A Dramatic Rise in Pregnant Women Dying in Texas After Abortion Ban
NBC News, September 20, 2024
The number of women in Texas who died while pregnant, during labor or soon after childbirth skyrocketed following the state’s 2021 ban on abortion care — far outpacing a slower rise in maternal mortality across the nation, a new investigation of federal public health data finds. From 2019 to 2022, the rate of maternal mortality cases in Texas rose by 56%, compared with just 11% nationwide during the same time period, according to an analysis by the Gender Equity Policy Institute. The nonprofit research group scoured publicly available reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and shared the analysis exclusively with NBC News. The Texas Legislature banned abortion care as early as five weeks into pregnancy in September 2021, nearly a year before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade – the case that protected a federal right to abortion – in June 2022. Texas law now prohibits all abortion except to save the life of the mother. Among Hispanic women, the rate of women dying while pregnant, during childbirth or soon after increased from 14.5 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2019 to 18.9 in 2022. Rates among white women nearly doubled – from 20 per 100,000 to 39.1. And Black women, who historically have higher chances of dying while pregnant, during childbirth or soon after, saw their rates go from 31.6 to 43.6 per 100,000 live births.While maternal mortality spiked overall during the pandemic, women dying while pregnant or during childbirth rose consistently in Texas following the state’s ban on abortion, according to the Gender Equity Policy Institute.
Post-Roe, Pregnant Women Face Growing Risk of Criminal Prosecution for Charges Much Broader than Abortion
CNN, September 24, 2024
Between June 2022 and June 2023, there were more than 200 cases in which a pregnant person faced criminal charges for conduct associated with pregnancy, pregnancy loss or birth – the most cases recorded in a single year over decades of tracking, according to Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit focused on the civil and human rights of pregnant people.Fetal personhood, a concept that extends legal rights to a fetus, embryo or fertilized egg and a cornerstone of the anti-abortion movement, is at the root of many of the allegations.The vast majority of cases from the most recent year of data allege some form of child abuse, neglect or endangerment, according to the new report. Other documented charges against pregnant women include criminal homicide and drug-related charges, along with one charge related to a portion of a criminal abortion statute that has since been repealed and one charge of abuse of a corpse. Prosecution of pregnant people isn’t new – Pregnancy Justice has tracked about 2,000 similar cases over the past 50 years – but experts say that the overturning of Roe v. Wade may have emboldened the cause. Certain groups have been advocating for fetal personhood for decades, she said. But under Roe, it was impossible to advance that argument in any meaningful way because the Supreme Court ruling that protected the federal right to an abortion also stated that the people referenced in the Constitution did not apply to a fetus. So instead, fetal personhood was indirectly written into other areas of law, with a particular focus on advocating for prosecutions of pregnant women. The data from June 2022 to June 2023 shows that the vast majority of pregnancy-related charges alleged substance use during pregnancy, according to the new report from Pregnancy Justice. In more than half of the cases, substance use was the only allegation made against the defendant.More than three-quarters of all defendants were low-income and nearly all cases allowed prosecutors to charge pregnant people without having to prove that there was harm to the fetus or infant.
State Asks Judge To Pause Ruling That Struck Down North Dakota’s Abortion Ban
Associated Press, September 19, 2024
The state of North Dakota is asking a judge to pause his ruling from last week that struck down the state’s abortion ban until the state Supreme Court rules on a planned appeal.The state’s motion to stay a pending appeal was filed Wednesday. State District Judge Bruce Romanick ruled last week that North Dakota’s abortion ban “is unconstitutionally void for vagueness,” and that pregnant women in the state have a fundamental right to abortion before viability under the state constitution. Attorneys for the state said “a stay is warranted until a decision and mandate has been issued by the North Dakota Supreme Court from the appeal that the State will be promptly pursuing. Simply, this case presents serious, difficult and new legal issues.In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which established a constitutional right to an abortion. Soon afterward, the only abortion clinic in North Dakota moved from Fargo to neighboring Moorhead, Minnesota, and challenged North Dakota’s since-repealed trigger ban outlawing most abortions.In 2023, North Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature revised the state’s abortion laws amid the ongoing lawsuit. The amended ban outlawed performance of all abortions as a felony crime but for procedures to prevent a pregnant woman’s death or a “serious health risk” to her, and in cases of rape or incest but only up to six weeks. The law took effect in April 2023. The Red River Women’s Clinic, joined by several doctors, then challenged that law as unconstitutionally vague for doctors and its health exception as too narrow. In court in July, about a month before a scheduled trial, the state asked the judge to throw out the lawsuit, while the plaintiffs asked him to let the August trial proceed. He canceled the trial and later found the law unconstitutional, but has yet to issue a final judgment.
Senate Chairman Demands Answers From Emergency Rooms That Denied Care to Pregnant Patients
ABC News, September 24, 2024
Hospitals are facing questions about why they denied care to pregnant patients and whether state abortion bans have influenced how they treat those patients.Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, sent inquiries to nine hospitals ahead of a hearing Tuesday looking at whether abortion bans have prevented or delayed pregnant women from getting help during their miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies or other medical emergencies.A federal law requires emergency rooms to provide stabilizing care for patients, a mandate that the Biden administration argues includes abortions needed to save the health or life of a woman. But anti-abortion advocates have argued that the law also requires hospitals to stabilize a fetus, too. The Senate Finance Committee comes into play because it oversees Medicare funding, which can be yanked when a hospital violates the federal law. The Associated Press has reported that more than 100 women have been denied care in emergency rooms across the country since 2022.The women were turned away in states with and without strict abortion bans, but doctors in Florida and Missouri, for example, detailed in some cases they could not give patients the treatment they needed because of the state’s abortion bans. Wyden sent letters to four of the hospitals that were included in the AP’s reports, as well as a hospital at the center of a ProPublica report that found a Georgia woman died after doctors delayed her treatment.
Birth Control Access Fell in States With Abortion Bans. It’s Different in South Carolina, One Group Says
NBC News, September 25, 2024
South Carolina’s most vulnerable women are asking for and getting birth control in record numbers – even in parts of the state without any doctors who specialize in women’s reproductive health, according to a new report. The findings – from New Morning, a nonprofit organization based in Columbia, South Carolina, that works to provide free or low-cost contraception access in the state – stand in contrast to what’s been happening in other states that enacted abortion restrictions after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. A study in June found a decrease in prescriptions for birth control pills and emergency contraceptives in states with the most restrictions on abortion. South Carolina has one of the country’s strictest, prohibiting abortions at six weeks of pregnancy. Many women’s health centers, including abortion clinics where women had often gotten their birth control, closed after the Dobbs decision. According to New Morning’s report, from July 2023 through this June, 88,281 women in South Carolina – a record high – accessed contraception through doctor’s offices and hospitals associated with the organization’s training program, up from 76,561 in 2022. Most of those clinics serve uninsured and underserved populations.
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
It comes as no surprised that access to reproductive care is a top priority for Latina voters this year. Our 2023 report with @LatinaInstitute showed that nearly *6.7 million* Latinas live in the 26 states that have banned or are likely to ban abortion. https://t.co/CRgaKWO4nT
— National Partnership (@NPWF) September 23, 2024
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