The current USA political climate is anti-women and anti-abortion.

Women in many states cannot access the health care they need and have lost control over their reproductive choices.

Clinics in anti abortion states have closed and medical professionals have left.  This resulted in shifts of care from anti abortion states to states which support reproductive rights and abortion options.  

It has also allowed for the availability of abortion pills on line which patients obtain via mail.

The abortion pills online are offered via telehealth.  There is usually no medical exam and no pelvic ultrasound identifying the pregnancy.

Abortion services online were initially a necessity due to the COVID pandemic limiting access to on site medical services.  After that, in 2022, the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs V. Jackson reversed the constitutional protection for safe and legal abortion and allowed the individual states to arbitrarily restrict and ban access to abortion care.

This decision has resulted in an expansion and proliferation of online medical abortion practices that were created to fill the need for women’s autonomy in regulating their reproductive health despite local state abortion bans. 

Since the bans were instituted, there have been major shifts in the care of pregnant women and there has been alarming reports on maternal deaths from sepsis and complications. These maternal deaths were preventable but the hospitals and physicians in the anti- abortion states failed to act to protect the women suffering complications out of fear of persecution, loss of license to practice and jail time.  These states allowed women to die!

Propublica published the following report describing how the maternal deaths from sepsis have soared since the abortion bans took place in Texas for example:   

https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-abortion-ban-sepsis-maternal-mortality-analysis

Abortion safety is a complex issue but one thing is sure: abortion bans destroy the medical framework for safe women’s medical care. Abortion safety requires the collaboration of communities with abortion clinics, hospitals with religiously unrestricted emergency care and trained competent non judgmental medical staff.

It requires contraception, public health education, and access to medical care for all people especially for those who lack the resources to get it and thus are more vulnerable to potential complications.

Nevada is an abortion sanctuary state. In Nevada, the voters have passed in 2024 a ballot measure to protect abortion rights.  Currently in Nevada, abortion is legal up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.  The newly voted ballot measure further protects the women’s rights to an abortion. If the voters approve it again in 2026 as per state law, then the Nevada constitution will be formally amended to enshrine abortion protections up to 24 weeks