The Assault on Womens Sexual and Reproductive Rights

[Kobi]

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Senate passed sweeping new abortion restrictions late Friday, sending them to Republican Gov. Rick Perry to sign into law after weeks of protests and rallies that drew thousands of people to the Capitol and made the state the focus of the national abortion debate.

Republicans used their large majority in the Texas Legislature to pass the bill nearly three weeks after a filibuster by Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis and an outburst by abortion-rights activists in the Senate gallery disrupted a deadline vote June 25.

Called back for a new special session by Perry, lawmakers took up the bill again as thousands of supporters and opponents held rallies and jammed the Capitol to testify at public hearings. As the Senate took its final vote, protesters in the hallway outside the chamber chanted, "Shame! Shame! Shame!"

Democrats have called the GOP proposal unnecessary and unconstitutional. Republicans said the measure was about protecting women and unborn children.

House Bill 2 would require doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, allow abortions only in surgical centers, limit where and when women may take abortion-inducing pills and ban abortions after 20 weeks.

Abortion-rights supporters say the bill will close all but five abortion clinics in Texas, leaving large areas of the vast state without abortion services. Only five out of 42 existing abortion clinics meet the requirements to be a surgical center, and clinic owners say they can't afford to upgrade or relocate.


http://news.yahoo.com/texas-senate-p...050032557.html

[*Anya*]

Women Denied Abortions More Likely to Wind Up on Welfare, study shows

In the United States, women are, in theory, legally equal to men. It was a long road traveled by many waves of feminists, but women steadily gained legal recognition as people having the right to vote and to receive equal education and employment opportunities. Now, one of the most contentious issues on the women’s rights scene is, you got it, abortion.

A new study shows that women who are denied abortions are more likely to be unemployed, on welfare, and in abusive relationships than their counterparts who did receive the abortions they petitioned for. The preliminary results of the “Turnaway Study” throw light on the importance of pro-choice legislation in continuing to promote women’s equality in the United States.

The researchers of the “Turnaway Study” have conducted over 2,800 interviews with women who sought abortions between 2008 and 2010. Some received the desired procedure with more or less difficulty, and some were turned away because they had been pregnant for longer than the abortion clinics’ limits for the procedure. The most common reason for seeking an abortion was economic: women felt that they simply did not have enough money to support a child. 76% of the women who had to carry an unwanted baby to term were on welfare two years later, as opposed to only 44% of women who had abortions. Furthermore, 7% of the women turned away from clinics were in abusive relationships at the times of their interviews, as opposed to only 3% of their counterparts. The interviews indicated that this was a result of women without children having more freedom to leave abusive partners.

Freedom is the key word here. It’s the principle, the fundamental human right, on which the United States is supposed to operate.

While the women in this particular study were not allowed to have abortions because they were outside of the time limit for the procedure, pro-life advocates would deny any woman from having an abortion. The result of this approach if we follow the trends laid out by the “Turnaway Study” would be a female population with decreased socioeconomic freedom. Laws requiring employers to provide equal employment opportunities to woman are useless if the women cannot apply for jobs because they must care for children borne of unwanted pregnancies.

Furthermore, pro-life policies would force more women onto welfare, a favorite target of disdain by the same group of politicians who support the banning of abortion. These policymakers criticize those Americans who are dependent on welfare while supporting policies that reduce women’s ability to choose a better economic option, that is, to abort an unwanted pregnancy.

The final, and perhaps most concerning, piece of this puzzle are the statistics on relationship abuse revealed by the “Turnaway Study.” Domestic violence is one of the least reported crimes in the country, with only 33% of those involved in abusive relationships ever telling anyone. Since women carrying unwanted babies to term also carried increased economic burdens, it’s not surprising that they would choose the relative economic security of a relationship, even an abusive relationship, in order to support their children. If denying a woman an abortion forces her into the prison of domestic violence, then we should count this as just another reason to defend Roe v. Wade with tooth and nail.

