Abortion – Abortion Clinics, Abortion Pill, Abortion Information

Abortion. Almost everyone has strong feelings about it. No matter what your beliefs are, it’s important to know the facts. Here’s everything you need to know about the different types of abortion, along with important resources.

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• About 862,320 abortions were performed in the United States in 2017.
• The ratio of abortions to live births was 186 to 1,000 in 2016.
• 1 in 4 women will have an abortion before they’re 45, according to 2014 statistics.
• In 2014, 51 percent of women who had abortions had used a form of birth control. The most common birth method was condoms, at 24 percent. Accidents happen.

Movement restrictions and school lockdowns make it harder for girls to access sexual health care.

Over a period of three months in lockdown due to COVID-19, 152,000 Kenyan teenage girls became pregnant — a 40% increase in the country’s monthly average. These numbers, from early July, are some of the earliest pieces of evidence linking the COVID-19 pandemic to unintended pregnancies.

Public health officials and women’s rights advocates worry that the ongoing pandemic is delaying an adequate response to a growing sexual reproductive health crisis.

One survey conducted by the Kenya Health Information System found that 3,964 girls under the age of 19 were pregnant in Machakos County alone.

And new data from the International Rescue Committee found that girls living in refugee camps have been particularly affected.

While only eight cases of teenage pregnancy were reported in June 2019 at Kakuma refugee camp in the northwest of the country, 62 pregnancies were recorded in June 2020. At Dadaab refugee camp, there was a 28% increase in reported teenage pregnancies during the April-June period, compared to the same period last year.

When Kenya introduced strict preventive measures to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus in April — including restricting movement and closing schools — accessing sexual and reproductive health services became much harder.

Dr. Manisha Kumar, head of the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) task force on safe abortion care, recently spoke about how the pandemic is affecting sexual reproductive health during an online press conference.

“During the pandemic, a lot of resources got pulled away from a lot of routine services and care, and those services were redirected to coronavirus response,” Kumar said.

Because hospitals and health care facilities are focusing primarily on the threat posed by COVID-19, there are often not enough resources or personnel to continue to offer reproductive health care.

“The collateral damage of taking that kind of approach is when we shut down these routine services, we saw an increase in maternal and child death, from preventative causes,” Kumar said.

In April, the United Nations Population Fund warned that lockdown-related disruptions could leave 47 million women in low- and middle-income countries without modern contraceptives, resulting in 7 million additional unintended pregnancies.

The World Health Organization reports that complications during pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death for 15- to 19-year-old girls and women globally — 99% of those deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Further, teenagers who give birth often face higher rates of poverty and domestic violence later in life due to misogynistic cultural norms and threadbare social safety nets.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an especially dangerous time for teenage pregnancies because of the growing economic, hunger, and health crises worldwide.

“It is alarming that so many teenage girls have fallen pregnant during lockdown, which can have lifelong consequences for them,” Kate Maina-Vorley, Plan International Kenya’s country director, said in a statement.

Plan International is now calling on governments around the world to incorporate sexual health planning as a part of COVID-19 response plans.

The organization is also exploring new ways to distribute sexual and reproductive health education online through social media and via telehealth platforms amid the pandemic.

Source: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/rise-in-teenage-pregnancies-during-kenya-lockdown/

On July 29, a filibuster stopped an abortion bill that would outlaw a common second-trimester abortion procedure. Supporters will need a 33-vote super-majority of support to overcome the filibuster at a later date or the bill will effectively die. (Getty Images){/p}

LINCOLN, Neb. — A proposal to outlaw a common second-trimester abortion procedure has hit a snag in the Nebraska Legislature, leaving its prospects unclear.

Opponents used a filibuster to keep the measure from coming to a vote Wednesday after the allotted three hours of debate.

Supporters now have to show that they have a 33-vote super-majority of support necessary to overcome the filibuster at a later date.

If they don’t, the bill will effectively die this session.

