USA: Abortion - The Price of Pain | ARTE.tv Documentary

Oct 22, 2024 | Over 60,000 pregnancies have resulted from rape in the 14 American states where abortion has been banned since 2022, even in cases of non-consensual sex. The right to abortion is still a deep dividing line in American society and a major issue at this year’s presidential elections.

BEWARE: This documentary is not suitable for children. – Mark Alexander

Leaked Audio Finds J.D. Vance Wanting to End Interstate Travel For Abortions

J.D. Vance’s solution.

JD Vance's Nomination Could Lose Trump the Woman Vote due to Hard-line Abortion Views

Jul 16, 2024 | “The Republican Party has been a white male working class Christian party, and there’s nothing in the Vance nomination that’s going to make that any broader.” Women vote “in big ways” and female Republican voters were swayed in the past after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, says The New York Times’s Steve Erlanger.

Elizabeth Warren Warns of National Abortion Ban If GOP Wins in 2024

Feb 5, 2024 | Senator Elizabeth Warren is sounding the alarm about the potential of a national abortion ban if Republicans win in 2024.

Keep the Republicans OUT of the White House until they come back to their senses! Abortions must be kept legal. Whether a woman has, or needs, an abortion has nix to do with politicians and everything to do with the doctors’ judgment. The need for an abortion is a medical not a political decision. – © Mark Alexander

Jamie Ruskin on American, Extremist Anti-Abortionists

Listen to Jamie Ruskin point out the dangerous extremism of the Republican position.

One Year after Dobbs, Abortion Access Dangerously Limited as Support for Abortion Spikes Nationwide

‘We Can’t Rest or Relent’: Pence Reiterates Support of Staunch Abortion Restrictions

THE GUARDIAN: Former vice-president hails Dobbs decision as ‘historic victory’ but says it didn’t go far enough and urges a nationwide abortion ban

Republican presidential candidate and former vice=president Mike Pence speaks during a Celebrate Life Day rally outside the Lincoln Memorial, on Saturday, in Washington. Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Despite their unpopularity with the American public, former Republican vice-president and 2024 White House hopeful Mike Pence doubled down Sunday on his hard-line support of staunch abortion restrictions, saying: “We just can’t rest or relent until we restore the sanctity of life.”

Pence – in an interview on Fox News Sunday – made clear that he viewed bringing the elimination of abortion “to the center of American law” as both essential and “a winning issue” for the Republican party trying to wrest back control of the Oval Office.

“I’m pro-life, and I don’t apologize for it,” Pence boasted to host Shannon Bream, even though polling shows most Americans favor keeping the termination of pregnancies legal in most cases. » | Ramon Antonio Vargas | Monday, June 26, 2023

Such hypocrisy! Such concern for embryos and the yet-to-be-born. Such lack of concern for schoolchildren being shot by the dozen because of America's out-of-control gun ownership and unwillingness to control the ownership of guns strictly. Such conern for the embryo; such lack of conern for the pregnant mothers.

It would appear that the USA is falling into a state of benightedness and darkness. Even Saudi Arabia allows abortions in certain circumstances!

This development in the States shows me, and should show you, that the USA is losing its pole position and hegemony in the world. Who in his right mind would want to follow the USA if it carries on with this sort of insanity? – © Mark Alexander

Rise in Abortions in England and Wales Linked to Cost of Living Crisis, Say Experts

THE GUARDIAN: Steep rise in first half of 2022 follows trend from previous year, when Covid pandemic caused financial uncertainty

The number of abortions in England and Wales has risen sharply, with a charity saying that growing financial pressure on families could mean it continues to rise.

The number increased by 17%, from 105,488 between January and June 2021 to 123,219 over the same period in 2022, according to a report by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). » | Alexandra Topping | Thursday, June 22, 2023

Dr Harriet Fraad: Capitalism Hits Home: Roe v Wade Overturned - How Did We Get Here?

IJul 7, 2022 In this episode of ‘Capitalism Hits Home’, Dr Fraad looks at the recent dramatic US Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v Wade. She argues that all of the SCOTUS decisions for 2022 share a common purpose. First, they help to create a capitalist authoritarian state enforced by unaccountable police. Secondly, they divide the mass of people. They antagonize divisions between people and fuel culture wars. The goal is to create hierarchical and hostile divisions that keep Americans from uniting as an employee class and winning.


Abortion Pill Providers Experiment With Ways to Broaden Access: These new efforts, which test the legal boundaries, have sprung up since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and many states restricted abortion. »

The Only EU Country Where Abortion Is iIlegal - BBC News

Aug 12, 2022 Malta is the only EU state with a ban on abortion, there are no exceptions, including in cases of rape or incest.

