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7 States Vote To Protect Abortion Rights, While Efforts To Expand Access in Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota Fail
CNN, November 6, 2024
More than two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the federal constitutional right to an abortion, voters in 10 states cast ballots on whether to cement reproductive rights in their state constitutions. Measures to protect abortion access will pass in Arizona and Missouri, where citizens effectively voted to overturn their state’s abortion bans. Abortion rights supporters are hopeful this will lead to a widespread increase in access to reproductive care in those states. Similar measures will pass in Colorado, New York, Maryland, Montana and Nevada, cementing or expanding current abortion access. And measures to protect abortion failed in Florida, where the procedure is banned six weeks into pregnancy, and South Dakota, where it is banned, except to save the life of the mother.In Nebraska, an amendment cementing the state’s current 12-week abortion ban in the state constitution will pass, while a competing amendment to codify the right to an abortion will fail, CNN projects.”
Missouri Voters Enshrine Abortion Rights in a State That Has a Near-Total Ban
Associated Press, November 6, 2024
Missouri voters enshrined abortion rights in their constitution Tuesday, positioning the state to undo one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans. ’Tonight, through the sheer will and power of the people, Missouri becomes the first state to end a total abortion ban at the ballot box,’ Abortion Action Missouri Executive Director Mallory Schwarz said in a statement.Missouri currently allows abortions only in cases of medical emergencies. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. The amendment guarantees people’s right to make decisions about their reproductive health, such as whether to get an abortion, take birth control or get in vitro fertilization. But the amendment does not explicitly undo the law, meaning abortion-rights advocates will need to sue to overturn the ban.
Texas OB-GYNs Urge Lawmakers To Change Abortion Laws After Reports on Pregnant Women’s Deaths
Texas Tribune, November 3, 2024
A group of 111 OB-GYNs in Texas released a letter to elected state leaders Sunday urging them to change abortion laws they say have prevented them from providing lifesaving care to pregnant women. The doctors pointed to recent reporting by ProPublica on two Texas pregnant women who died after medical staff delayed emergency care. Josseli Barnica, 28, died of an infection in 2021 three days after she began to miscarry. More than a dozen medical experts said Barnica’s death was preventable. However, the state’s abortion laws kept doctors from intervening until they couldn’t detect a fetal heartbeat, which didn’t happen until about 40 hours after the miscarriage started. Nevaeh Crain, 18, died last year after developing a dangerous complication of sepsis that doctors refused to treat while her six-month-old fetus still had a heartbeat. Two emergency rooms didn’t treat her and a third delayed care, moving Crain to the intensive care unit only after she was experiencing organ failure. Medical experts said if the hospital staff had treated her early, they either could have helped Crain with an early delivery or saved her life by ending the pregnancy if the infection had gone too far. Doctors have said that confusion about what constitutes a life-threatening condition has changed the way they treat pregnant patients with complications. The Texas Medical Board has offered guidance on how to interpret the law’s medical exception, and the Texas Supreme Court has ruled that doctors don’t need to wait until there’s an imminent risk to the patient to intervene. But some physicians say the guidance is vague and that hospitals are navigating each situation on a case-by-case basis.
Louisiana Sued Over Law Classifying Abortion Pills as Controlled Substances
U.S. News, October 31, 2024
A group of healthcare providers and others on Thursday sued Louisiana in an effort to block a law that classified mifepristone and misoprostol, the drugs used in medication abortion, as controlled substances in the state. “Controlled substances” refer to drugs or other substances that are tightly controlled by the government because they may be abused or cause addiction.The law at issue was signed by Governor Jeff Landry in May. It designates the two drugs, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved more than two decades ago, as safe and effective for terminating pregnancies, as Schedule IV drugs, typically pain-killers and mood-altering medications that merit greater oversight due to their potential for abuse or dependence. While abortion is illegal in Louisiana, with a narrow exception for medical emergencies, both drugs have other uses. Mifepristone is used to treat a hormonal disorder known as Cushing syndrome, and misoprostol to manage miscarriage and treat postpartum hemorrhage. One consequence of the state’s classification is that misoprostol will no longer be immediately available to emergency physicians in delivery wards, according to the lawsuit, potentially endangering patients. It alleges that the law violates women’s right to due process under the state constitution.
Hurricane Helene Jeopardized High-Risk Pregnancies and Abortion Access in North Carolina
SC Gazette, November 2, 2024
Since Hurricane Helene struck North Carolina in late September, the full spectrum of reproductive health care in the region has been in precarity, from treatment for high-risk pregnancies to abortions. Western North Carolina’s only abortion clinic is still closed, and third-trimester, high-risk pregnant patients have been transferred out to hospitals across the state, health care workers told States Newsroom. Dr. Bhaskari Burra is an Asheville-based OB-GYN who works at the only high-risk obstetrics center in western North Carolina. She’s also a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health. The clinic had to close after the storm and wasn’t able to fully open back up until the middle of October, Burra said: “We’re already in a maternity care desert in this area and that sort of further ostracized people from accessing care on the outpatient side.” Asheville is the seat of Buncombe County. But six nearby counties — Alleghany, Clay, Graham, Madison, Mitchell and Swain — have no hospitals or birth centers that offer obstetric care, according to the March of Dimes. It’s unclear when Planned Parenthood’s Asheville Health Center will reopen, but staff hopes to resume abortion services soon, said Molly Rivera, the organization’s regional spokesperson. The clinic has been closed since the storm landed in Asheville on Friday, Sept. 27, she said. Patients were rescheduled to affiliate clinics in Charlotte and Winston-Salem. Telehealth appointments for birth control and gender-affirming care were not interrupted by the hurricane, Rivera said. But telehealth appointments for medication abortion are not available. Even though a federal judge struck down several restrictions on medication abortion in June, North Carolina law still requires patients to fill out informed consent paperwork in-person.
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Note: The information contained in this publication reflects media coverage of women’s health issues and does not necessarily reflect the views of the National Partnership for Women & Families.