The measure appears to have support from a majority of the Legislature’s 49 senators.

The abortion bill would ban dilation and evacuation abortions.

Source: https://fox42kptm.com/news/local/proposed-abortion-restrictions-hit-snag-in-nebraska?fbclid=IwAR0jTx8Bnoy0_39crRtO_NkQBSrhe0fZXi3GBlGVR-Kz8fVMDBaBj3EPuBs

Democrats couldn’t bring themselves to say “abortion” or talk about the federal courts during their convention this week.

It’s not just disappointing that Democrats failed to highlight abortion rights, the federal courts, and how the two go together. It’s political malpractice.
Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

Political conventions are strange beasts. They are spaces where intraparty wrangling for influence among elected officials gets broadcast alongside entertainers and activists tasked with appealing to both progressives and centrists.

That sounds miserable, honestly.

But the people who love conventions really love conventions, and while I don’t share that enthusiasm, I will give the Democrats credit for pulling off a solid convention this week.

The COVID-19 pandemic upended the Democratic National Convention, as it has upended just about everything in this country, and the Democrats responded by taking their convention virtual. It worked, and they should never go back.

I had braced for a webinar, but the organizers pulled off an often engaging, sometimes weird, and frequently earnest show. Former first lady Michelle Obama’s speech was intimate and conveyed the urgency of this election. That sentiment would have been lost in a convention hall broadcast, no matter how tightly the camera cropped on her face.

Democrats’ insistent and exhausting appeal to bipartisanship produced a weird moment where the rabidly anti-choice former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) was perhaps staged to look like he was standing at the crossroads … of a crotch? Who’s to say? It was weird, and, also, Democrats don’t need to give a platform to politicians committed to attacking Democrats. However. Democrats should always and forever do the roll call of states like this. What a beautiful homage to the diversity and dorkiness in this country! It was the DNC’s version of Walt Disney’s “It’s a Small World,” and they crushed it

And that’s what makes their failure to feature abortion rights and the federal courts—hell, to even mention them in more than a passing fashion—such a disappointment. They were making some magic out of this pandemic convention and whiffed it here.

Did the Democrats talk about health care? A whole bunch!

But did the Democrats talk about the pending Supreme Court case where down-ballot Republican senators and President Donald Trump have asked the Court to take away health insurance for tens of millions of people in the middle of a pandemic? Did the Democrats mention abortion in the list of political attacks on health care? Not so much.

On the one hand, the Democrats are just bad at this stuff. Even though abortion is a winning issue for voters, they just won’t say the word when mic’d.

That will not be the case Monday when the Republican convention starts. New York archbishop and abortion foe Cardinal Timothy Dolan will open the Republican convention with a prayer, while anti-choice activist Abby Johnson and Nicholas Sandmann are slated to speak. When he was in high school, Sandmann got into an altercation with Native American elder Nathan Phillips at the Lincoln Memorial while on a trip with his classmates for the 2019 March for Life. That dude. The Republicans are bringing in THAT DUDE to speak because abortion.

For a brief moment, it looked like Democrats had gotten the message, too. At the 2016 convention, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue shared her abortion story in a convention room filled with energized supporters who understood that a Trump presidency would mean a direct attack on legal abortion. They were right! So why did Democrats stay basically silent on the issue of abortion this week?

It’s not just disappointing that Democrats failed to highlight abortion rights, the federal courts, and how the two go together. It’s political malpractice.

As nominee for vice president, Democrats have Kamala Harris, who has both a strong record on abortion rights and the ability to connect the dots for voters on abortion and the courts. Remember this exchange with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018? Abortion saw its only real mention at the convention during her acceptance speech Wednesday night. Where were the rest of the Democrats on this issue?

Exit polling from the 2016 election showed many conservatives voted for Trump because of the federal courts, identifying the Supreme Court as the “most important factor” in determining who would get their vote. And Trump has responded accordingly, moving at lightning speed to nominate over 200 federal judges and all but completely capturing the courts for conservatives for a generation.