After all, pro-choice legislation is not pro-abortion legislation: It is pro-freedom legislation. It supports a woman’s, a person’s, right to choose the path of her life, to pursue opportunities on an equal basis with any other person. So if she chooses not to have a child because she is financially unable to support that baby, then she should be allowed to make that call. She should not have her freedom stripped from her and be condemned to a life of poverty and violence.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/19...re-study-finds

[Kobi]

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - A doctor will have to be present for any drug-induced abortion in Missouri starting on August 28 because Governor Jay Nixon on Friday allowed a measure passed by the state legislature to become law without his signature.

Nixon, a Democrat, said he decided not to sign the law and made no further comment.

The law applies to the so-called "abortion pill," RU-486 or any other abortion inducing chemical.

Missouri will be the 11th state to require doctors be present for administration of the drug, which is allowed up to about nine weeks of pregnancy, said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager for the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research group.

The law is on hold in Wisconsin and North Dakota due to litigation, she said.

The measure is the latest of a wave of small restrictions on abortion approved by conservative states where opposition to the procedure is strong.

Abortion opponents favor the law in part because it eliminates telemedicine in which a doctor at a different location can observe a patient taking the medication. Abortion rights advocates said the law is unfair to rural residents who live far from an abortion provider and need telemedicine to get early-term abortions, Nash said.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, Missouri with the new law joins Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee.

http://news.yahoo.com/doctor-must-pr...222457010.html

[*Anya*]

Pill Available in Mexico Is a Texas Option

By ERIK ECKHOLM

McALLEN, Tex. — At the Whole Woman’s Health center here, a young woman predicted what others would do if the state’s stringent new abortion bill approved late Friday forces clinics like this one to close: cross the border to Mexico to seek an “abortion pill.”
“This law will lead a lot more women to try self-abortion,” said Jackie F., a 24-year-old food server and student who was in the health center last week for a follow-up medical examination after getting a legal abortion.
The woman, who requested that her last name not be used to avoid stigma, was referring to a drug that can induce miscarriages and is openly available in Mexico and covertly at some flea markets in Texas.
In Nuevo Progreso, only yards past the Mexican border, pharmacists respond to requests for a pill to “bring back a woman’s period” by offering the drug, misoprostol, at discount prices: generic at $35 for a box of 28 pills, or the branded Cytotec for $175.
When asked how women should use the pills, some of the pharmacists said they did not know and others recommended wildly different regimes that doctors say could be unsafe.
“The women see it as “a pill to make my period come,’” said Andrea Ferrigno, a vice president of Whole Woman’s Health, which runs a network of abortion clinics. “Often in their minds, it’s not abortion.”
On Friday, the Texas Senate gave final passage to one of the strictest anti-abortion measures in the country, legislation championed by Gov. Rick Perry, who rallied the Republican-controlled Legislature after a Democratic filibuster last month blocked the bill and intensified already passionate resistance by abortion-rights supporters.
The law would ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and hold abortion clinics to the same standards as hospital-style surgical centers, among other requirements.
If the new law survives legal challenges, both Whole Woman’s Health in McAllen and the only other abortion clinic in the Rio Grande Valley, in nearby Harlingen, which together perform more than 3,500 abortions a year, will have to shut down, their owners say.
The greatest impact is likely to be among low-income women, who will be less able to make the needed two trips to the nearest clinic that meets the new surgical-center standards, in San Antonio, four hours north.
In the United States, legal medication abortions involve the use, in the first nine weeks of pregnancy, of misoprostol together with a steroid that breaks down the uterine lining. The success rate is more than 95 percent. In addition to requiring many clinics to close, the new Texas law would curb such medication abortions by requiring that the drugs be administered at surgery centers and at what doctors call an outdated dosage.
Misoprostol taken alone is less effective, but the drug is more readily available because it is prescribed to prevent gastric ulcers.
But health experts worry about its unmonitored use.
Lacking health insurance or fearing the stigma of being seen at an abortion clinic, thousands of Texas residents every year are already making covert use of this pill or trying other methods to induce abortions on their own.
When used properly in the early weeks of pregnancy, misoprostol, which causes uterine contractions and cervical dilation, induces a miscarriage about 85 percent of the time, according to Dr. Grossman. But many women receive incorrect advice on dosage and, especially later in pregnancy, the drug can cause serious bleeding or a partial abortion, he said.
The looming limits on legal abortion follow deep cuts in state support for family planning. Planned Parenthood clinics here in Hidalgo County do not perform abortions, but in 2010 provided subsidized contraception to 23,000 men and women at eight centers; as financing dried up, four of them have been closed. This year, the group will serve only 12,000 clients, and other organizations have not taken up the slack, said Patricio Gonzales, chief executive of the Hidalgo County chapter of Planned Parenthood.
Lucy Felix, a community educator here with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, said that many of the women she works with do not have legal residency and cannot drive north in Texas through Border Patrol checkpoints or even cross the southern border to buy the pill directly for fear that they may not be able to return to their families in Texas.
“The only option left for many women will be to go get those pills at a flea market,” Ms. Felix said. “Some of them will end up in the E.R.”
The two abortion clinics in the Rio Grande Valley say that the cost of meeting ambulatory surgical center standards would be prohibitive. They also doubt that they could find nearby hospitals that would grant admitting privileges to the abortion doctors, another element of the new law.
In a tour of the Whole Woman’s Health clinic here, Ms. Ferrigno noted some of the design and equipment requirements in the new law that would force the clinic to shut down. The clinic, part of a chain in Texas and other states, performs about 1,900 abortions a year using doctors that fly in from other states.
The clinic, like most in Texas, performs abortions only through the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, using medications or a suction method that takes 10 to 15 minutes and involves no incisions. The center uses donations to offer subsidies to many women, Ms. Ferrigno said.
The suite does not have the wide hallways required of a surgery center to facilitate the movement of stretchers in an emergency.
With plush recliners, a Georgia O’Keeffe flower print on the wall and herbal tea, the center’s recovery room resembles a small first-class lounge.
Ambulatory surgery centers, in contrast, must have large, hospital-style recovery rooms, with medical equipment on the walls. Patients must rest on gurneys, separated by ceiling-mounted curtains. The herbal tea would not be allowed.
To enter the McAllen clinic, women must cross a gantlet of protesters. Florine deLeon, 72, was out front last week with her husband, both of them fingering rosary beads.
“We’re praying for all the babies,” she said. If pregnancies are unwanted, she said, the crisis pregnancy center down the street could set up an adoption.
■

