Abortion – Abortion Clinics, Abortion Pill, Abortion Information

The courts volleyed back and forth this week, siding in turns with the state and then with abortion provider. But clinics across the state are responding inconsistently, with some shutting down altogether while they await a final answer.

A Planned Parenthood examination room in Austin. Photo credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune

Heather Artrip had an abortion last Friday.

The 30-year-old single mother was ready to pack up her two sons and drive to New Mexico to find a willing medical provider when she got the call from her clinic in Austin. Two days earlier, someone had called to cancel her appointment, citing the state’s ban on abortions to preserve medical resources for coronavirus patients. But this time they said they could get her a medication abortion — which involves taking pills.

“I said, ‘Can I come in now?’” Artrip said. “I was scared it would get ripped away.”

Last month, Gov. Greg Abbott announced an executive order pausing all medical procedures and surgeries that aren’t urgent in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, and conserve personal protective equipment. Attorney General Ken Paxton quickly said that the governor’s order should include a ban on most abortions, setting off a legal battle and a barrage of conflicting court rulings that have created confusion for clinics and women seeking to end their pregnancies.

The courts volleyed back and forth this week, siding in turns with the state and then with abortion providers on a question that may ultimately be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Paxton, allowing the near-ban to remain in place. By Thursday, a lower court weighed in to say that medication abortions like Artrip’s — which do not require personal protective gear — should still be allowed to proceed. And then on Friday afternoon, the appeals court again sided with the state, but this time allowed for some women who are further along in their pregnancies to undergo abortions even as the prohibition remains in place.

Artrip was able to get an abortion in the midst of the legal whiplash, but abortion providers across the state are responding inconsistently, with some shutting down altogether while they await a final answer.

“This is a nightmare inside of a nightmare,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, acting president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “One day patients are called back for their procedures, the next day they are canceled — all at the whim of Gov. Abbott.”

In an interview Friday with the executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, Paxton said he found it “a little shocking” that abortion providers were continuing with their suit against the state.

“This is the only group of doctors and providers that have fought it,” Paxton said. “They’re not getting treated any differently. I will admit this is very inconvenient, it’s not easy for anybody, but they’re saying no, we’re special, we don’t need to be treated like everybody else, we should be treated better.”

Abortion rights advocates worry that even as the law is still being settled, Texas GOP officials are effectively cutting off access by scaring women into thinking all abortions are illegal and scaring providers into shutting their doors.

On Wednesday, at least one clinic, Austin Women’s Health Center, was still scheduling women for medication abortions, according to an employee who picked up the phone but declined to give her name. By Friday morning, a staffer said the clinic, one of the plaintiffs in the ongoing litigation, was shutting down until they heard back from attorneys.

Also on Friday, an employee who answered the phone at Whole Woman’s Health, another plaintiff in the case, said the clinic is offering medication abortions at its locations in Austin, Fort Worth and McAllen for pregnancies up to 10 weeks gestation.

Still, several providers across the state were closed both before and after Thursday’s ruling that gave the green light to medication abortions. Many contacted by The Texas Tribune, such as Houston Women’s Clinic and Alamo Women’s Reproductive Services in San Antonio, had added temporary voicemails that said they were not offering abortion services due to Abbott’s executive order.

Personal protective equipment

Abortion rights advocates, meanwhile, say clinics should be able to continue providing pill-induced abortions in spite of the ban, which was implemented March 22 and is likely to be extended, because those types of abortions don’t use medical resources cited in the executive order.

“He [Paxton] has an interest in presenting that misinformation and letting people believe that all abortion is illegal in Texas now,” said Blake Rocap, legislative counsel at NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, which is not one of the plaintiffs in the case. “And reading what the Governor said and what the TMB [Texas Medical Board] has said and what the Fifth Circuit said, that doesn’t seem like the case legally.”

Throughout the legal battle, Paxton has argued that the state’s executive order applies to both medication and surgical abortions. In his latest court filing Friday, he again pushed for it to include abortions that involve ingesting pills.