These are not your father’s conservative judges, either. Trump judges are younger, less experienced, and more radical and regressive than their predecessors. They are ideologues and activists, and if Democrats win the presidency in November, and especially if Democrats take back the Senate as well, we can expect those Trump appointees to do their damndest not just to gum up a Biden-Harris political agenda, but to also stan for conservatives on every culture war issue that lands before them. Abortion. LGBTQ rights. Voting rights. Immigration. The list continues.

We can and should expect these Trump judges to do everything they can to stymie progress and actually push this country back. These judges won’t say that Brown v. Board of Education, the case that ruled racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, was rightly decided. Do we really think they’ll hold law enforcement officers accountable for killing Black folks or rule in favor of voting rights?

And as soon as Republicans started worrying about the outcome of the 2020 election, what happened? They started talking about abortion and the federal courts.

Professor Melissa Murray points out that the Democrats’ failure to prioritize reforming the federal courts could doom any electoral successes they may eventually come by in November. She’s right.

“Speeches about courts may not make for good television (though you don’t know until you try). But the courts may determine the fate of the issues at the heart and soul of the Democratic Party,” Murray wrote for the Washington Post.

Democrats ended up pulling off a convention full of digital content—some of it really good!—even if that wasn’t their original plan. By necessity they ended up with oodles of material that can be sliced and diced for ads in what will undoubtedly be the electoral push of a lifetime for many of us. Imagine if had Democrats had also managed to weave abortion into a list of the critical health-care services under assault by Republicans and the Trump administration. Imagine if they had taken that first step from 2016 of saying abortion on the convention stage and run with it, making the case for reproductive autonomy and freedom that is so central to their entire platform.

Imagine how far that could go in further reducing the stigma around abortion that results in laws like “abortion reversal” legislation. “Abortion reversal” is all the rage with anti-choice activists because it enshrines junk science that claims to be able to interrupt or “reverse” a medication abortion and perpetuates the dangerous and largely made-up “abortion regret syndrome.” Abortion regret syndrome is not a real thing. Former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy made it up in 2007 to justify upholding an otherwise unconstitutional abortion ban in Gonzales v. Carhart. Imagine if Democrats had used some of their time this week to tie abortion to the federal courts in any meaningful way.

The issue of abortion, the reality of abortion, extends well beyond the courts. Imagine if Democrats had told the story of Louisiana, where a big abortion rights win at the Supreme Court didn’t really change much. Imagine if Democrats had zoomed in on Black maternal mortality rates in the state, an issue Harris has spoken about in her career. Imagine if they talked about the Republican politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic to restrict abortion access, as the country reaches 200,000 deaths from the virus. Or the fact that Louisiana’s minimum wage remains at the federal floor of $7.25 an hour—for those fortunate enough to still have a job right now.

Maybe speeches about courts would make terrible television. Even so, Democrats have a compelling and winning story to tell on abortion, and one that reflects the reality of where abortion lands in people’s lives—at the intersection of all their identities. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s rallying cry that child care is “infrastructure for families” belongs in the same breath as a rallying cry for abortion access, just as speeches about the critical importance of the Affordable Care Act need to explain to voters the decades-long campaign by Republicans to repeal it in the courts because they didn’t have the spine—or the vote—to repeal it in public.

Conventions are the spaces where policy meets the public, and for all the wins this week, Democrats missed a critical opportunity to make their case to voters that abortion is health care and the federal courts matter. I doubt Republicans will make the same mistake next week.

Source: https://rewire.news/article/2020/08/21/democrats-love-abortion-and-care-about-the-courts-or-so-im-told/

She and Biden have clashed on the subject.

Joe Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris as his VP pick means that Harris could be the first female and first Black vice president—and that alone should inspire you to vote this November. The California senator, who was running in the Democratic presidential race before dropping out in December and being tapped by Biden as his VP, has long been vocal about many key issues, including abortion and women’s reproductive health care.

