Missourians Clear First Hurdle For Putting Abortion Rights Up To A Vote

Chicago Tribune: Missouri Abortion-Rights Campaign Turns In More Than Double The Needed Signatures To Get On Ballot 
Advocates on Friday turned in more than twice the needed number of signatures to put a proposal to legalize abortion on the Missouri ballot this year. The campaign said it turned in more than 380,000 voter signatures — more than double the minimum 171,000 needed to qualify for the ballot. (Ballentine, 5/4)

Updates from Arizona and Florida —

The 19th: Abortion Bans In Florida And Arizona Highlight Outsize Impacts To Latinas
Millions of Latinx Floridians and Arizonans started off the month of May with new and looming restrictions on their reproductive health decisions. Florida, home to the third-largest Latinx population in the country, on Wednesday became the latest state to ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many people know they are pregnant. In Arizona, a key battleground state and home to the sixth-largest Latinx population in the country, a Civil War-era total abortion ban will go into effect for at least several months until a repeal approved by state lawmakers takes effect. (Barclay, 5/3)

AP: Many Florida Women Can't Get Abortions Past 6 Weeks. Where Else Can They Go? 
Health care providers in North Carolina, three states to the north, are rushing to expand availability and decrease wait times. “We are already seeing appointments,” said Katherine Farris, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. “We have appointments on the books with patients who were unable to get in, in the last days of April in Florida.” (Seminera and Mulvihill, 5/4)

Politico: With 6-Week Abortion Ban In Place, Florida Eyes ‘Safe Haven’ Expansion 
Florida’s six-week abortion ban officially went into effect this week. But another bill also intended to lower the number of abortions could soon quietly become law as well. An expansion of Florida’s “Safe Haven” policy — which decriminalizes surrendering unwanted infants, as long as they are given up to specific agencies like hospitals, fire stations and EMS services — faces just one more hurdle to becoming law. It has long been a piece of legislation in the toolbox of anti-abortion supporters who view legal infant surrenders as a way to encourage more women to carry their pregnancies to term. (Duncan, 5/4)

From Rhode Island, Texas, and Idaho —

The Boston Globe: RI Bill To Shield Doctors Who Provide Abortion, Transgender Care, Passed In State Senate
The state Senate this week passed a bill that would shield medical providers who offer transgender care and abortion services in Rhode Island from civil or criminal action by other states or their residents. On Thursday, the Senate voted 29 to 7 for legislation introduced by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Dawn Euer, a Newport Democrat. The bill now heads to the House, where Majority Floor Manager John G. “Jay” Edwards, a Tiverton Democrat, has introduced a companion bill. (Fitzpatrick, 5/3)

The Washington Post: Texas Man Files Legal Action To Probe Ex-Partner’s Out-Of-State Abortion
As soon as Collin Davis found out his ex-partner was planning to travel to Colorado to have an abortion in late February, the Texas man retained a high-powered antiabortion attorney — who court records show immediately issued a legal threat. If the woman proceeded with the abortion, even in a state where the procedure remains legal, Davis would seek a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the abortion and “pursue wrongful-death claims against anyone involved in the killing of his unborn child,” the lawyer wrote in a letter, according to records. Now, Davis has disclosed his former partner’s abortion to a state district court in Texas, asking for the power to investigate what his lawyer characterizes as potentially illegal activity in a state where almost all abortions are banned. (Kitchener, 5/3)

AP: After Roe, An 'Underground' Network Helps Others Get Abortions 
Waiting in a long post office line with the latest shipment of “abortion aftercare kits,” Kimra Luna got a text. A woman who’d taken abortion pills three weeks earlier was worried about bleeding — and disclosing the cause to a doctor. “Bleeding doesn’t mean you need to go in,” Luna responded on the encrypted messaging app Signal. “Some people bleed on and off for a month. ”It was a typically busy afternoon for Luna, a doula and reproductive care activist in a state with some of the strictest abortion laws in the nation. (Ungar, 5/4)

In news about doulas —

NBC News: Indigenous Doulas Lead The Fight For Reproductive Care Access Gap In Guam
For the past two years, medical professionals have been sounding the alarm for what they consider a “maternal care crisis” on Guam. After the closure of the island’s only standalone birth center in December 2022, Guam’s maternity support options are the single hospital and the one doula who helped Marati. Though many U.S. states are starting to reimburse doula care through Medicaid, that coverage doesn’t extend to U.S. territories like Guam. The island has also been without abortion services since the only abortion-providing doctor retired in July 2018. (Kim, 5/4)

South Florida Sun Sentinel: Are Midwives And Doulas The Answer To Keeping More Black Babies Alive? 
It is 2 a.m. when Brianca Spence slips behind the wheel of her car. The drive to the nearest hospital can stretch as long as an hour, and feel like an eternity when she’s rushing to guide an expecting mother through childbirth. (Goodman, 5/3)