“Respondents claim that medication abortion consumes little PPE, but, again, all PPE is valuable at this time,” he said in the filing.

Abbott’s executive order as written exempts procedures that “if performed in accordance with the commonly accepted standard of clinical practice, would not deplete the hospital capacity or the personal protective equipment needed to cope with the COVID-19 disaster.”

Artrip said her experience was totally contact-free and used “zero” personal protective gear. She and the doctor talked through the process over a video call while they sat in neighboring rooms. Then, from behind a bulletproof glass window, she was given a series of pills she would take over the course of 24 hours, along with detailed instructions.

“It’s a very simple process,” said Artrip, who had previously shared with the Tribune her struggle to get an appointment.

Daniel Grossman, an obstetrician-gynecologist, agreed that medication abortions don’t require the scarce medical safety gear.

“It is certainly safe and within the standard of care to offer medication abortion without using any personal protective equipment,” said Grossman, who is also an investigator with the Texas Policy Evaluation Project, which has been studying the executive order’s impact on abortion access.

A growing percentage of people obtaining abortions in Texas use medication abortion, those investigators report. The state’s most recent data shows medication abortions accounted for 31.6% of reported abortions among Texas residents in 2017. Procedural abortions, which use more invasive techniques, accounted for more than 60%.

Even in Texas, where patients are legally required to get a sonogram at least 24 hours before the procedure, Grossman said it is still possible to not use protective gear.

Artrip said she is relieved to have gotten an abortion, but she is angry for the women who cannot access them. Her message to women who are unsure whether they can get an abortion right now: Keep calling clinics.

“The legality of it could change at any minute,” she said. “Call every clinic until you find one that can take you, and take the one that can take you the soonest.”

Source: https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/10/texas-abortion-law-coronavirus-confusion-clinics/?fbclid=IwAR3lp2I66kLNEFUwgOEF4qHjiXazEhjeBC0N7GjORuYnh4tJ1OwXgOa7BnA

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order banning all elective medical procedures, including abortions, during the coronavirus outbreak. The ban extends to medication abortions.
Eric Gay/AP

Governors across the country are banning elective surgery as a means of halting the spread of the coronavirus. But in a handful of states that ban is being extended to include a ban on all abortions.

So far the courts have intervened to keep most clinics open. The outlier is Texas, where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit this week upheld the governor’s abortion ban.

Four years ago, Texas was also the focus of a fierce legal fight that ultimately led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in which the justices struck down a Texas law purportedly aimed at protecting women’s health. The court ruled the law was medically unnecessary and unconstitutional.

Now Texas is once again the epicenter of the legal fight around abortion. In other states–Ohio, Iowa, Alabama, and Oklahoma–the courts so far have sided with abortion providers and their patients.

Not so in Texas where Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order barring all “non-essential” medical procedures in the state, including abortion. The executive order was temporarily blocked in the district court, but the Fifth Circuit subsequently upheld the governor’s order by a 2-to-1 vote, declaring that “all public constitutional rights may be reasonably restricted to combat a public health emergency.”

“No more elective medical procedures can be done in the state because of the potential of needing both people … beds and supplies, and obviously doctors and nurses,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in an interview with NPR.

‘Exploiting This Crisis’

Nancy Northrup, CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, sees things very differently. “It is very clear that anti-abortion rights politicians are shamelessly exploiting this crisis to achieve what has been their longstanding ideological goal to ban abortion in the U.S.,” she said.

Paxton denies that, saying Texas “is not targeting any particular group.”
The state’s the “only goal is to protect people from dying,” he said.

Yet the American Medical Association just last week filed a brief in this case in support of abortion providers, as did 18 states, led by New York, which is the state that has been the hardest hit by the coronavirus.

They maintain that banning abortion is far more dangerous,because it will force women to travel long distances to get one. A study from the Guttmacher Institute found that people seeking abortions during the COVID-19 outbreak would have to travel up to 20 times farther than normal if states successfully ban abortion care during the pandemic. The AMA also notes that pregnant women do not stop needing medical care if they don’t get an abortion.