Abortion has been a hot-button issue in this country for what feels like forever, and everyone has opinions on it—but you might be wondering where Harris stands on the subject. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Harris wants to repeal the Hyde Amendment.

Along with numerous other Democrats, Harris has pushed to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which blocks federal Medicaid funding for abortion services unless the person’s continued pregnancy will put their life in danger or the baby is the product of rape or incest.

During a July 2019 debate, Harris challenged Biden on his record on the Hyde Amendment. The presidential nominee, known for backing the amendment, suddenly changed his mind in June.

“You made a decision for years to withhold resources to poor women to reproductive health care, including women who were the victims of rape and incest,” said Harris to Biden. “Do you now say that you have evolved, and you regret that?”

The decades-old ban affects people with low incomes, people of color, young people, immigrants, and anyone else who relies on Medicaid for healthcare coverage. To put it into perspective, Medicaid provides coverage to 1 in 5 women between the ages of 15-44.

(You can go to allaboveall.org to learn how you can take action, btw.)

Major pro-choice organizations are backing Harris.

Kamala Harris speaking during the 2011 NARAL Pro-Choice America’s luncheon. Kris ConnorGetty Images

While in the U.S. Senate, Harris maintained a 100 percent rating from the reproductive rights group NARAL. According to NARAL’s website, they highly rate “candidates who make women’s health care, including abortion access, a priority.”

Harris has also received support from Emily’s List, an organization dedicated to getting pro-choice women elected to office. Its president, Stephanie Schriock, even made a statement when Harris’ ended her campaign for president, saying:

“Kamala Harris is a fighter for the people, and she carried that grit throughout her presidential campaign. Her historic presence in the race—as one of the few women of color to run for president in history—brought a critical perspective and voice to conversations about America’s future.”

Harris co-sponsored the Women’s Health Protection Act.

Harris has continued to be vocal about the Women’s Health Protection Act, which is similar to the Voting Rights Act but geared towards abortion access. If the Act passed, states would have to get pre-clearance from the federal government before implementing more abortion-based restrictions in their states and counties.

In May 2019, Harris spoke about the act at town hall event, saying, “Are we going to go back to the days of back-alley abortions? Women died before we had Roe v. Wade in place. On this issue, I’m kind of done.”

If passed, the act could stop legislation like the “fetal heartbeat” bill, which bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected. (Tennessee lawmakers passed their version of this in June.) Sometimes, a heartbeat can be detected as early as six weeks into a pregnancy—before many people know they’re pregnant.

Forty-three other senators currently co-sponsor the Women’s Health Protection Act.

Source: https://www.marieclaire.com/politics/a33623181/kamala-harris-stance-on-abortion/?fbclid=IwAR1QNYkcnwnkPRUKVkU7LZD6AKk3_wHHb0y829gBm9hLI_WpF0X8FDlEWUc

Ten-year-old girl was forced to fly more than 900 miles to north-eastern city of Recife for the procedure after being raped

A man walks in front of a graffiti of pregnancy on an overpass in Recife, Brazil, 4 February 2016. The graffiti reads, ‘We all have a right to live’. Photograph: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

Scores of Brazilian women have taken to the streets to protect a 10-year-old child who was being persecuted by religious extremists for trying to legally undergo an abortion after being raped, allegedly by her uncle.

The girl, from São Mateus, a small town in the south-eastern state of Espírito Santo, was admitted to hospital on 7 August complaining of abdominal pain and doctors confirmed she was pregnant.

The child told police she had been abused by her uncle since age six and had stayed silent out of fear. The 33-year-old man is reportedly on the run.

Brazil’s highly restrictive abortion laws – largely written in 1940 – permit terminations in cases of rape, when the mother’s life is at risk and when the birth defect anencephaly is detected.

