A “Striking” Trend: After Texas Banned Abortion, More Women Nearly Bled to Death During Miscarriage
ProPublica, July 1, 2025
Before states banned abortion, one of the gravest outcomes of early miscarriage could easily be avoided: Doctors could offer a dilation and curettage procedure, which quickly empties the uterus and allows it to close, protecting against a life-threatening hemorrhage. But because the procedures, known as D&Cs, are also used to end pregnancies, they have gotten tangled up in state legislation that restricts abortion. Reports now abound of doctors hesitating to provide them and women who are bleeding heavily being discharged from emergency rooms without care, only to return in such dire condition that they need blood transfusions to survive. As ProPublica reported last year, one woman died of hemorrhage after 10 hours in a Houston hospital that didn’t perform the procedure. Now, a new ProPublica data analysis adds empirical weight to the mounting evidence that abortion bans have made the common experience of miscarriage – which occurs in up to 30% of pregnancies – far more dangerous. It is based on hospital discharge data from Texas, the largest state to ban abortion, and captures emergency department visits from 2017 to 2023, the most recent year available. After Texas made performing abortions a felony in August 2022, ProPublica found, the number of blood transfusions during emergency room visits for first-trimester miscarriage shot up by 54%. The number of emergency room visits for early miscarriage also rose, by 25%, compared with the three years before the COVID-19 pandemic – a sign that women who didn’t receive D&Cs initially may be returning to hospitals in worse condition, more than a dozen experts told ProPublica. While that phenomenon can’t be confirmed by the discharge data, which tracks visits rather than individuals, doctors and researchers who reviewed ProPublica’s findings say these spikes, along with the stories patients have shared, paint a troubling picture of the harm that results from unnecessary delays in care.
The Republican Spending Bill Is a Disaster for Reproductive Rights
Vox, June 30, 2025
Three years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Republicans in Congress are poised to further erode access to abortion and reproductive care. President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” would not only directly threaten reproductive care by defunding Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, it would also incentivize insurers for Affordable Care Act plans in some states to drop abortion coverage or make it significantly more expensive. And it would slash Medicaid coverage, impacting Americans’ ability to access medical care of all sorts. Though Medicaid funds cannot fund abortions except under very narrow circumstances, the cuts would threaten access to non-abortion reproductive care. Many abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood, also offer health care in the form of contraceptives, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, and cervical cancer screenings. GOP lawmakers are targeting a July 4 deadline to pass the bill. It passed the House in May and cleared a key procedural vote in the Senate on Saturday. Following a rapid-fire vote on a series of amendments, the bill could go up for a final vote in the Senate as soon as Monday night. GOP lawmakers have faced many internal disagreements about the bill, but there’s a strong push to include both attacks on Planned Parenthood and cuts to Medicaid. If the initiatives go through, they’ll come at a time when abortion rights and access are under attack, but the actual number of abortions has increased.
Texas Capital Murder Case Attempts To Severely Punish Abortion Pill Use by Treating a Fetus as a Person
The Texas Tribune, June 30, 2025
A North Texas man charged with capital murder this month after he allegedly slipped his girlfriend abortion-inducing medication and caused a miscarriage marks the first time a murder charge has been brought in an abortion-related case in Texas. The case tests a new method for reining in abortion pills – by threatening to prosecute individuals who provide them with the most severe criminal charge – while advancing the longstanding legal provision that defines an embryo as a person, legal experts say. The latter could raise serious implications about the legality of fertility treatments and in other legal realms such as criminal and immigration issues. “It is shocking to people that the law can be used this way… that this is the extent and result of the more than 20 year old fetal personhood laws,” said Blake Rocap, a Texas attorney who works in abortion rights advocacy and studies pregnancy criminalization. Legal experts say the case will not change Texas laws that prevent women who receive abortions from being prosecuted. Before Roe v. Wade was overturned, a fetus was not considered a person constitutionally. However, when Roe v. Wade was overturned, the whole opinion was overruled, including the idea that a fetus does not have the same rights as a person. That did not immediately mean that fetus personhood is established. But, Joanna Grossman, a professor at Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, and other experts see Banta’s case as an attempt to move further in that direction. “The purpose of this has nothing to do with caring whether this woman was victimized, but it’s about trying to establish fetal personhood in a more direct way than they’ve been able to,” said Grossman.
Supreme Court Upholds Federal Health Task Force That Sets No-Cost Coverage for Preventive Services
CBS News, June 27, 2025
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the structure of a federal health task force that recommends preventive medical services that must be provided to patients at no cost under the Affordable Care Act. The ruling from the Supreme Court in the case known as Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, Inc. leaves intact the 16-member U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. The task force is part of the Department of Health and Human Service and has for decades been making recommendations on preventive medical services to avoid serious health conditions. The court ruled 6-3 in finding that the task force members are inferior officers, whose appointment by the head of Health and Human Services is consistent with the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. The work of the task force took on added significance after passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. The law requires health insurers and group health plans to provide preventive services that are recommended by the task force without imposing co-pays, deductibles or other cost-sharing charges on patients. A group of Christian-owned businesses and individuals filed a lawsuit arguing that the preventive-care coverage mandates cannot be enforced because the task force members were unconstitutionally appointed. The plaintiffs specifically took issue with the task force’s recommendation in June 2019 that PrEP, a medication to prevent HIV, be included in the preventive services covered without cost-sharing arrangements. They argued that providing no-cost coverage of PrEP “encourages and facilitates homosexual behavior,” which conflicts with their religious beliefs, and said they want to purchase or provide plans that exclude coverage of that medication.
HHS Eliminated CDC Staff Who Made Sure Birth Control Is Safe for Women at Risk
CBS News, June 30, 2025
For Brianna Henderson, birth control isn’t just about preventing pregnancy. The Texas mother of two was diagnosed with a rare and potentially fatal heart condition after having her second child. In addition to avoiding another pregnancy that could be life-threatening, Henderson has to make sure the contraception she uses doesn’t jeopardize her health. For more than a decade, a small team of people at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention worked to do just that, issuing national guidelines for clinicians on how to prescribe contraception safely for millions of women with underlying medical conditions – including heart disease, lupus, sickle cell disease, and obesity. But the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, fired those workers as part of the Trump administration’s rapid downsizing of the federal workforce. It also decimated the CDC’s larger Division of Reproductive Health, where the team was housed – a move that clinicians, advocacy groups, and fired workers say will endanger the health of women and their babies. Clinicians said in interviews that counseling patients about birth control and prescribing it is relatively straightforward. But for women with conditions that put them at higher risk of serious health complications, special care is needed. “We really were the only source of safety monitoring in this country,” said one fired CDC staffer who worked on the guidelines, known as the U.S. Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use, or MEC.
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
New National Partnership for Women & Families analysis finds that 144 rural hospitals across the country with labor and delivery units are at risk of closure or severe service cutbacks under the Republican’s proposal to cut Medicaid.
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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.