Northrup, of the Center for Reproductive Rights, sees this as more evidence that the ban is a calculated move by the state: what “puts the lie to this is the fact that they’re trying to ban medication, abortion as well; that’s the use of pills for abortion.

“Those do not need to take place in a clinic and they can be done, taken effectively by tele-medicine. So it shows that the real goal here, tragically, is shutting down one’s right to make the decision to end the pregnancy, not a legitimate public health response.”

‘I Was Desperate’

Affidavits filed in the Texas case tell of harrowing experiences already happening as the result of the Texas ban. One declaration was filed by a 24-year-old college student. The week she lost her part-time job as a waitress, she found out she was pregnant. She and her partner agreed they wanted to terminate the pregnancy, and on March 20 she went to a clinic in Forth Worth alone; because of social distancing rules, her partner was not allowed to go with her.

Since she was 10 weeks pregnant, still in her first trimester, she was eligible for a medication abortion. Under state law, she had to wait 24 hours before getting the pills at the clinic, but the night before her scheduled appointment, the clinic called to cancel because of Abbott’s executive order.

He partner was with her and we “cried together,” she wrote in her declaration. “I couldn’t risk the possibility that I would run out of time to have an abortion while the outbreak continued,” and it “seemed to be getting more and more difficult to travel.”

She made many calls to clinics in New Mexico and Oklahoma. The quickest option was Denver–a 12-hour drive, 780-mile drive from where she lives. Her partner was still working, so her best friend agreed to go with her. They packed sanitizing supplies and food in the car for the long drive and arrived at the Denver Clinic on March 26, where she noticed other cars with Texas plates in the parking lot, according to the affidavit.

At the clinic, she was examined, given a sonogram again, and because Colorado does not have a 24-hour waiting requirement, she was given her first abortion pill without delay and told she should try to get home within 30 hours to take the second pill.

She and her friend then turned around to go home. They were terrified she would have the abortion in the car, and tried to drive through without taking breaks. But after six hours, when it turned dark they were so exhausted they had to stop at a motel to catch some sleep. The woman finally got home and took the second pill just within the 30-hour window.

She said that despite the ordeal she was grateful she had the money, the car, the friend, and the supportive partner with a job, to make the abortion possible. Others will not be so lucky, she wrote. But “I was desperate and desperate people take desperate steps to protect themselves.”

A ‘Narrative’ Of Choice

Paxton, the Texas attorney general, does not seem moved by the time limitations that pregnancy imposes, or the hardships of traveling out of state to get an abortion. He told NPR “the narrative has always been ‘It’s a choice’ … that’s the whole narrative. I’m a little surprised by the question, given that’s always been the thing.”

On Thursday abortion providers and their patients returned to the district court in Texas instead of appealing directly to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Fifth Circuit’s ruling from earlier this week. The district court judge, who originally blocked the governor’s ban, instead narrowed the governor’s order so that medical abortions–with pills–would be exempt from the ban, as well as abortions for women who are up against the state-imposed deadline. Abortions in Texas are banned after 22 weeks.

In the end, though, this case may well be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. And because of the addition of two Trump appointees since 2016–the composition of the court is a lot more hostile to abortion rights.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/10/831273530/legal-fight-heats-up-in-texas-over-ban-on-abortions-amid-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR0gFBxGz0K3WNL0gPeI-2iL9CZz8nY2oqljlNhxmTq2qxdKV7USe1Re3vY

Facilities that usually aim to convince women to continue pregnancies remain open in Texas, Ohio, and Alabama, where officials have issued abortion bans.

Even if a Jane’s judicial bypass case is approved, Texas’ ban on abortion has closed clinics across the state, leaving young people with limited options.

With more time at home with potentially controlling parents watching over their phone activity, young people may not even be able to seek out their full range of pregnancy options.
Shutterstock

As the COVID-19 pandemic grips our country and world, elected officials in Texas and across the country are using the crisis to further their anti-abortion agenda. This puts young people in a particularly vulnerable situation.

