A NEW REPORT from Amnesty International says that by denying and restricting access to abortion to millions of women since the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022, and the Dobbs decision setting aside any constitutional right to abortion, the USA is failing to comply with its international human rights obligations.
The report, Abortion in the USA: The Human Rights Crisis in the Aftermath of Dobbs, shares stories from individuals across the country. Examples include people who travelled hundreds of miles to obtain an abortion and others who could not afford to travel, so were forced to carry their pregnancy to term against their will. One mother in Mississippi who had to travel more than seven hours to an abortion clinic in Illinois said: “It was the ugliest feeling having to explain to the doctor that [my teenage daughter] was raped, and then him having to tell you he can’t do anything to help.”
Some of those who were pregnant avoided seeing a doctor when they miscarried, due to a fear they would be wrongly criminalised. Others could not find a doctor or treatment due to lack of emergency care, and fear from healthcare providers that they too would be criminalised for providing necessary care to a patient.
Taylor from Texas said she was navigating her health care through “random” internet searches. “Even doing the searches made me nervous. The case of a Texas woman being arrested and jailed for taking medication abortion pills was fresh in my mind … I was scared to call my doctor in case there was mandatory reporting”, she said.
Dr Amna Dermish, an obstetrician and gynaecologist from Texas, said: “It felt like for the longest time that, every day I could show up to this clinic and see patients, I was winning. And then Dobbs just felt like it took that away. I’m still not over it. It was horrible. I was having panic attacks every day. No health care provider should ever be in that situation.”
Jasmeet Sidhu, a senior researcher at Amnesty International USA, said: “We are in an unprecedented crisis. The current landscape is an assault on the rights of pregnant people, creates fear and stigma, puts healthcare workers in awful situations, and ultimately contributes to pregnant people not getting the care they need.
“These barriers and bans to abortion create a scenario where an individual’s access to abortion care depends on where they live and what resources they have. Some of these laws are utterly confusing and nearly impossible to navigate. Everybody everywhere must be free to exercise their bodily autonomy and make their own decisions about their reproductive health.
“While we work towards the longer-term goal of ensuring federal protections for the right to abortion, one important step people in some states can take this fall is to vote on ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights in their states.”
The report reveals how state abortion bans and other restricting policies have a disproportionate impact on the most marginalised communities, who already face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination. The report includes numerous stories from pregnant people who are Black, Indigenous, undocumented, LGBTQI+, disabled, rural, and low-income.
D’Andra Willia from the Afiya Centre, said: “After Dobbs the demand for [Black] doulas definitely went up because people are being forced to give birth. We have seen a lot of trauma recently in our community because of Covid and people forced to be at home with their abusers, health complications, economic issues and on top of that being forced into birth while many are still dealing with postpartum and other issues. It is hard.”
A Latina woman in Texas – pregnant with twins, who learned at 12 weeks that one of the twins had been diagnosed with a fatal condition in utero that could threaten the other twin’s life – described being forced to travel out of state to save the viable foetus. She said: “This was the most traumatising experience of my life and one that was made so much worse, unnecessarily, because of these illogical and dangerous laws.”
* More information on the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision here.
* Read: Abortion in the USA: The Human Rights Crisis in the Aftermath of Dobbs here.
* Source: Amnesty International