Neither of Malta's main political parties supported a bill to decriminalise abortion last year but campaigners hope that a review of the law, along with shifts in social attitudes, could trigger change.

‘Have You Recently Had an Abortion?’ Australian Transiting through US Questioned Then Deported

THE GUARDIAN: Madolline Gourley says she was on her way to Canada for a holiday when US immigration officials intervened

An Australian woman who planned to house-sit in Canada during a holiday has said she was detained, fingerprinted, interrogated about her abortion history and quickly deported during a stopover in the US.

Madolline Gourley, a Brisbane resident, says she was treated like a criminal during her transit through Los Angeles on 30 June, where she was detained at the border due to suspicions about her intention to house- and cat-sit in exchange for accommodation while holidaying in Canada.

Gourley was held in a detention room, interrogated twice, patted down, fingerprinted and photographed.

At one point a US border official asked Gourley, who was wearing a loose-fitting dress, whether she was pregnant. The same question was repeated as she was moved between rooms. When she again told the US officials she was not pregnant, Gourley was asked whether she had had an abortion.

“She was walking me from one room to the next, and she asked the pregnancy question again,” Gourley told Guardian Australia. “I don’t know if she had forgotten, or she wanted to work out if I was lying or something. “I said no, and she looked at me again and said, ‘Have you recently had an abortion?’

“I don’t know the thought process behind that … I just thought, ‘What’s the relevance of that to my situation?’” » | Christopher Knaus | Wednesday, July 13, 2022

Meet the Dutch Doctor Helping Expand Abortion Access by Mailing Safe & Legal Pills Worldwide

Jul 1, 2022 As activists across the U.S. are mobilizing to defend reproductive rights, we speak to the Dutch physician Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, who has dedicated her life to circumventing anti-abortion laws, including providing abortions on ships in international waters and sending abortions pills around the world. She also discusses navigating censorship on social media platforms, telemedicine, the future of contraception and more. "This is not the moment anymore to stay within the law," says Dr. Gomperts, referring to the end of Roe v. Wade. "This is the moment to make sure that women have access to safe abortions despite the law, because this is such an unjust law that is creating so much social inequality and that will affect, really, the most poor women in the country."

Britain's Own Anti-Abortion Conservatives

Abortion in Europe | DW Documentary

May 6, 2022 • In Europe, the right to abortion is not universal. Poland is the scene of vociferous protests against some of the continent’s strictest abortion laws. Further south, in Italy, some doctors refuse to terminate pregnancies - even in medical emergencies.

Valentina should still be alive, Salvatore Milluzzo is sure of that. His daughter died in 2016. Pregnant with twins, she was taken to a hospital where doctors refused her an abortion for idealogical reasons, despite the acute danger to her life. This resulted in the deaths of both the unborn babies and the 32-year-old mother. Many women wishing to have an abortion in Italy meet resistance: 70 per cent of doctors there refuse to participate in surgery to terminate a pregnancy, even if the law permits it.

Poland has effectively moved to ban all abortions. For months now, Marta Lampert has been organizing protests against the government and the ultra-conservative Christian lobbyist organization Ordo Iuris. She rejects the paternalism of the church: "Our movement is the reaction to a patriarchal culture, to a patriarchal, fundamentalist state that treats women especially badly.”

In Spain too, Christian fundamentalists are trying to torpedo the statutory right of pregnant women to have an abortion. There are frequent reports of expectant mothers being deliberately deceived about the health of their embryo in a bid to "force” them into giving birth to a severely disabled child.

In Germany too, women seeking an abortion still face considerable hurdles, particularly in rural regions. In the Catholic city of Münster, few doctors are willing to carry out the procedure. Gynecologist Kristina Hänel runs a practice in Gießen. For years, she’s been embroiled in a high-profile legal battle. Anti-abortionists and public prosecutors say her website is breaking the law. At issue is a controversial paragraph of the criminal code prohibiting doctors from advertising their abortion services.

The pro-choice lobby is heartened by the new coalition government’s plan to scrap the offending "paragraph 219.” But this change in the law won’t necessarily make it easier for doctors to inform patients about abortions, let alone carry them out. After all, fanatical anti-abortionist voices are unlikely to be silenced. Consequently, many doctors simply decide not to offer the service at all.

Ask Prof Wolff: Economic Implications of Abortion Access

May 20, 2022 • A Patron of Economic Update asks: "Can you talk about the economics of planned parenthood and abortion?