Yet despite this, the child was forced to fly more than 900 miles to the north-eastern city of Recife for the procedure, following a highly politicized legal battle which saw one hospital in the girl’s home state refuse to treat her.

When the girl reached the hospital where the termination was to be performed on Sunday afternoon, its entrance had been occupied by far-right anti-abortion activists and politicians who were filmed hurling abuse at hospital staff and the child, and trying to stop them entering.

“When you see a 10-year-old girl being criminalized for terminating a pregnancy resulting from rape and because her life is in danger, it really gives you a sense of how religious fundamentalism is advancing in our country,” said Elisa Aníbal, a Recife-based feminist campaigner.

The activists appear to have discovered the hospital’s location, which was kept secret for security reasons, from a hardcore supporter of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.

In an online video, which was later deleted but the Guardian has seen, the pro-Bolsonaro extremist Sara Giromini names the girl and falsely claims authorities had kidnapped her and chartered a private jet to transport her to the termination.

“This is an extremely serious human rights violation!” claims Giromini, brandishing a plastic doll she alleged was the size of the fetus.

It’s just unbelievable this is happening in Brazil, that part of the population really believes abortion is worse than rape

Until last year Giromini worked for Bolsonaro’s minister for women, family and human rights, a conservative evangelical pastor called Damares Alves. The two women appear together in a widely circulated campaign video in which Alves boasts: “Sara is more than my comrade in this struggle to defend life and the family – Sara is like my daughter.”

Paula Viana, a pro-choice activist who escorted the girl from Recife’s airport to the hospital, said she had been warned anti-abortion activists lay in wait as they drove there in a taxi. They stopped the car, hid the girl in its boot and smuggled her into the building through a side-door.

“It’s just unbelievable this is happening in Brazil, that part of the population really believes abortion is worse than rape,” said Viana from the women’s rights group Curumim. “But we weren’t surprised because we know we have a president who is supportive of these shows of hatred.”

As word of the anti-abortion ambush spread among Recife’s feminist community, activists flocked to the hospital to defend the girl’s right to a termination she had requested.

“We realized we needed reinforcements,” said Aníbal, from the Fórum de Mulheres de Pernambuco group, who summoned supporters on social media.

“By the end of the day there were more than 150 people there supporting that girl … women, trans people, black people, young people … and when we looked at the other group they were mostly old white men in suits, with just few women among them.”

Footage that went viral on social media showed the women challenging the fanatics with a call-and-response battle cry that recalled the Chilean anti-rape anthem A Rapist in Your Path.

“This child fell pregnant after being raped and these fundamentalists are here to say that her life doesn’t matter,” the women chanted. “We’re here to say that our lives do matter.”

Debora Diniz, a reproductive rights campaigner who has championed the girl’s cause, said she had been moved by the “beautiful” rally.

Diniz, who lives in exile because of death threats, called Sunday’s standoff the perfect portrait of Bolsonaro’s Brazil: a “hurricane of hatred” colliding with determined, non-violent feminist resistance.

Gabriela Rondon, a lawyer from the pro-choice group Anis, said the extremists’ widely condemned behaviour had inadvertently boosted the debate about decriminalizing and legalizing abortion.

“Brazil’s laws are clearly inadequate and put millions of women at risk. According to our figures half a million women must subject themselves to illegal abortions each year,” Rondon said. “That’s almost one woman per minute.”

Despite the horrific circumstances, Rondon said Sunday’s demonstration “brought us real encouragement”. “A crowd of women protecting a young girl – it gives us such great hope of change.”

Viana said the girl had said she was desperate to get back to playing football. “She is very strong – but she is just a child … She will need long-term psychological support. She understands everything that she is going through.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/17/brazil-protest-abortion-recife-hospital?fbclid=IwAR3cejGEwbCNtzN_cP3-FfazfjRt1lYFsX6SsPDpy2z9Y-rmpYHWRe1Scm0

We must ensure that each of us has quality health care, encompassing the full range of reproductive health-care options, including abortion.

