#roe42

This Week in Reproductive Justice is a weekly round-up of what is happening in reproductive rights, reproductive health, and other topics related to reproductive justice. Compiled by Teddy Wilson, a reporter who covers reproductive rights for RH Reality Check. Follow him on Twitter: @txindyjourno

A new Feminist Majority Foundation survey of 242 abortion clinics in the United States found that a majority face threats and intimidation from anti-abortion extremists.

Tens of thousands of Americans who oppose abortion came to Washington for the annual March for Life, marking the 42nd anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. Pro-choice supporters, meanwhile, also turned out to D.C.

House Republicans at the last minute decided not to take a vote on an unconstitutional 20-week abortion ban bill.

North Carolina Republican Congresswoman Renee Ellmers was part of an uprising in the House of Representatives over an abortion bill that caused House Republican leaders to scramble to address their concerns.

After canceling plans at the last minute to vote on a federal 20-week abortion ban, House Republicans voted to pass a different anti-choice bill that would restrict access to abortion through the insurance market.

A group of Democrats is hoping to regain ground in their national fight for abortion rights with a bill that makes it illegal for states to “chip away at women’s reproductive rights.”

Buoyed by conservative gains in the November election, foes of abortion are mobilizing on behalf of bills in Congress and several state legislatures that would further curtail women’s access to the procedure.

More than 50% of voters think women's health care should be one of the federal government's top priorities, according to a new report.

A group of nearly 100 West Virginians gathered at the state capitol on the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade to protest a new bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks post-fertilization.

Louisiana's health department is refusing to let Planned Parenthood perform abortion services at its new clinic under construction in New Orleans, the latest flashpoint in a long-running dispute over abortion access in the state.

No abortion-related legislation has surfaced in North Dakota so far during the legislative session as lawmakers seem focused on the slipping price of oil and its impact on the state coffers.

Organizations representing women’s healthcare providers released the first-ever consensus document establishing levels of care for perinatal and postnatal women.

Reproductive rights activists are celebrating the decision by El Salvador's Congress to pardon a woman who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for murder after complications with her pregnancy.

On January 22, 1973 — 42 years ago today — the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, wherein a Texas woman sought an abortion, but existing legislation in Texas prevented her from doing so. The Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 that it was unconstitutional for states to interfere in the process of a physician providing a first-trimester abortion. Before the ruling, it was illegal for physicians to perform an abortion in 30 states. In the remaining 20 states, it was illegal for physicians to perform abortion unless it was deemed medically necessary.

Women, their autonomy, and their right to decide their future were not given as reasons why Roe v. Wade was decided the way that it was. Justice Harry Blackmun wrote for the Supreme Court, stating that the case was a right to privacy issue that was protected under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. Before his death in 1999, Justice Blackmun stated outright that Roe v. Wade was not about women’s rights. Ronald Rotunda, law professor at Chapman University, recalls a 1994 conversation with Justice Blackmun where he explicitly spelled out the ruling’s intentions: “Roe ‘protected the woman’s right, with the physician, to get an abortion.’” Rotunda made clear that “Blackmun emphasized the italicized phrase with his voice.  He spoke of the case as a doctor’s rights case, not a woman’s right case.”