I am the client services manager at Jane’s Due Process, a nonprofit that helps young people navigate parental consent laws to access birth control and abortion care in Texas. We refer to the teens we serve as “Jane” to protect their anonymity. Over the last few weeks, our volunteers and I have witnessed countless examples of Janes trying to navigate our new reality in Texas, where our governor and attorney general have exploited the COVID-19 crisis to ban abortion in our state.

One Jane, who is already a parent with a toddler, said she cannot risk contracting COVID-19 to leave the state for abortion care. Instead, Jane is choosing to wait for the Texas abortion ban to lift—a decision the courts could make in the coming weeks. Another Jane told me that her grandmother, who is also her caretaker and immunocompromised because of her age, isn’t able to travel with Jane as she gets her abortion out of fear of contracting COVID-19. Therefore, like some other young pregnant people in the state, she is planning to wait out the abortion ban.

From local stay-at-home orders to Texas’ abortion ban, the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating the challenging barriers to abortion care that young people in Texas already face. Texas is one of 37 states with parental consent laws on abortion. Our state requires teens to obtain written consent from a parent or legal guardian before getting an abortion. If a teen cannot obtain parental consent, they must go through the judicial bypass process, which involves appearing before a judge to get special permission to obtain abortion care.

Additionally, young people often have to travel long distances, miss school or work, and cover costs out of pocket. Fortunately, the National Abortion Federation is now covering the financial costs for Janes who go through the judicial bypass process.

While judges may currently hold hearings via teleconference for judicial bypass cases as part of special court rules during COVID-19, even if a Jane’s bypass case is approved, Texas’ ban on abortion has closed clinics across the state. Due to anti-abortion politicians using a public health crisis to ban abortion, young people in Texas are left with limited options.

While we hope that young people have supportive parents they can rely on when seeking an abortion, that’s not always the case. Many of the young people we work with would be kicked out of the home if their parents discovered they were pregnant. Others are part of the foster care system or are unaccompanied minors in immigration detention facilities, so the law inherently forces them to go through the judicial bypass process.

These barriers could prove to be too much for anyone, but for young people—especially in the midst of a pandemic—they can put care entirely out of reach. Unlike most adults, young people have little freedom of movement and privacy. Before COVID-19, young people could use the excuse of school hours or after-school events to get to the multiple doctors’ appointments Texas requires for an abortion. Now, school is canceled or virtual, and with social distancing and stay-at-home orders, they may not be able to leave their home at all. And like many adults seeking abortion care, young people would prefer to get their abortions earlier in pregnancy if possible—the further along in pregnancy, the more costly their care and the more restrictions imposed by the state. But with more time at home with potentially controlling parents watching over their phone activity, young people may not even be able to seek out their full range of pregnancy options. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a delay of days or weeks can be the difference between a Jane exercising her reproductive rights or being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.

Jane’s Due Process was founded to help teens navigate all of these steps, so we see every single day how challenging these barriers are. Our 24/7 hotline is a lifeline for so many young people right now. Teens can call or text Jane’s Due Process at 866-999-5263 and we’ll help them figure out how to get the care they need.

We are here so that young people have someone to guide them through the legal system when they have nowhere else to turn. As a case manager for all our Janes, I hear firsthand the obstacles they face, and I’m unable to see how these cruel actions could possibly be “pro-life” or how exploiting a pandemic to ban abortion benefits public health. Health-care providers agree that abortion is a time-sensitive and essential medical service that everyone should be able to access once they have made the decision to do so.

What we need from our state leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic is compassion for all pregnant people in Texas. We need expanded access to health care. We need resources so that people can care for themselves and their families. Now is not the time for Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton to play politics with our lives and futures.

Source: https://rewire.news/article/2020/04/09/this-is-how-texas-covid-19-abortion-ban-uniquely-burdens-teens/

“Not enough conversation is happening around how we transport patients and our volunteer networks that exist around the country.”

