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Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
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Assuring Access to AbortionOver the spring of 2020, numerous states announced measures suspending abortions in response to COVID-19. Banning abortion during the pandemic is counterproductive. Impeding access to abortion will not help preserve healthcare resources. Moreover, prohibiting access to abortion care exacerbates the strain on the healthcare system. People who lack access to abortions will travel to neighboring states, induce their own abortions, or carry pregnancies to term, which will require prenatal care and assistance in childbirth. Perhaps more importantly, the people hit hardest by suspending abortion care are those for whom the pandemic already has had devastating effects. Lifting restrictions on medication abortion and expanding telehealth abortion services will conserve healthcare resources and improve public health. Recognizing the advantages of telemedicine, some states, as well as the federal government, have relaxed restrictions on remote diagnosis and treatment. However, many of those same states have carved out exceptions for abortion in their telemedicine policies. In addition, people seeking medication abortions still face unnecessary restrictions on access, none of which are applied to comparable office-based procedures. Policymakers can eliminate barriers to safe abortion services now and in the future. “No-touch” terminations, in which all medical supervision happens over the telephone or online, can better accomplish the goals that the present abortion suspensions cannot. Telehealth for medical abortion can ease the burdens on pregnant people, healthcare workers, and health systems in light of the unprecedented challenges presented by COVID-19.
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A Functionalist Approach to Comparative Abortion LawThis chapter critiques the present comparative methodology in abortion law and explores the possibilities of a new comparative approach. The current method relies on high- profile but dated constitutional abortion decisions from the United States and Germany. Courts continue to rely on these cases to justify their decisions as consistent with a modern, global convergence around women’s rights and to minimize national resistance to contested law reform. These comparisons, however, oversimplify legal developments of the past forty years by focusing on constitutional norms and legislative regimes, rather than on the relationship between abortion law and practice.
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Abortion OpportunismEleven states have tried to suspend abortion care in response to COVID-19. State officials claim that they will preserve medical supplies, hospital space, and health care capacity by classifyingabortion as an elective, non-essential surgery that must be delayed. Advocacy groups representing abortion providers sued in several states to enjoin these bans. What has emerged is a fight that ignores medical evidence and threatens to exacerbate the current public health emergency. The Executive Order issued in Texas offers an apt example. Though abortion may be available in Texas for the time being, opinions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit provide a troubling roadmap for suspending constitutional rights as a health emergency measure.
