mother,” medical experts cautioned that the language is not rooted in science and ignores the fast-moving realities of medicine.