Abortion in the news

15 March 2024

Mar 15, 2024

The U.S. Presidential election in November 2024 will have a major impact on the U.S. and the world. As noted previously, the major impact will be whether we choose democracy or dictatorship for our future.

A second major impact is who decides the choices that women and girls will have regarding their health: the women and girls themselves or religious zealots and politicians.

Here are four news items regarding this issue:

Vice President Kamala Harris recently walked through a Minnesota Planned Parenthood clinic:

"Many of you have asked why I am here at this facility, and I will tell you it is because right now in our country we are facing a very serious health crisis," Harris said. "And the crisis is affecting many, many people in our country, most of whom are frankly silently suffering after the United States Supreme Court took a constitutional right that had been recognized from the people of America, from the women of America." ABC News

“How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need and what is in their best interest? We have to be a nation that trusts women,” Harris said. NBC News.

“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling women what to do with their bodies,” Harris said. News From The States

In Tennessee, The Atlantic had an interview with Sarah Osmundson, M.D., maternal-fetal medicine physician, who sits on a Tennessee hospital’s abortion committee, which decides when a patient is close enough to death to be able to legally access care.

“I actually, in sort of joking one time when our hospital lawyer was there, I said, Could we just call up [Tennessee Gov.] Bill Lee or call up, you know, our attorney general and ask them? Like, give them the case and say, What would you like us to do? And it’s sort of tongue in cheek, but it’s not, right? Like, they’re the ones who are going to decide whether they want to prosecute me. So why can’t I call them up and say, Do you think this makes the exception? Why am I being asked to kind of guess at whether this is a prosecutable action?” The Atlantic

Olivia Harvey, a Texas resident formerly from North Carolina, couldn’t get an abortion even though she had a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. Instead of providing proper treatment, her doctors spent a week repeating her blood work, urinalysis and ultrasound, with the same results. Still, her Texas doctors told Olivia that they couldn’t treat her, even though they admitted her pregnancy was “a ticking time bomb.”

“It was like they were tiptoeing around the subject and just waiting. I felt bad for them as well. I know they have to follow their laws, but it’s crazy.”

She then called her former OBGYN in North Carolina, who told her to get on a plane immediately, and provided proper medical care by performing an abortion. Olivia returned to Texas but says she won’t stay there long:

“I’m scared to death because I don’t want to go through that again. I don’t want to have to deal with the doctors in Texas…I feel like they are walking on eggshells.” Cardinal & Pine

In an example of how Republicans want to ban birth control, Arizona lawmakers refused to advance legislation to protect contraception, a week after Republican Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli said that if women wanted birth control they should just keep their legs closed:

“Like I said, Bayer Company invented aspirin. Put it between your knees.” Truthout

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