Compounding these access issues today is the risk of exposure to COVID-19 as patients travel to and from clinics, hotels, and other shared spaces to receive care.
Shutterstock

Last month, a woman took a bus from her home in Louisiana, traveling hundreds of miles to New Mexico to secure a later abortion. Three days later, her procedure complete, she was ready to return home.

Then her bus was cancelled.

With the help of volunteers from the Brigid Alliance, a national organization that provides funds and travel support to patients seeking an abortion, and which had arranged her bus travel, the woman was able to secure a flight home.

As transportation providers across the country drastically reduce or cancel their regular routes in response to the COVID-19 crisis, stories like this may become increasingly common. Amtrak and Greyhound are among the carriers that have canceled certain routes, while public transportation in cities like Madison, New Orleans, and Boston are operating on reduced schedules.

“We’ve seen the barriers that our clients face increase dramatically in size and number,” said Diana Parker, director of strategic partnerships at the Midwest Access Coalition, which provides travel support to those traveling from, to, and within the midwest for abortion care. “Under COVID-19, public transportation is, all too often, the only remaining mechanism that makes abortion access a reality in this country,” Parker explained in an email.

As the New York Times reported last year, research from the University of California, San Francisco shows that more than 11 million women across the country are further than an hour’s drive from the nearest abortion clinic. Travel requirements are among the most onerous barriers to care for people seeking an abortion, and have the potential to exacerbate already existing hurdles. This is especially true for those who are seeking care later in pregnancy, which is only available in a handful of states. Compounding these access issues today is the risk of exposure to COVID-19 as patients travel to and from clinics, hotels, and other shared spaces to receive care.

“Our clients are dealing with untangling the newfound web of clinic pre-screens and restrictions that so often push back personal abortion care timelines while increasing associated costs,” Parker said. “Clients are also dealing with … perhaps more obvious hurdles, such as more complicated travel itineraries, round-the-clock childcare needs, sky-rocketing costs, and an increased sense of isolation.”

Her team’s days, Parker explained, are now full with last-minute pivots thanks to various anti-choice directives and injunctions that come down each day, sometimes multiple times a day. Just last week, Texas’ COVID-19 abortion ban was blocked by a judge on Monday but then reinstated by an appeals court one day later.

Restrictions imposed by COVID-19 have already led to a drop in the number of patients at some clinics nationwide. The Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois, has seen a 10 percent decrease in the number of patients seeking an appointment over the past three weeks. “Show rates” for those who do make an appointment, however, have risen from 50 percent to 85 percent, suggesting pregnant people may be increasingly unsure of their ability to access an abortion in the future. Meanwhile, Karen Duda, coordinator of the Haven Coalition in New York City, reports that requests for help from her organization have gone down “dramatically” in the past two-and-a-half weeks, since the first stay-at-home orders were issued for the state. The organization provides lodging and clinic escort services to people traveling to the city to have an abortion.

Alison Dreith, deputy director of the Hope Clinic, told Rewire.News that she believes in the coming weeks and months, it will “most certainly” become more difficult to provide care for patients outside of her clinic’s community in the greater St. Louis metropolitan area. “We see patients from around the country,” Dreith said. “It was already really difficult to get to us.”

But other practical support providers are facing greater demand for their services amid the ever-changing landscape of the coronavirus pandemic. “Our work has grown and is growing,” said Odile Schalit, executive director of the Brigid Alliance. “The thing about COVID is that it really hits at the heart of practical support work and how critical it is to accessing abortion care … [COVID-19] just asks us to do more of it and under more stress and with greater concern for safety of all different kinds.” The group is also anticipating a rise in the need for later abortion care, as more patients experience a delay in access to services.

Though Parker reports the Midwest Access Coalition has seen its highest-ever client volume in March 2020 alone, the coronavirus has forced the group to suspend its 200-strong volunteer host-and-driver program, exponentially increasing the organization’s operating costs and the level of complexity of case work. “Right now, we’re booking clients expensive hotel stays and ride-shares, and doing our best to stay afloat,” Parker said. 