We are people of faith and we are pro-choice.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Image

As leaders of organizations that represent countless people of faith across the nation, we want to set the record straight: We are people of faith and we are pro-choice. We believe in the dignity and worth of all people, and that belief drives our commitment to ensuring universal access to affordable health-care coverage, including coverage for abortion care.

Recently, Democrats for Life, an anti-abortion group claiming to represent the faith community, sent a letter from 100 Christian pastors and theologians to the Democratic National Committee urging the party to rescind its support for ending the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, and life endangerment.

But Democrats for Life doesn’t represent the faith community. Many people of faith support access to abortion and oppose the Hyde Amendment and its restrictions, which further enshrine systemic racism and strip the poor of access to abortion. Policies that deny abortion coverage to individuals based on their income level or the type of health insurance they have contradict shared core values and principles of our faiths. Supporting this injustice goes against everything clergy of all faiths should represent.

That’s why we are calling on Congress to pass the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH Woman) Act. This bill, if enacted, would eliminate abortion coverage bans in federal health insurance programs and prohibit local, state, and federal political interference in the decisions of private health insurers to offer abortion coverage.

People in the United States are facing severe economic duress compounded by a growing health-care crisis and firmly institutionalized racism; we cannot afford to further wrong the most vulnerable. Inflicting further injury on those whom our traditions are called to support is morally bankrupt. As people of faith, we believe in the inherent dignity and equal worth of all people. We are, therefore, called to treat all individuals with respect, no matter their income, insurance, gender, race, or other factors.

We also believe in the power of compassion to build a just and fair society. Our nation is at its best when our laws match our compassion. A compassionate nation ensures that every single person can access quality, timely medical care from trusted providers when they seek abortion care—regardless of how much they earn or where they live. Because of our faith traditions, consciences, and deep respect for an individual’s moral agency, we support policies grounded in compassion that protect each person’s right to health and foster their safety and well-being irrespective of income.

Those with means will always be able to secure the reproductive health care they want and need, and low-income people should be able to as well. We must ensure that each of us has quality health care, encompassing the full range of reproductive health-care options, including abortion.

It is long past time for our elected officials to eliminate the Hyde Amendment and all bans that interfere with people receiving the care they need. In addition, we cannot permit organizations like Democrats for Life to erase the many people of faith who support ending restrictions on federal funding for abortion. It is wrong for a few religious leaders representing an outlying ideological position to hamper the just and moral reasoning that eliminated the repressive Hyde Amendment from the Democratic Party platform in the first place.

A hundred pastors should not determine the direction of abortion policy in the nation, any more than a few hundred Catholic bishops should. Neither represents the millions of people of faith who are tired of having their religion weaponized to deny others health care. No person of faith can claim to speak for people of all faith. The National Council of Jewish Women, for example, has a network of nearly 1,000 rabbis who have committed to using their platforms to advance reproductive freedom, but they do not claim to speak for all people of faith or attempt to impose their views on the entire country.

Religious freedom is an essential shared principle undergirding our support of policies that ensure equitable access to abortion. The United States is home to people of many different faiths as well as people with no religious affiliation. We cannot limit an individual’s religious liberty by enshrining one set of beliefs into law and restricting their ability to make personal decisions about their pregnancy, health, and family according to their own religious or moral beliefs and conscience. No government committed to human rights and democracy can privilege one religion over another.

Today, we are coming together to say not in our name. Eschewing insurance coverage bans is a moral good. No one should be denied an abortion because of where they live or how much they earn.

We urge Democrats to stand firm on their platform and to encourage all members of Congress to support and pass the EACH Woman Act.

Source: https://rewire.news/article/2020/08/17/denying-abortion-coverage-is-not-a-religious-value/

The last thing we need right now are alarmist headlines suggesting contraceptives and COVID-19 are a deadly combo.