PUBLISHED JULY 13, 2013


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/us...-abortion.html

[Kobi]

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed sweeping new abortion restrictions on Thursday that could shutter most of the clinics in the state.

The new law bans abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy and dictates when abortion-inducing drugs can be taken. But it also requires abortion clinic doctors to have hospital admitting privileges and restricts abortions to surgical centers. Only five of Texas' 42 abortion clinics currently meet the new requirements.

The law will take effect in October and clinics will have a year to upgrade their facilities or shutdown. Perry said the new law "builds upon our commitment to protecting life in the state of Texas."

Federal judges have blocked enforcement of similar measures in other states, questioning their constitutionality. Opponents are expected to file similar suits in Texas now that Perry has signed the law.

[Allison W]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id

By Cherie Howie


5:30 AM Sunday Jul 14, 2013

A young woman was refused the birth control pill because she had not yet done her "reproductive job".

Melissa Pont, 23, said her family practitioner, Dr Joseph Lee, would not renew her pill prescription, instead lecturing her on a baby's right to live and on using the rhythm method, an unreliable family planning technique that involves having sex only at certain times of the month.

The Women's Health Action Trust said it has a "simmering issue" with GPs who will not prescribe contraceptives.

"Contraception is a basic health right for women," said senior policy analyst George Parker. "That should take precedence over a doctor's personal beliefs."

The NZ Medical Association said doctors can refuse treatment in non-emergency situations if their beliefs prohibit it - but they are required to refer the patient to another doctor.

