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      Women who used abortion pills on US supreme court mifepristone case: ‘It’s maddening’

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 19:19

    Three women share their stories of getting medication abortions, and their thoughts on that access being curtailed

    Mercy’s periods had always been very regular, so when she missed one in 2016, she immediately took a pregnancy test. It was positive, and she managed to get an appointment at an abortion clinic the next day.

    Despite being able to act quickly, she was in her seventh week of pregnancy by the time she could take abortion pills in Ohio – a state that was, at the time, debating banning abortion from the moment fetal cardiac activity is detected (usually around six weeks). Ohio has since enshrined abortion rights in its state constitution following a referendum.

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      Democrat wins election in conservative Alabama after focus on abortion and IVF

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 18:46

    Marilyn Lands elected to state legislature in deep red state by significant margin after centering reproductive rights in campaign

    An Alabama Democrat who campaigned against the state’s near-total abortion ban has won a special election to the state legislature, a stark signal that reproductive rights is a potent issue for Democratic candidates, even in the deep south.

    Marilyn Lands won the state house seat on Tuesday, defeating Teddy Powell, a Republican, by 63% to 37%. Lands, a licensed professional counselor, previously ran for the seat in 2022 and lost by 7% to David Cole, a Republican who resigned last year after pleading guilty to voter fraud.

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      Even the US supreme court was baffled by conservatives’ attack on abortion pills | Moira Donegan

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 10:01 · 1 minute

    The anti-choice case relies on outlandish legal leaps. And if they can’t win there, they’ll redouble efforts to win the White House

    It is a testament to how weak the plaintiffs’ case is that the justices seemed so skeptical. Erin Hawley, a lawyer for the far-right antifeminist litigation shop Alliance Defending Freedom and the spouse of conservative US senator Josh Hawley, usually gets a much warmer reception at One First Street. But in Tuesday’s oral arguments in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v FDA – a lawsuit which seeks to challenge FDA approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, and specifically to reverse regulatory changes that made the drug more easily accessible – she was on the defensive.

    The three Democratic appointees, along with Republican justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Roberts, all signaled at least some skepticism of her clients’ claims to legal standing. Amy Coney Barrett, the Trump appointee known for her maximalist religious commitments, struggled to help Hawley establish a convincing merits case to restrict access to the drug. And the far-right extremists Sam Alito and Thomas Gorsuch spent their question time signalling their support for the Comstock Act, a long-obscure and once-forgotten 1871 statute that some anti-choice lawyers say could be used to ban abortion nationwide by executive order.

    Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

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      SCOTUS mifepristone case: Justices focus on anti-abortion groups’ legal standing

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · 3 days ago - 21:10 · 1 minute

    Demonstrators participate in an abortion-rights rally outside the Supreme Court as the justices of the court hear oral arguments in the case of the <em>US Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine</em> on March 26, 2024 in Washington, DC.

    Enlarge / Demonstrators participate in an abortion-rights rally outside the Supreme Court as the justices of the court hear oral arguments in the case of the US Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine on March 26, 2024 in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty | Anna Moneymaker )

    The US Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments in a case seeking to limit access to the abortion and miscarriage drug mifepristone, with a majority of justices expressing skepticism that the anti-abortion groups that brought the case have the legal standing to do so.

    The case threatens to dramatically alter access to a drug that has been safely used for decades and, according to the Guttmacher Institute, was used in 63 percent of abortions documented in the health care system in 2023 . But, it also has sweeping implications for the Food and Drug Administration's authority over drugs, marking the first time that courts have second-guessed the agency's expert scientific analysis and moved to restrict access to an FDA-approved drug.

    As such, the case has rattled health experts, reproductive health care advocates, the FDA, and the pharmaceutical industry alike. But, based on the line of questioning in today's oral arguments, they have reason to breathe a sigh of relief.

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      US supreme court seems skeptical of arguments against abortion drug mifepristone

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 3 days ago - 16:37

    Decision in anti-abortion doctors’ favor would apply across US and would likely make the drug more difficult to acquire

    The supreme court on Tuesday seemed skeptical of arguments made by anti-abortion doctors asking it to roll back the availability of mifepristone, a drug typically used in US medication abortion. The arguments were part of the first major abortion case to reach the justices since a 6-3 majority ruled in 2022 to overturn Roe v Wade and end the national right to abortion.

    The rightwing groups that brought the case argued that the justices should roll back measures taken since 2016 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expand the drug’s availability. A decision in the anti-abortion doctors’ favor would apply nationwide, including in states that protect abortion access, and would likely make the drug more difficult to acquire.

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      Supreme court to hear abortion pill case that could restrict access to mifepristone – live

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 3 days ago - 13:13 · 1 minute

    Protesters gather outside court as justices set to hear arguments in first major abortion case since Roe v Wade was overturned

    It’s not just access to medication abortion that could be upended by a supreme court ruling tightening access to mifepristone. As the Guardian’s Jessica Glenza reports, the conservative challengers to the drug have targeted decisions made by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make it easier to prescribe.

    But if the supreme court agrees with their complaint, it opens up the possibility of a wave of challenges to other medications that treat a range of issues. Doctors and pharmaceutical companies have become so concerned about the case that they’ve filed briefs defending the FDA against the conservative challenge.

    A supreme court case about one little pill – mifepristone – has the medical and pharmaceutical world on edge. The pill, at the heart of a case that will be argued on Tuesday, is part of a two-drug regimen used to treat miscarriage and end early pregnancies.

    Despite a more than 20-year track record of safe real-world use, backed up by more than 100 peer-reviewed studies , a group of anti-abortion doctors is seeking to roll back US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decisions that changed and relaxed some prescribing rules.

    Joe Biden has been briefed on the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. We have a live blog covering the latest news on the disaster, and you can find it here.

    Is the GOP surrendering in their push to impeach Biden? Reports have emerged that the Republican architect of the attempt to bring charges against the president now says he’ll settle for a criminal referral to the justice department.

    The White House press briefing will take place on Air Force One as Biden heads to campaign in North Carolina, sometime after 1pm.

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      How rightwing groups used junk science to get an abortion case before the US supreme court

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 6 days ago - 12:00

    Anti-abortion researchers ‘exaggerate’ and ‘obfuscate’ in their scientific papers – but by the time they’re published, it’s too late

    A pharmacy professor who strenuously avoids heated political discussions is an unlikely candidate to get involved in a fight over abortion, particularly one as high stakes as a case now before the supreme court: the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) v the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM).

    But when the professor Chris Adkins of South University in Georgia emailed his concerns about an academic article to the editors of Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology, that’s exactly what happened.

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      Senior Labour figures seeking to water down plans to decriminalise abortion

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 6 days ago - 06:00

    MPs due to have free vote on proposal but some in party have privately expressed concerns it goes too far

    Senior Labour figures want to water down proposed legislation to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales ahead of a historic Commons debate on the issue.

    Later this spring, MPs are due to have a free vote on a proposal by the Labour MP Diana Johnson to abolish the criminal offence associated with a woman ending her own pregnancy.

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      Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians highly supportive of legal abortion – poll

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Thursday, 21 March - 12:13

    Nearly 80% of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in the US say abortion should be legal in all or most cases

    A new poll shows that Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in the US are highly supportive of legal abortion, even in situations in which the pregnant person wants an abortion for any reason.

    With abortion rights poised to be one of the major issues in the 2024 election, the poll from AAPI Data and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that nearly 80% of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. They’re also supportive of federal government action to preserve abortion rights: three-quarters say Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access to legal abortions nationwide.

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