News -- May 3, 2022: The document, published by Politico, suggests the country's top court is poised to overturn the 1973 decision that legalised abortion nationwide.If the court strikes down the Roe v Wade ruling, individual states would be allowed to ban abortion if they wish.

Abortion is projected to be outlawed in nearly half of the states in the United States.

The justices of the Supreme Court are scheduled to rule in late June or early July.

According to statistics from Planned Parenthood, a healthcare organization that offers abortions, almost 40 million women could lose access to abortions.

While the court's final verdict isn't expected until June, the leaked draft – a practically unprecedented glimpse into the court's inner workings – provides a solid indication of the court's five most conservative members' decisions.
The Supreme Court confirmed the authenticity of the draft opinion on Tuesday, and Chief Justice John Roberts announced that an investigation has been initiated to discover the person who leaked it.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito wrote in the draft. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

"If the court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation's elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman's right to choose," President Joe Biden said in a statement on Tuesday.

The following is from The University of Colorado:

Study: Banning abortion would boost maternal mortality by double-digits

By Lisa Marshall • Published: Sept. 8, 2021

Banning abortion nationwide would lead to a 21% increase in the number of pregnancy-related deaths overall and a 33% increase among Black women, according to new University of Colorado Boulder research.

Published October 25 in the journal Demography, the study estimates only the portion of increased deaths that would be due to complications of being pregnant and of delivering a baby.

Any increased death due to unsafe abortions or attempted abortions would be in addition to these estimates. 

“The takeaway here is that if you deny people abortion, pregnancy-related deaths will increase because staying pregnant is more dangerous to a woman than having an abortion,” said author Amanda Stevenson, an assistant professor of sociology. 

The paper comes as Texas enacts the most restrictive abortion law in the country, banning the procedure after about six weeks – a time when many women don’t yet know they are pregnant. Similar laws have been passed in at least 10 other states, but all face legal challenges. 

Stevenson, a demographer who studies the impacts of reproductive health policies, said that media outlets and some supporters of abortion rights often raise the specter of dangerous ‘back alley’ or self-induced abortions. In reality, deaths from such incidents, which numbered in the hundreds annually prior to the 1973 passage of Roe v. Wade, would be far less common today due to the advent of safe, self-managed abortions using medications, including Misoprostol, available via prescription or online.

“We expect a lot of women will turn to these safer forms of self-managed abortions but a lot of women will also just stay pregnant,” said Stevenson, a fellow with the Institute of Behavioral Science. “What happens then?”

To predict the maternal mortality consequences, Stevenson used published statistics on the number of abortions and births that occurred annually in recent years, calculated how many more pregnancies would be continued in the absence of legal abortion and applied pregnancy-related mortality statistics to that number.

Pregnancy riskier to women's health than abortion

Carrying a pregnancy to term is 33 times riskier than having an abortion, with 0.6 maternal deaths per 100,000 abortions compared to 20.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Research also shows that those most likely to seek abortion care, including women of color, poor women and those with chronic or acute health conditions, are also more likely to encounter serious complications during pregnancy.

The study estimated that in the years following a national ban, an additional 140 women would die annually from pregnancy-related causes, bringing the death toll to 815, a 21% increase. Among non-Hispanic Black women, pregnancy-related deaths would increase by a third.

Black women are more likely to seek an abortion for a variety of reasons, including unequal access to opportunities like housing, education, jobs and healthcare, she said. Meanwhile, the mortality risk of carrying a pregnancy to term is more than three times as high for non-Hispanic Black women compared to non-Hispanic white women.
 
“Increasing Black women’s exposure to the risk of pregnancy-related mortality by denying them access to abortion would exacerbate an existing public health crisis,” Stevenson said.


To read the full article click here


Wnctimes will be publishing more information and updates.

Wnctimes by Marjorie Farrington 







Study: Banning abortion would boost maternal mortality by double-digits

By Lisa Marshall • Published: Sept. 8, 2021



ASHEVILLE WEATHER

Community News

Pinned Items
Recent Activities
  • Carl is reading an article
    0
    0
    0
    0
    0
    0
    Comments (0)
    Post is under moderation
    Stream item published successfully. Item will now be visible on your stream.
There are no activities here yet
Cron Job Starts