Are people who are pregnant or taking estrogen at a higher risk of getting a blood clot if they get sick with COVID-19?
Shutterstock

Between articles about political misdeeds, murder hornets, and mystery seeds, I came across this headline recently: “How being on the Pill could increase your risk of dying from coronavirus, docs warn.”

The tabloid newspaper’s story—which also included subheadings like “Deadly DVT” and frightening graphics about COVID-19’s spread—seemed to suggest a new study had found an increased risk of blood clots in women on birth control who contract the virus. Its alarmist tone and tidy conclusions (increased risk + increased risk = imminent death) raised red flags.

The story, and other more tempered versions, were based on a commentary published in the journal Endocrinology.

In it, Dr. Daniel Spratt and Dr. Rachel Buchsbaum note the “troublesome frequency” of blood clots and venous thromboembolic events (VTEs) in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. They then point to volumes of research showing that both pregnancy and medications that contain estrogen—including combined oral contraceptive pills, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to reduce menopause symptoms, and oral estrogen taken as part of gender affirming care—can also raise a person’s risk of blood clots, VTEs, and stroke.

The authors ask the obvious question: Are people who are pregnant or taking estrogen at a higher risk of getting a blood clot if they get sick with COVID-19? The commentary does not claim to answer this question.

The news stories were wrong to call Spratt and Buchsbaum’s commentary a study. It wasn’t one. There were no patients, no control groups, no observations. In fact, the authors state quite clearly, “no reports of increased incidence of VTEs in pregnant women or women taking estrogen preparations who also have COVID-19 have emerged.” So why publish this at all?

I spoke to Dr. Spratt, who said the purpose of the commentary was to guide clinicians and prompt future research. He said there are some things clinicians can do now to help lower the risk of blood clots such as using anticoagulation drugs recommended for all patients, especially pregnant patients, hospitalized with COVID-19. Spratt said people taking estrogen should make sure to tell their health-care provider about their medication if they test positive for COVID-19 and develop symptoms. By no means, however, does he think everyone should put their pill packets in a drawer until the pandemic passes.

“Certainly we do not want to take our commentary and have everyone going off birth control or HRT,” Spratt said.

The commentary was also meant to direct future research on this issue so that we can learn more about how and why COVID-19 increases risk of blood clots, and perhaps prevent bad outcomes.

I worry, however, that the scary headlines play into a growing narrative of danger and risk that has been undermining the birth control pill for years.

Some of this may inadvertently come from health-care providers and sex educators like me who sing the praises of long-acting reversible contraceptive (LARC) methods such as intrauterine devices (IUDs) and implants. We elevate these methods because they work for three to ten years without the user having to give them a second thought; getting rid of user error means fewer unintended pregnancies. This enthusiasm may be misinterpreted as experts being against birth control pills. We’re not.

The anti-pill movement appears to have some roots in society’s ongoing quest for a form of “wellness” that idealizes an all-natural life free of nitrates, nitrites, dairy, gluten, preservatives, or any other chemical enemy du jour. As someone who lives in a gluten-free house, I know these can be legitimate health and lifestyle choices. But hormonal contraceptives have gotten caught in an extreme version of this rhetoric, and too often the arguments against the pill are based on anecdotal evidence and pseudoscience.

Interestingly, as I was writing this, another headline came across my feed suggesting the pill might protect against COVID-19. A “preprint” study—that’s a scientific manuscript that hasn’t yet undergone peer review—out of King’s College London looked into estrogen’s effect on the disease and found fewer presumptive positive cases of COVID-19 and fewer hospitalizations among premenopausal people taking combined oral contraceptives. When I forwarded the link to Spratt, he said there’s not enough evidence to make any conclusions yet.

“It is possible that being on estrogen or being pregnant may make you less likely to contract COVID-19 but also that being on estrogen or being pregnant may make you more likely to get a blood clot if you do develop COVID-19,” he said.

