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A men’s movement takes reins in a nationwide quest to end abortion
Wendell Shrock doesn’t believe in condoms. “We should leave the uterus to God,” the street preacher from Tennessee tells States Newsroom, in front of an abortion clinic outside of Atlanta, mid-morning in late July. Sweat drips from his cowboy hat into his salt-and-pepper beard that stretches halfway down his red-plaid shirt. The retired police officer […]
Study cited by Texas judge in abortion-pill case under investigation
Pharmaceutical sciences professor Chris Adkins was perusing news on his computer in December when he came across an item that fascinated him: Anti-abortion groups had sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to force a recall on a commonly used abortion drug. Adkins teaches future pharmacists at South University School of Pharmacy* in Savannah, Georgia. […]
National abortion ban eyed as group marks ‘Siege of Atlanta’ protests 35 years ago
Editor’s note: This story was updated on Thursday, July 20, 2023. A previous version of the story incorrectly characterized Georgia abortion law. Members of a national anti-abortion religious organization called Operation Save America are in Atlanta this week to protest at a local abortion clinic and to discuss new strategies for achieving a national prohibition […]
FDA approves first over-the-counter oral contraceptive
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday it has approved the country’s first daily birth control pill that can be used without a prescription, a move that reproductive health advocates celebrated after more than 20 years of advocating for an over-the-counter option. The contraceptive, called Opill, is a progestin-only oral pill that could soon […]
After Dobbs, abortion access is harder, comes later and with a higher risk
Editors’ note: This report is part of a special States Newsroom series on abortion access one year after the U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down the federal right to abortion. This story was updated at 2:38 p.m. on Wednesday, June 21, 2023. In April, a Reddit user in Alabama posted a breathless message to the abortion […]
Appeals court judges embrace anti-abortion speculation
America’s major medical institutions and drug policy scholars have roundly denounced as “pseudoscience” many of the claims brought by anti-abortion groups in a high-profile federal lawsuit asking the Food and Drug Administration to revoke its 23-year-old approval of mifepristone, one half of a two-drug regimen that has become the most common form of pregnancy termination […]
Health experts urge FDA to approve over-the-counter birth control in unanimous vote
Dyvia Huitron started having sex when she was 16. Worried about getting pregnant, she talked to her parents about getting on hormonal birth control. Instead, they grounded her. The now-19-year-old had expected pushback – she was living in a religious community in conservative McAllen, Texas. But she underestimated how many years it would eventually take […]
What abortion foes have been up to in the year after Dobbs draft leak
Anti-abortion leaders could not stop paraphrasing Winston Churchill last June after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a victory that took 50 years to realize. “While we celebrate the momentous ruling in Dobbs, we must remember that overturning Roe was not the beginning of the end, but it was the end of the […]
After SCOTUS ruling, disappointed abortion foes vow to keep attacking abortion pill
Though the U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily blocked an effective ban on medication abortion, anti-abortion groups are not giving up on trying to fast-track a national abortion ban. And that means continuing to try to squash nationwide access to the most common form of abortion post-Roe, by whatever means necessary. “Obviously, the pro life community […]
Abortion-rights attorneys help patients and providers navigate legal chaos
These days Kylee Sunderlin is often the first person people will talk to about needing or wanting to terminate a pregnancy, even though she’s not a nurse or doctor or a loved one. She’s a lawyer. This is Sunderlin’s third year overseeing a national hotline dedicated to helping people navigate legal questions around abortion in […]
How to make a state abortion ban go national
A fast-food restaurant was the last place she expected to have an abortion. A month had gone by since the 26-year-old had found out she was about seven weeks pregnant. She’d gone to her closest Planned Parenthood, near Boise, Idaho, last August – the same week that abortion became a criminal act in her state. […]
Physicians react to ruling placing abortion pill use in jeopardy
A Texas federal judge with a history of anti-abortion beliefs has thrown into jeopardy the most common form of abortion since Roe v. Wade fell last summer. U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk released his decision on the cusp of Easter weekend to pause the Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of the abortion drug […]