Latest news with #post-Roev
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
New York Uses Rare Move to Block Texas's Anti-Abortion Crusade
New York has blocked Texas from filing a legal action against a local doctor accused of prescribing and sending abortion pills to a resident in the Lone Star State. 'In accordance with the New York State Shield Law, I have refused this filing and will refuse any similar filings that may come to our office,' Taylor Bruck, the acting clerk of Ulster County, said in a statement Thursday. 'Since this decision is likely to result in further litigation, I must refrain from discussing specific details about the situation.' Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Dr. Margaret Carpenter in December, accusing her of mailing the pills to a Collin County resident who allegedly consumed the medication when she was nine weeks pregnant. The lawsuit did not mention if the woman was successful in terminating her pregnancy. Paxton wanted Carpenter to cough up $100,000 for every violation of the state's near-total abortion ban—a potentially relatively light sentence, considering that violators of Texas's draconian abortion law can also face life in prison and have their Texas medical license revoked. The lawsuit was Texas's first attempt at suing an abortion provider across state lines, and is subsequently New York's first use of its shield law, which protects doctors and providers providing abortion care from out-of-state investigations and prosecutions. Pro-abortion advocates have argued that banning the procedure only bans safe abortions, forcing other women in need of abortion care to find alternative solutions. Last week, news broke that a Pennsylvania teenager and her mother were under investigation after fetal remains were reported in the family's backyard following a self-managed abortion, reported Jezebel. And recent reports have shown that lacking access to abortion care has actually made pregnancies drastically less safe. In Texas, where abortion hasn't been permitted despite the legislature's medical emergency clause, sepsis rates have skyrocketed by as much as 50 percent for women who lost their pregnancies during the second trimester, according to an investigative analysis by ProPublica. But Texas has still been brutal in enforcing its post-Roe v. Wade laws. In the last couple of weeks, two Houston-area abortion providers have been arrested and charged with providing illegal care, reported The Texas Tribune. The prescription commonly referred to as the 'abortion pill' is a two-step process of taking mifepristone and then misoprostol. The procedure accounts for more than half of all the abortions in the United States, according to a 2022 report by the Guttmacher Institute, and has become a crucial tool as abortion restrictions limit access to in-person medical visits. It is more than 95 percent effective at ending pregnancies when used before 10 weeks of pregnancy, according to statistics by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Access to mifepristone has become an increasingly fraught political issue since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. In October, the attorneys general of Kansas, Missouri, and Idaho—a cohort of states with some of the most draconian abortion restrictions in the nation—sued the federal government to limit access to the drug, arguing that the medication should be illegal for minors (misoprostol is fully legal as it is used for other treatments). The Supreme Court unexpectedly saved mifepristone access in June, when it unanimously ruled that a group of different plaintiffs, represented by the right-wing Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, did not have legal standing to sue the Food and Drug Administration, and that the legal organization had failed to demonstrate how their clients were personally harmed by the drug's existence on the market. By and large, most Americans support abortion access. In a 2023 Gallup poll, just 12 percent of surveyed Americans said that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. Meanwhile, 69 percent believe that it should be legal in the first trimester of pregnancy.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The FACE Act was enacted to protect reproductive health clinics − here's why its history matters today
Soon after taking office for a second time, President Donald Trump pardoned anti-abortion activists who had blockaded and restricted access to the entrance of a reproductive health clinic in Washington, D.C., in October 2020. These protesters were convicted of violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. Protesting outside clinics is a way for conservative anti-abortion activists to directly influence access to reproductive health care. The FACE Act prohibits the use of force or threat toward people trying to obtain or provide reproductive health services. It was created to limit the anti-abortion movement's tactics outside clinics, requiring that protesters cannot physically stop patients from walking into clinics and receiving care. But demonstrations outside of clinics are still common. My own research has shown the effectiveness of the anti-abortion movement in influencing the landscape and language of reproductive health care and politics in the U.S. through actions such as protests outside clinics. In Trump's second term, the Justice Department has said that it will not prosecute demonstrators unless there are 'extraordinary circumstances' or in cases involving 'significant aggravating factors' such as 'death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage.' In this post-Roe v. Wade moment, I argue that it is important to know the history of the FACE Act. The FACE Act was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994 