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       New York expands abortion protections ahead of Roe ruling, Governor Hochul announces

       Women and health care providers across the country are preparing for the possible end of Roe V Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that granted federal protection to abortion rights.

       As reported in Politico, a leaked Supreme Court draft decision showed that the court intended to strike down the precedent despite at least three justices claiming during their confirmation hearings that they would recognise precedent.

       The ruling is expected to come soon, though its unclear exactly how close the court is to a ruling. In the mean time, women are scrambling for healthcare before their rights are stripped away, and doctors are preparing to make difficult judgement calls in a post-Roe America.

       “How almost dead does someone need to be?” Dr. Leilah Zahedi, a maternal fetal medicine physician in Tennessee who specializes in high-risk pregnancies and performs abortions, asked in a New York Times interview. “Am I to just watch someone bleed to death? Or provide the care and then be reported and go to jail? I don’t know.”

       Show latest update 1655749742 The woman who helped open of the nation’s first abortion clinics discusses the ‘war’ to save women’s right to choose

       Merle Hoffman, who helped open one of the first abortion clinics in the US, spoke with The Independent about her work since Roe V Wade and how the fight for women’s reproductive rights has changed over the last 50 years.

       “I’ve had friends murdered … It’s a war, and I’ve been on the front line of it for many, many years,” she said.

       Read more from Ms Hoffman in Alex Woodward’s story below:

       ‘It’s a war:’ Merle Hoffman’s five-decade fight for abortion rights Merle Hoffman helped open the centre two years before landmark ruling. Now, ‘I’ll be damned if I’m going down without a fight,’ she tells Alex Woodward

       Graig Graziosi 20 June 2022 19:29

       1655745922 Advocates for abortion rights are trying to prevent anti-abortion police from using period-tracking app data to hunt down abortion providers

       Abortion rights advocates are trying to prevent anti-abortion police from using data collected from period-tracking apps to prosecute abortion providers.

       Vice President Kamala Harris shared her fears during a meeting with security experts, noting the “vulnerability of women who are using menstrual-tracking apps, those who use a search engine to find certain locations or certain help … and how vulnerable those searches will be to bad actors attempting to track their history, much less any government forces that may be interested in investigating that for whatever purpose.”

       Alex Woodard has more on the story below:

       How your menstrual app data could be used against you in post Roe v Wade America Legislation could prevent sensitive user data in menstrual-tracking apps and search engine results from being used to prosecute abortion providers, Alex Woodward reports

       Graig Graziosi 20 June 2022 18:25

       1655742584 Democrats urge Google to stop steering abortion patients to ‘fake clinics’ in search results

       Women across the country are scambling to schedule reproductive healthcare consultations and operations ahead of the Supreme Court potentially overturning Roe V Wade.

       Some of those women using Google to find abortion clinics or reproductive healthcare providers will no doubt find “crisis pregnancy centres” among their search results. These centres are often times run by ‘pro-life’ groups and sometimes use social pressure, shaming, or disinformation to convince women not to seek out abortions.

       Some Democrats have been pushing for Google to filter crisis pregnancy centres out of its abortion results to prevent women from being duped. Read Alex Woodward’s story below:

       Democrats urge Google to block misleading results for abortion clinics Lawmakers are calling on tech companies to block misleading results and limit the data they collect from users as states look to prosecute abortion providers

       Graig Graziosi 20 June 2022 17:29

       1655740298 How the ‘pro-life’ movement killed Roe V Wade

       The so-called ‘pro-life’ movement that opposes women’s rights to reproductive healthcare has been battling against abortion access for decades.

       The Independent’s Alex Woodward delves into the movement’s history and the part it played in the assault on women’s right to access abortions. Read the story below:

       Inside the ‘pro-life’ movement that killed Roe v Wade Powerful legal groups, conservative Christian activists and right-wing figures shaped an anti-abortion agenda in the hands of the US Supreme Court, Alex Woodward reports

       Graig Graziosi 20 June 2022 16:51

       1655739668 Welcome to the liveblog

       Welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of what may be the final days of Roe V Wade. A Supreme Court draft decision that was leaked to Politico earlier this year revealed that the court was planning to overturn nearly 50 years of precedent, a move that will indirectly strip millions of women of their right to end their pregnancies.

       The court’s ruling is expected sometime this week, possibly as early as tomorrow.

       Graig Graziosi 20 June 2022 16:41