The Brigid Alliance has lost long-standing relationships with some hotels, but they are either closed or at half-capacity because of COVID-19. “We have fewer options,” Odile said.

But as the country’s transportation infrastructure continues to contract, reaching an accommodation and abortion care is increasingly complicated.

Practical support providers like Odile and Parker are pivoting to rental cars as a favored method of travel, but the shift requires different considerations than securing a ticket on a bus, train, or plane. It’s an option that depends on a litany of privileges, including having a driver’s license. “The majority of our clients either don’t own cars, aren’t old enough to easily rent a car, or don’t have the funds to pay the up-front costs that go along with car rental,” though these costs would later be reimbursed, Parker said.

These questions are not just limited to transportation to and from a city where a clinic is located, but to the clinic itself. Dreith explained that patients, who are often under sedation, don’t necessarily want to use rideshares such as Uber or Lyft, and may be uncomfortable navigating public transport in an unfamiliar place.

“It’s a really concerning time,” said Dreith, referring to the risks faced by practical support organizations and their volunteers. “Not enough conversation is happening around how we transport patients and our volunteer networks that exist around the country.”

Recently, a patient at the Hope Clinic needed a volunteer to transport them from their appointment; one was found on a second try. “That was something that came with a really conscious and heavy heart to even be able to ask someone to do that, knowing the risks that could put people in,” Dreith said

“In a moment like this, we’re all now questioning how we leave our homes. We’re all now questioning the safety of getting on a train or getting in a car or going to the doctor,” Schalit said. “It is an opportune moment right now for those of us with privilege to consider and really feel what for years have been the realities and the barriers and the fears that people trying to access abortion care have faced.”

Source: https://rewire.news/article/2020/04/06/when-the-abortion-clinic-is-open-but-you-have-no-way-to-get-there/

NI Secretary Brandon Lewis said women from the region can continue to travel to England to access terminations despite lockdown.

Strict abortion laws were overturned following a change to the law voted in at Westminster last year (PA)

Stormont’s leaders have clashed over the prospect of allowing women in Northern Ireland access to home abortions during the coronavirus outbreak.

Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill called for the introduction of telemedicine services during the crisis, but First Minister Arlene Foster has reiterated her opposition to “abortion on demand”.

While a new legal framework to allow terminations in the region came into effect at the end of last month, the services have not yet been rolled out.

Women seeking terminations in the interim have been advised to travel to Great Britain.

However, restrictions on travel due to coronavirus have placed the arrangement into difficulty.

I don’t think it’s any secret that I don’t believe that abortion on demand should be available in Northern IrelandArlene Foster

During the Covid-19 emergency, women in the early stages of pregnancy in England, Scotland and Wales are able to secure abortion medication from a doctor through telemedicine services.

Pro-choice campaigners have called for this provision to be introduced in Northern Ireland as well.

Health Minister Robin Swann has responsibility for the issue, but any move to introduce the measure will require the agreement of the wider powersharing executive.

The issue was discussed at a meeting of the Stormont Executive on Monday.

Anti-abortion protesters stage a silent demonstration at Stormont against the liberalisation of abortion laws (Brian Lawless/PA)

Afterwards, Mrs Foster said she would not give a running commentary on the executive’s deliberations. She said a “full discussion” was required.

“The Health minister will bring papers forward and we will have discussions in relation to those papers,” she said.

“But I don’t think it’s any secret that I don’t believe that abortion on demand should be available in Northern Ireland.

“I think it’s a very retrograde step for our society here in Northern Ireland instead of supporting people who find themselves in crisis pregnancies, we’re not even having any discussion around that and how we can support people in those circumstances, how we can provide perinatal care.”

This is about compassionate healthcare, this is about making sure that we have supports here for women who find themselves in a vulnerable situationMichelle O’Neill

Ms O’Neill said the service should be available to Northern Ireland women.

“I support telemedicine,” she said.

“What we’re talking about is compassionate healthcare, modern healthcare for women.