to guarantee access to abortion and reproductive health care that was, at the time, protected by the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision under the 14th Amendment. Clinics that provide abortions have been subject to public harassment since the early 1970s, particularly following the expansion of access to abortion and reproductive health care more generally. After the passage in 1970 of Title X of the Public Health Service Act, which authorized federal funding for reproductive health services, abortion opponents began staging protests. But public support for reproductive rights, including abortion, was growing – along with the relaxation of government restrictions on the procedure. Abortion foes also protested the legalization of abortion in New York state that same year. Following the legalization, the first Planned Parenthood health center to provide abortion services was established. The legalization in New York eventually led to the Roe v. Wade decision that protected abortion at the federal level. By the 1970s, the movement against abortion had become a cohesive coalition of conservative Catholics and Protestants. They argued that providing reproductive health care was immoral because they believed that life begins at conception. The white evangelical anti-abortion movement, which followed, pursued many of the physical blockade and other tactics of early Catholic groups. Operation Rescue, founded in 1986, was one of the largest evangelical groups that protested outside of clinics. During its protests, the movement's members held up signs with images of aborted fetuses to scare patients into leaving the clinic. They also sat or lay down in front of clinics, using their bodies to physically block patients from entering. About 1,000 people were arrested for blockading clinics through Operation Rescue on Oct. 30, 1988. Evangelical and Catholic groups working together, such as the Pro-Life Action League, still use these same tactics today. The FACE Act protects clinics from being physically threatened, blockaded or damaged. It also protects patients going into clinics from being physically or verbally harassed. Before the FACE act, protests frequently turned violent. In March 1993, David Gunn, an abortion provider and clinic director, was shot and killed by an abortion opponent outside a clinic in Pensacola, Florida, as he was walking in to work. Since 1993, at least 11 people have been killed in abortion clinic attacks in cities across the country, including Buffalo, Birmingham, Wichita and Boston. The FACE Act was one of the first laws to physically protect reproductive health clinics. Several state and local laws created 'buffer' zones around clinics, which were upheld by the Supreme Court decision Hill v. Colorado of 2000. This case upheld a Colorado law that prohibits individuals from approaching a patient within 8 feet of a health care clinic to protest or distribute educational materials. However, only three states and five municipalities have successfully passed buffer laws so far. There continues to be pushback. In February 2025, the Supreme Court refused to hear arguments challenging existing local buffer laws. However, many anti-abortion advocates continue to bring related cases, citing their rights to protest under the First Amendment. A key aspect of these protests is the concept of 'public witness.' Public witnessing draws from the evangelical belief of witnessing – testifying about God's message to save people's souls. Protesters outside clinics believe they are sharing God's truth through acts of disobedience, including singing, praying and reciting scripture loudly during clinic hours. Contemporary activists in the anti-abortion movement call these tactics 'sidewalk counseling,' believing they are counseling patients walking into reproductive health care clinics about the dangers of abortion while standing on the sidewalk in front of the clinic. These activists tell patients that abortion causes infertility, mental health disorders and cancer – claims that have been medically debunked. Today, anti-abortion activists often congregate outside clinics on days they know a doctor will be on site to provide abortion care. I've interviewed many of these protesters, some of whom scream and cry as they lay prostrate on the sidewalk; they blast Christian music to distract and disorient patients seeking medical care. Protesters sometimes also use violent tactics near the clinic. In 2012, protesters set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Wisconsin; in 2020, they threw a Molotov cocktail at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Florida; and in 2022, they attached locks to the gate of a New York clinic and poured glue to seal it. At the annual March for Life national anti-abortion demonstration on Jan. 24, 2025, one of the major celebrations was Trump's pardon of anti-abortion extremists. There was also a call to repeal the act that imprisoned them in the first place and a bill introduced in Congress that would repeal prohibitions related to the FACE Act. If the FACE Act is repealed, I argue that this will empower anti-abortion advocates to continue clinic blockades and other direct actions that will prevent patients from seeking reproductive health care. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Micki Burdick, University of Delaware Read more: The fear of deportation hangs over unauthorized workers trying to fight exploitation, but all workers in the US have rights Anti-abortion rights activists navigate a new, post-Roe landscape, as state bans mean they can 'save babies' How the threat of 'taxpayer-funded abortion' is being used to mobilize conservative religious voters Micki Burdick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
