The States Where Abortion Is on the Ballot in November
NPR, May 21, 2024
Plenty has happened with abortion access in the nearly two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. State laws have been changing constantly, new bans have taken effect, and there have been a slew of lawsuits and ballot measures. There are total bans on abortion with very limited exceptions in 14 states. A few more states have six-week bans. “Florida was the most recent place for this [six-week ban] to take effect. There are states like Nebraska that ban abortion after 12 weeks. In Arizona, it’s 15 weeks. More than half of the states have restrictions. And in those states, the number of abortions has dropped drastically,” Nadworny said. But despite that trend, the overall number of abortions in the U.S. has actually gone up — due in part to the growing accessibility of telehealth appointments that can provide medication abortions. “Nationally, polling shows 6 in 10 Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, but that can vary by state,” she said. “But since Dobbs, voters in six states have weighed in on constitutional amendments on abortion. Voters chose access to abortion each time.” Four states — Colorado, Florida, Maryland and South Dakota — will be voting on the right to an abortion in the upcoming elections. Six more states, including Arizona and Missouri, are working to get it on the ballot. Voters this fall may also be reacting to what they’ve seen when their access to reproductive healthcare becomes limited. In states with more restrictive bans, like Idaho, dozens of OB-GYNs have left the state, according to one doctor who spoke to NPR. And three maternity wards have closed since the state’s abortion ban took effect. Recruiting problems are widespread for hospitals that are operating in states with abortion bans.
Louisiana House Passes Bill To Make Abortion Pills a Controlled Dangerous Substance
CBS News, May 21, 2024
The Louisiana House approved a bill Tuesday that would add two medications commonly used to induce abortions to the state’s list of controlled dangerous substances, making possession of the drugs without valid prescriptions a crime punishable by fines, jail time or both. The measure, which has drawn support from anti-abortion groups and alarm from medical professionals and reproductive rights advocates, would add the medications mifepristone and misoprostol to Schedule IV of the state’s Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law. Abortion — both medical and surgical — is illegal in Louisiana, so it is already illegal to prescribe the medications to terminate pregnancies, except in very limited circumstances. The bill passed 64-29 in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. It will now go back to the Senate, and if it is approved, it would then be sent to the governor to sign into law. The legislation would make possession of the medications without valid prescriptions or orders from medical professionals punishable by up to five years in prison. Pregnant people who obtain the medications for their own consumption would not be subject to prosecution, according to the legislation. Medical professionals have spoken out against the measure, saying the medications have critical uses outside of abortion care, including aiding in labor and delivery, treating miscarriage and preventing gastrointestinal ulcers. Schedule IV substances include some narcotics; medications within the category of depressants, such as Xanax and Valium; muscle relaxants; sleep aids; and stimulants that can be used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and weight loss. The bill, Senate Bill 276, would also criminalize “coerced criminal abortion by means of fraud,” which would prohibit someone from knowingly using the medications to cause or attempt to cause an abortion without the consent of the pregnant person. That would be punishable by up to 10 years, or up to 20 years if the pregnant person was three months or more into a pregnancy.
6,000 Doctors Urge the Supreme Court To Keep Abortions in Medical Emergencies Legal
The 19th, May 22, 2024
Nearly 6,000 doctors, hailing from all 50 states, have drafted a letter asking the Supreme Court to uphold a federal law that requires hospital emergency departments to provide abortions when they are needed to stabilize patients. The letter, organized by the left-leaning Committee to Protect Health Care and shared first with The 19th, concerns the case Idaho v. United States, which the high court heard in April. In that case, the federal government has argued that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act — a 1986 law known as EMTALA — requires that hospitals participating in the federal Medicare program provide abortions if doing so is the necessary treatment in an emergency. Idaho has contested that interpretation, and argued that its state-level abortion ban supersedes federal law. Idaho’s current ban allows an exception only if the procedure will save the life of the pregnant person, but not if it will otherwise preserve their health.“We know firsthand how complications from pregnancy can lead very quickly to a medical crisis, requiring immediate care and treatment,” states the letter, which was signed by doctors across specialties whose abilities to provide care could be affected by a ban, including oncology, emergency medicine and anesthesiology. “These patients’ complications can range from a miscarriage to heavy bleeding, from placental abruption to a stroke from severe preeclampsia — and doctors and health professionals in emergency departments must be allowed to use the full range of medical options to save these patients’ lives, including abortion.” The case is one of two abortion-related challenges the court has heard this term, and one of the first since the overturn of Roe v. Wade in the 2022 decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. A decision is expected this June.
She Wanted an Abortion. Her Only Option Was Driving to Mexico
The 19th, May 21, 2024
This is an excerpt from “Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in a Post-Roe America.” Before Roe v. Wade fell, McAllen had been home to the last abortion clinic in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, and Becky, a lifelong Texan and young college student, knew the place by sight. It was where the other girls at school used to go whenever they needed help, just by city hall, next to a church, and a short drive from an H-E-B supermarket. It was easy to find. There was a mural on the outside of brightly painted women standing in a field, holding what looked like balls of light, gazing up at the sun. The words hovered above them: “dignity.” “empowerment.” Few places were harder hit by Roe’s fall than the Rio Grande Valley, which lies south of San Antonio and abuts the state’s border with Mexico. Even before 2021, reproductive health care in the region had been difficult to come by — and abortion, while technically available, was only barely so in practice. Minutes from the border, the clinic, a tiny Whole Woman’s Health outpost, had long been the only abortion provider for thousands of miles. In the fall of 2021, when the state’s six-week ban took effect, visits to the clinic fell precipitously, with the majority of Texans seeking abortions unable to make it there under that tight deadline. But abortions still happened. At least some people in the Valley were still able to get clinic-based care in the state, even if that meant driving for hours each way, testing themselves daily from the moment their periods seemed late. Even the $650 for an early abortion represented a tremendous expense; one woman recalled using some of the money she’d been saving to buy a home. People prayed to some higher power that they were still early enough in pregnancy to qualify.
What Happens to Clinics After a State Bans Abortion? They Fight To Survive
The 19th, May 20, 2024
Voters in several states will likely have the chance to reverse their states’ abortion bans this November — but the election results could come too late for clinics that have been forced to scale back or even shut down while those bans were in effect. Abortion rights measures have succeeded all seven times that they have appeared on state ballots since Roe vs. Wade was overturned in June 2022. But this fall’s campaigns could face a particularly uphill battle, especially in Florida, where 60 percent of voters must approve a ballot measure for it to take effect. For clinics, the challenge is staying staffed and financially afloat while facing an uncertain future. In Florida, where the six-week ban took effect May 1, health care providers anticipate clinics will be forced to shut down or reduce their services — changes that could be difficult to reverse, even if the state restores abortion rights this fall. “We’re not naive. We know some clinics are going to close and they’re probably not going to be able to reopen,” said Nikki Madsen, co-executive director of the Abortion Care Network, which supports independent clinics across the country. History has shown that when abortion restrictions take effect, the resulting clinic closures are likely permanent, even if the state law is ultimately reversed. Already, health centers have shut down in states where near-total bans are in effect. In Arkansas, one of the state’s two abortion clinics closed within the first 100 days of Roe’s overturn; so did a clinic in Arizona. In 2013, well before Roe’s fall, Texas passed a law limiting abortion in the state. By the time the law was struck down, more than half the state’s clinics had closed.
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
Black communities have long faced systemic barriers and inadequate access to reproductive autonomy, rights and care due to multiple systems of oppression. Abortion bans only compound those barriers and threats. https://t.co/ltc9dXrPKU
— National Partnership (@NPWF) May 21, 2024
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