Lee was initially reluctant to do that, Pont said, and she was concerned other women in her situation might not have had the confidence to argue back.

"I felt like my decision to not have children yet was being judged. That's a decision me and my fiance made," she said.

"We're young and we just bought a house and who is he to say whether we should have children or not?"

Lee, a doctor at Wairau Community Clinic in Blenheim, stood by his views and actions. "I don't want to interfere with the process of producing life," the Catholic father-of-two told the Herald on Sunday.

Lee also does not prescribe condoms, and encourages patients as young as 16 to use the rhythm method.

Teen pregnancy might be a girl's "destiny", he said, and it was certainly not as bad as same- sex marriage.

The only circumstances in which he would prescribe the contraceptive pill would be if a woman wanted space between pregnancies, or had at least four children.

"I think they've already done their reproductive job".

He acknowledged natural birth control was "not very reliable".

"That's the best thing about it. You can't choose it, you just have to be committed to it."

Family Planning national nursing adviser Rose Stewart said doctors should remember they were gatekeepers for a service, she said, and a woman's conscience was as important as theirs.

Medical Council guidelines say personal beliefs should not affect the advice or treatment offered, and should not be expressed in a way that exploits a patient's vulnerability or is likely to cause them distress.

Wairau Community Clinic lead GP Scott Cameron said a pamphlet at reception warned that some doctors did not prescribe birth control, and staff tried to screen patients. He would consider installing a sign.

The clinic is run by the Marlborough Public Health Organisation. Chief executive Beth Pester said Lee's choice not to prescribe was "his ethical choice", but she was concerned he discussed natural birth control with patients as young as 16, and would talk to him about that.

[Kobi]

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio sued the state over including abortion-related provisions in its budget, in what abortion rights activists charged was an effort to quietly restrict women's access to clinics.

The ACLU said Ohio unconstitutionally approved three restrictions along with the state budget in June, including one that bars public hospitals from having patient transfer agreements with clinics, which were unrelated to budget issues.

Ohio, which has a Republican-controlled legislature and Republican governor, has become known among abortion rights supporters as a testing ground for restrictions, as conservatives have pushed a number of new proposed abortion provisions on the state level over the past three years.

"(The amendments were) highly controversial social legislation that were snuck into a must-pass budget bill in the eleventh hour without public debate or input," said ACLU cooperating attorney Jessie Hill.

At least two of the three abortion restrictions, one requiring that patients receive details about fetal heartbeat before they undergo an abortion and the transfer agreement ban, have nothing to do with the budget, the ACLU said.

Michael Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, called the lawsuit "a legal stunt by the ACLU that will end up costing the Ohio taxpayers."

Gonidakis is a member of the Ohio State Medical Board and a defendant in the lawsuit.

Abortion rights advocates have expressed concern that Ohio's transfer agreement law, which was threatening to close Toledo's only abortion clinic, could be replicated elsewhere, as eight other states require abortion clinics to have transfer agreements.

One of the Ohio budget amendments bars abortion clinics from making agreements to move women needing emergency care to public hospitals. This amendment is threatening closure of Capital Care in Toledo, because its transfer agreement with a public hospital expired in July and, under the new law, the clinic cannot renew it.

The other Ohio amendments require clinics to present patients with evidence of a fetal heartbeat before performing abortions and create a "parenting and pregnancy" program to give state money to private groups that are forbidden to discuss abortion services, the ACLU said.

The ACLU said the first two amendments have nothing to do with budget appropriations - while the third creates and funds a new government program, something it said requires stand-alone legislation.

The lawsuit also names Governor John R. Kasich, a Republican who signed the budget bill, the state of Ohio, and Theodore Wymyslo, director of the Ohio Department of Health.

Spokesmen for Kasich and the health department said they had no comment on the litigation.

The ACLU of Ohio filed the lawsuit in Cuyahoga County court on behalf of a Cleveland clinic that provides contraception and abortion services.

http://news.yahoo.com/aclu-sues-ohio...-business.html