Tessa Cox

This new peer-reviewed study from CLI scholars examined the associations between prior pregnancy loss and the risk of severe maternal morbidity at the time of a first subsequent live birth.

This new peer-reviewed study from CLI scholars examined the experiences of women who had a medication abortion and chose to share their experiences online, anonymously post-Dobbs.

Easily available abortion drugs come with the risk that they will be used by bad actors to coerce women into abortion. Moreover, evidence shows that, far from helping women suffering abuse, abortion can itself be a tool of coercion and abuse.

As women increasingly choose drug-induced over surgical abortion, and with abortion drugs becoming easier to access, it is important that women understand the potential costs of drug-induced abortion.

Abortion drugs are being mailed into the U.S. from various international sources, violating U.S. laws and regulations. The broad availability of these drugs to all buyers, along with the lack of medical oversight, increases the risks of complications and coerced abortion. To prevent international abortion drug shipments from entering the U.S. and harming American babies and women, federal enforcement is needed.

“Abortion up to birth” is sometimes used to describe abortions in the seventh, eighth, or ninth month of pregnancy. Although media coverage tends to focus on late-term abortions performed because the unborn baby has a serious health condition or the mother’s life is threatened, research indicates that many late-term abortions occur for reasons unrelated to serious maternal or fetal health concerns. And despite claims that born-alive abortion survivors are a myth, babies have survived late abortions.

Poised to lose state and federal funding, Planned Parenthood has argued it’s irreplaceable and that alternative providers cannot absorb its entire Medicaid client base, particularly contraceptive clients. These concerns are unwarranted. Thousands of alternative providers, including federally qualified health centers, rural health clinics, and doctor’s offices, provide comprehensive health care that Planned Parenthood doesn’t and are important options that can help fill any gaps.

Given the discretionary preferential nature of the abortion decision, supply-induced demand is likely an important contributor to the increase in the volume and rate of induced abortions since 2018. This paper discusses Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the drug-induced abortion method, and the means by which they enhance demand.

Coincident with the increasing dominance of medical abortion, there is a concurrent increase in the misattribution of post-induced abortion emergency department visits to a spontaneous abortion. High levels of visit acuity suggest that these miscodes represent a serious risk factor. Further, these miscodes mask post-abortion complication rates and undermine both the science and medical management necessary to address these issues.

CLI Executive Director Karen Czarnecki sits down with CLI Senior Research Associate Tessa Cox to discuss how community health centers far outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities across the U.S.