Reproductive Rights News Roundup

(Some of the news stories below may require a subscription to read.) 

Florida poised to limit abortions as Supreme Court mulls Roe
By Anthony Izaguirre
Associated Press
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday said he would sign a 15-week abortion ban into law after Florida’s legislature joined the trend of Republican-led states anticipating a U.S. Supreme Court decision that could sharply limit abortion rights in America.

Joe Biden blasts Florida’s ‘dangerous’ 15-week abortion ban
By Alex Galbraith
Orlando Weekly
President Joe Biden blasted Florida’s recently passed 15-week abortion ban, saying his administration “will not stand” for the “dangerous” bill passed by the Florida Legislature.

President Biden, Dems and abortion rights advocates react to 15-week abortion ban for FL
By Isaac Morgan
Florida Phoenix
Florida’s passage of a 15-week abortion ban now headed to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk is drawing national attention, sparking concern from the Biden administration in Washington D.C. to Democrats and abortion rights advocates across the country fighting to preserve women’s reproductive rights.

International Women’s Day special on Tuesday Café takes a deep dive into HB 5, Florida’s 15-week abortion ban
By Seán Kinane
WMNF Tampa Bay
Excerpt: Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to sign a bill that would make most abortions illegal after fifteen weeks of gestation, HB 5. It passed the State Senate Thursday night. Our guest to analyze the bill was Amy Weintraub, the Reproductive Rights Program Director at Progress Florida.

Florida’s anti-abortion law is a slap in the face to survivors like me
By Melissa Sullivan
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Growing up in South Florida, I fantasized about moving to Washington, D.C, and pursuing a career in government.

After Senate agrees to restrict abortions, President Wilton Simpson puts birth control funding in budget
By Christine Jordan Sexton
Florida Politics
Senate President Wilton Simpson on Wednesday put $2 million in funding to help low income women obtain what’s known as long acting reversible contraception, or birth control options that don’t have to be taken daily to work.

What’s Going on With Florida’s Latest Abortion Ban?
By Emma Specter
Vogue
It’s becoming an increasingly terrifying time for abortion seekers (and those who know and care for them) in the U.S.

Despite Telehealth Restrictions, Aid Access Gets Abortion Pills to FL Patients
By Carrie Baker, Ms. Magazine.
Broadcast version by Lily Böhlke for Florida News Connection reporting for the Ms. Magazine-Public News Service Collaboration
Four years ago, Dutch physician Rebecca Gomperts founded Aid Access to provide telemedicine abortion to people in the United States for a sliding scale fee up to $150.

GOP Lawmakers are pushing their anti-trans, anti-abortion laws across state lines
By Rafi Schwartz
Mic
As Republican lawmakers push ahead with their slate of restrictive, anti-transgender, anti-reproductive health measures in state after GOP-held state across the country, a new tactic is emerging among some of the conservative movement’s most extreme corners — one that would not only criminalize essential health care locally, but would actually extend their punitive reach into other states as well.

Why so many abortion restrictions are working their way through state legislatures now
By Shefali Luthra
The 19th
Florida’s legislature passed a bill that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Democrats lose fight to strip abortion funding restrictions from spending package
By Aris Folley
The Hill
Democrats failed in their effort to strip a decades-old amendment from annual government funding legislation that blocks people from using Medicaid or other federal health programs to cover abortion services amid fierce opposition from Republicans.

Congress Failed to Protect Abortion. Now the Fight Turns Local.
By Kylie Cheung
Jezebel
In a historic move last week, the Senate finally scheduled a vote for the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), a bill Democrats have been trying to pass for a decade that would codify Roe v. Wade into federal law and enshrine federal protections for abortion rights.

Abortion Rights Are About Human Rights, Not Politics
By Barbara Lee and Donna Brazile
Newsweek
Everyone should have the freedom to make personal decisions with those they love and trust, especially when it comes to reproductive health care, without interference from politicians.

Undue Burden
By Anna Wiederkehr and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux
FiveThirtyEight
Abortion is a constitutional right — at least for now. But for many women, it’s a right that comes with an asterisk.

Get to Know the People Who Make Abortion Care Possible
By Regina Mahone
Rewire
There are myriad paths to reproductive health, rights, and justice work. For AJ Haynes, it involved “margaritas and a cover band, as any good story should.”

Florida senator shared her rape story before abortion vote. Republican lawmakers didn’t care
Editorial
Miami Herald
It was in vain that Sen. Lauren Book shared her painful experience of being drugged and raped by several men as a young teen.