“What we’re talking about is responding to women’s need at the time of global crisis – women shouldn’t be left out in terms of supports that are put in place.

“And so the regulations that have went through Westminster, the legislation that’s went through, needs to be implemented here.

“Obviously this is about compassionate healthcare, this is about making sure that we have supports here for women who find themselves in a vulnerable situation.

“So the health minister has an obligation to put in place those regulations and to put in place the mechanisms in order to make sure those supports are there for women as has been legislated for.”

There has been anger among the pro-choice lobby that the Stormont Executive has not yet set up termination services.

Alliance for Choice expressed frustration and claimed Stormont is “blocking” abortion services.

Naomi Connor, Alliance for Choice co-convenor in Belfast, said: “The World Health Organisation notes that abortion is essential healthcare in a pandemic, and yet the Northern Ireland Office and the Department of Health in NI have found it acceptable to do absolutely nothing, except to release videos extolling travel to England for treatment, when the reality of clinic accessibility is limited to an eight-hour each-way freight ferry with no companions and only for those who are not quarantined or self-isolating.”

Earlier Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said travel is currently appropriate for medical needs.

“Travel should only be for essential travel, one of those key points is a medical need or the need to provide medical care and support to other people. So if there is a medical need for someone to travel, that is something that is appropriate within the guidelines,” he told the BBC.

Source: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/foster-and-oneill-clash-over-prospect-of-ni-telemedicine-abortions-39105889.html?fbclid=IwAR2x2LoPkZma4Q91jeP9An4NBDIZ6m0USG1CiYZFhNAAuDbZa7s63CXPsbg

It’s already apparent a small minority of zealots will do everything they can to use the coronavirus crisis to eradicate the right to an abortion

An abortion rights activist holds a sign outside of the US supreme court in Washington DC. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Texas says abortion not essential, church services are

Coronavirus is an unprecedented public health crisis. But, for some Republicans, it’s also a political opportunity: anti-abortion activists are ruthlessly using the pandemic as an excuse to crack down on reproductive rights. Six conservative states – Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas – have categorized abortions as non-essential, except in very limited cases, effectively banning access to the procedure during the pandemic.

Federal judges have stopped the bans from going into effect in most of these states. However, on Tuesday an appeals court ruled that Texas could reinstate its abortion ban. On the same day women were told that their reproductive rights were considered dispensable, Texas’s Governor Greg Abbott declared that religious services were “essential” and in-person gatherings could continue during the pandemic. This is despite the fact that there have been multiple cases of coronavirus spreading in places of worship, with people dying as a result.

Getting an abortion in Texas wasn’t exactly easy before Covid-19; the state has 21 clinics for 6 million women of reproductive age. But now desperate women are going to be forced to put themselves in danger by traveling long distances to get care in neighboring states. According to the Guttmacher Institute the Texas ban has increased one-way distances to an abortion clinic from 12 miles to 243 miles; that’s an increase of almost 2,000%. As is the case with all restrictions on abortion, the burden will fall disproportionately on low-income women without the resources to travel.

It is also likely that the Texas abortion ban will result in more women attempting dangerous DIY procedures. According to a recent study women in Texas are already three times more likely to try to end their pregnancy on their own than women in other states.

There is nothing pro-life about exploiting an emergency to further a political agenda. There’s nothing pro-life about forcing women to give birth during a pandemic. There’s nothing pro-life women having to put themselves in danger to get the help they need, and the services the constitution is supposed to protect. But, as has always been clear, anti-abortion fanatics don’t care about “life”, they care about control.

The Texas abortion ban is supposed to be temporary. But our civil liberties are most fragile during times of fear and crisis; rights that are lost are not easily won back. It’s not just our physical health that we need to worry about during this pandemic; it’s the health of our democracy. As is already apparent, a small minority of zealots will do everything they can to use this crisis to eradicate the right to an abortion in America.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/04/abortion-restrictions-coronavirus-pandemic-nothing-pro-life

Republicans have stacked the federal courts with ideologues willing to entrain any bad faith argument designed to overturn Roe—even the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ultimately, what is so dangerous about the COVID-19 fight and abortion is that like the virus itself: It has happened in this country at exactly the worst time. Shutterstock

It turns out conservative lawmakers didn’t need a U.S. Supreme Court stacked with conservative justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. A global health pandemic might do the trick. 