“I Was Raped by My Father. Abortion Saved My Life”: Prof. Michele Goodwin on SCOTUS & New Jane Crow

May 6, 2022 • As the Supreme Court is poised to strike down Roe v. Wade, we speak with law professor Michele Goodwin, who has written extensively about how the criminalization of abortion polices motherhood. She discusses how on the eve of the court’s oral arguments in the Dobbs case in November, she wrote about how an abortion saved her life. She describes how the U.S. has historically endangered and denied essential health services to Black and Brown women, and calls new abortion restrictions “the new Jane Crow,” warning that they will further criminalize reproductive health and encourage medical professionals to breach their patients’ confidentiallity and report self-administered abortions to law enforcement.

Protests Flare across Poland after Death of Young Mother Denied an Abortion

THE GUARDIAN: Family of Agnieszka T say they want to ‘save other women in Poland from a similar fate’, as case met with anger over restrictive termination laws

Supporters of Abortion Without Borders protest outside Poland’s top constitutional court in Warsaw. Photograph: Czarek Sokołowski/AP
Protests are under way across Poland after the death of a 37-year-old woman this week who was refused an abortion, a year since the country introduced one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.

On the streets of Warsaw on Tuesday night, protesters laid wreaths and lanterns in memory of Agnieszka T, who died earlier that day. She was pregnant with twins when one of the foetus’ heartbeat stopped and doctors refused to carry out an abortion. In a statement, her family accused the government of having “blood on its hands”. Further protests are planned in Częstochowa, the city in southern Poland where the mother-of-three was from.

“We continue to protest so that no one else will die,” Marta Lempart, organiser of the protests, told Polish media. “The Polish abortion ban kills. Another person has died because the necessary medical procedure was not carried out on time.” All-Poland Women’s Strike has called on people across the country to picket the offices of the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) and organise road blockades in the coming days. » | Weronika Strzyżyńska | Thursday, January 27, 2022

The Arguments about Abortion in the US Are about One Thing: Controlling Women

THE GUARDIAN: Anti-abortionists are intent on enhancing men’s privileges, while women cannot even have rights over their own bodies

Pro-choice protests outside the supreme court, Washington DC, 1 December 2021. Photograph: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
Alot of people with a lot of power don’t see why women should have jurisdiction over their own bodies. That’s the anti-abortion argument in a nutshell, in that they claim a foetus, or even an embryo, or in some cases even a fertilised egg too small for the human eye to see, has rights that supersede those of the person inside whose body that egg, embryo or foetus might be.

What was clear from the rightwing pundits and conservative supreme court justices who have piped up over the last month as arguments were being heard in the most significant abortion rights case since Roe v Wade, is that in a country whose constitution is supposed to grant us all a lot of rights, they are happy to strip away a right so fundamental it’s unimaginable in other circumstances – or that it would be stripped from other people, namely men. In the case, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the state of Mississippi is asking the court to rule on whether it can outlaw abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation. They are asking, in other words, for the right to punish women for being women.

The goal of the anti-abortionists seems to be to enhance men’s privileges by undermining women’s rights, by making us separate and unequal. (People who do not identify as female also get pregnant and bear children, but the animosity is directed at women and girls, so I’m going to talk about women and girls here.) Since acknowledging this would undermine the anti-abortion case, the emphasis is instead shifted to someone else whose rights are claimed to trump those of pregnant people, the unborn. The unborn are a convenient constituency to advocate for, since they have no voice or vote and anyone can claim to speak for them. » | Rebecca Solnit | Friday, December 10, 2021

From Abortion Bans to Anti-Trans Laws, a Christian Legal Army Is Waging War on America

As the Supreme Court looks poised to uphold Mississipi’s 15-week abortion ban and possibly overturn Roe v. Wade we speak to The Nation’s Amy Littlefield about her investigation into the Christian legal army behind the Mississippi law as well as anti-trans laws across the country. She also critiques the mainstream pro-choice movement’s failure to center the poor and people of color. “There is a change coming within the movement because of its reckoning with these past missteps including, frankly, the failure to adequately protect Black women and to stand up for the safety of the people whose rights were eroded first,” says Littlefield.

After nullifying abortion rights in the USA, extreme Christians will come after LGBT rights. You’d better believe it! Get ready for the fight! This side of the Atlantic, I wouldn't trust Éric Zemmour on LGBT rights either. He's also too extreme for comfort. – © Mark

Planned Parenthood CEO: If SCOTUS Restricts Abortion Access, Marginalized People Will Be Hurt Most