New findings and theories about COVID-19 will come out daily, and they will contradict each other. It may be years before the science is settled. For now, remember to read past the headlines with a healthy level of skepticism. Access to all methods of contraception is vital, especially during a global pandemic and unprecedented economic downturn when people need to be able to make their own choices about whether and when to have children. As Rewire.News reported, political forces won’t stop trying to get in between people and their birth control. The last thing we need right now are alarmist headlines suggesting contraceptives and COVID-19 are a deadly combo.

Source: https://rewire.news/article/2020/08/14/fearmongering-headlines-about-covid-19-and-birth-control-dont-tell-the-whole-story/

Protecting reproductive freedom is a winning issue with the American public. So why are we in the midst of an all-out assault on it?

Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

In late March, Texas temporarily banned abortion, using the coronavirus pandemic as a thin excuse. The decision caused intense confusion and distress among doctors and patients when it was announced, in a state where safe and legal abortion is already essentially inaccessible for so many. Now we have a fuller picture of the damage done by the one month in which abortions were outlawed in the state, and it is terrifying.

Texas governor Greg Abbott signed the emergency order calling for a halt to abortion procedures on March 22, arguing that it was a “medically unnecessary procedure” and thus had to be put on hold while the pandemic raged. (This made Texas the second state to attempt to do so; four others would follow.) The ban came with no exceptions, save for a threat to the life of the mother, and threatened any provider who didn’t comply with fines and jail time. Clinics were forced to suddenly turn away patients with urgent appointments. It made already stringent time constraints around abortion in Texas, only legal up to 20 weeks, even more stressful and harrowing. After a prolonged legal battle, clinics were allowed to resume abortions exactly a month after the ban began, on April 22.

NBC News reveals that as soon as the ban was lifted, clinics immediately saw an influx of patients seeking abortions later in their pregnancies because they had been forced to wait for care. Southwestern Women’s Surgery Center in Dallas reported a 57 percent jump in second-trimester abortions in the month after April 22; at Planned Parenthood Center for Choice in Houston, there was a 28 percent increase in abortions after ten weeks, with 51 weekly patients after the ban compared to about 40 patients per week before; Whole Woman’s Health in Austin saw the number of surgical abortions nearly double in the three weeks after it was able to resume operations.

Many of the patients, clinics said, had intended to receive a nonsurgical medication abortion, allowed only in the first ten weeks of pregnancy in the state, and missed the opportunity. “At the first visit, folks had expressed wanting to do a medication abortion, but then so many people weren’t able to come back for several weeks, which put them out of the window when they would have been able to access that care,” Dr. Bhavik Kumar, a medical director at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, told NBC. “We were ready, capable, and able to do what we needed to do to take care of our patients, but we legally weren’t able to do that.”

Surgical abortion is an overwhelmingly safe and relatively minor procedure, but it gets more dangerous the later it occurs during pregnancy. In addition to putting patients’ physical health at risk by delaying procedures, the significant uptick in later abortions also indicates emotional and psychological costs. “The idea of having an in-clinic procedure was more daunting for them than having a medication abortion in the safety of their home with their partner,” said one clinic director of her patients. A 21-year-old who had to travel to New Mexico for her abortion because she couldn’t wait said she “felt like I was being punished in some way for getting pregnant … I felt like I was on an emotional and physical roller coaster.” And the data doesn’t even show how many patients who attempted unsafe, illegal at-home abortions, or who endured forced childbirth because they could not afford to travel for care.

In a statement sent to the Cut, Planned Parenthood said that Abbott “exploited the pandemic and inserted politics into personal medical decisions by temporarily banning abortion in his state.” What resulted is a sobering glimpse into the post-Roe America GOP legislators want to usher in by chipping away at access wherever they can. It’s horrifying to imagine the effects of just one month of total loss of abortion care in one state magnified across more places, and for longer periods of time.

Source: https://www.thecut.com/2020/08/the-devastating-impact-of-the-covid-abortion-ban-in-texas.html