That’s the picture emerging from the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in the fight over Texas’ attempt to ban legal abortion during the COVID-19 outbreak. In a brief filed Wednesday night, attorneys for the state argued that abortion providers are looking for “special treatment” by challenging the declaration by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and indicted Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) that abortion is not an “essential” medical service and therefore would be suspending along with other “elective” medical procedures as part of the states virus mitigation efforts.

They accuse abortion providers of failing to adequately protect staff and patients and invited the Fifth Circuit judges to use this case to expand the power of states to ban abortion outright. 

“The Supreme Court in Roe considered only whether the States’ interest in fetal life was sufficient to justify a complete ban on elective previability abortions,” Texas argues in its brief. “It did not consider the possible impact of a public-health crisis.”

That question—whether states can use a public health crisis to ban abortion, and if so, for how long— has emerged as the most dire threat to Roe v. Wade yet. Not surprisingly, Republican state attorneys general are lining up behind Texas to claim they too can use the worst public health crisis in a century to eradicate legal abortion.

“Neither Roe nor any post-Roe abortion cases evaluates risk to women and the public at large posed by providers seeking to be categorically exempt from life-saving measures that are required to respond to a growing epidemic,” Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) argues in an amicus brief in support of the Texas ban. “To the extent they do apply, the balance of interests is firmly on the side of the States.”

The ways in which the states work together to advocate for Texas’ ban before the conservative judges of the Fifth Circuit are important. Paxton takes the firm line of arguing for raw state power here—both to ban abortion and to be insulated from judicial review in its decision to do so. That frees up Landry to appeal to discuss all the other difficult decisions states face in managing the COVID-19 outbreak.

“In the COVID-19 crisis, governors are making extremely difficult choices, with far-reaching consequence,” the amicus brief states. 

Closing schools burdens parents who have to stay home with their children and experience lost leave time, income, and potentially their jobs. Graduations, bar exams, and criminal trials are on hold. Medical testing, housing, and treatment of individual in prisons, nursing homes, juvenile facilities, and foster homes must be considered. Some cities will receive floating Navy hospitals and in New Orleans, a field hospital is being set up in a convention center to address the expected shortage of hospital beds. At the same time, state first responders are becoming ill. The shutdown of businesses leads to unemployment. The homeless must be evaluated, housed, tested, and treated. School lunches must be distributed so school children can eat.

Louisiana identifies a lot of difficult decisions for states to navigate in responding to COVID-19. None of these difficult decisions Paxton or Abbott have made, by the way—Texas remains one of a handful of states without a stay-at-home order as part of its response to the COVID-19 outbreak. 

If conservative lawmakers were really concerned with effectively addressing the worst public health crisis this country has faced in at least a generation, they would drop this latest attack on abortion rights, they would rescind the legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) pending before the Supreme Court, and they would ease the myriad of barriers already in place for accessing abortion care.

Instead, Republicans are doing what they always do: exploiting a moment of crisis for political gain. Louisiana’s brief opens by citing the possibility of 2 million people dying in this country from COVID-19 without a hint of irony. There’s no mention of the Mardi Gras festivities that continued in the face of the spreading threat. There’s not a word of the ongoing conservative attacks on the ACA and exacerbating the effect those attacks have on the public health crisis. 

Ultimately, what is so dangerous about the COVID-19 fight and abortion is that like the virus itself: It has happened in this country at exactly the worst time. Republicans have spent the past three years stacking the federal courts with ideologues willing to entrain any bad faith argument designed to overturn Roe. And conservatives have found a whole new crop of bad faith arguments in the COVID-19 pandemic to do so. 

Source: https://rewire.news/article/2020/04/03/covid-19-could-bring-the-end-of-roe-v-wade/