Women Claim Texas Hospitals Denied Them Abortions for Ectopic Pregnancies
The Washington Post, August 13, 2024
Two women have filed complaints against two Texas hospitals for allegedly denying them treatment for ectopic pregnancies, which they say put their lives at risk and breached federal law. In a complaint to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Kyleigh Thurman said that in February 2023, Ascension Seton Williamson Hospital in Round Rock, Tex., discharged her without treating her ectopic pregnancy or transferring her to another hospital. It denied her treatment again when she returned days later with vaginal bleeding, she said. The delay caused her fallopian tube to rupture, she said. According to the complaint, the hospital treated her only after her OB/GYN “pleaded” with staff to provide the necessary care. “For weeks, I was in and out of emergency rooms trying to get the abortion that I needed to save my future fertility and life,” she was quoted as saying in a news release Monday from the Center for Reproductive Rights, whose attorneys are representing both women. Texas law, which bans abortion in most cases, makes an exception for ectopic pregnancies, which cannot result in a live birth. “None of this should have happened to me, and I want to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” Thurman added. In her complaint, Kelsie Norris-De La Cruz said that in February, Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital discharged her without treatment for an ectopic pregnancy or a transfer to another hospital. When she sought a second opinion within hours, she was rushed into emergency surgery at a different facility, she said. Four OB/GYNs who reviewed Norris-De La Cruz’s medical records for The Washington Post, with her permission, said that she should have been offered emergency surgery and that they suspected Texas’s abortion ban played a role in how she was advised, The Post reported in February.
Political Parties Are Divided on Abortion Rights. American Women Aren’t.
The 19th, August 14, 2024
Most women between the ages of 18 and 49 support a national right to abortion, oppose a national ban on the procedure, and don’t believe abortion rights should be left up to individual states, according to a new survey from KFF, a nonprofit health policy research, polling and news organization. Majorities of Democratic and independent women oppose restrictions and support a law enshrining a national abortion right, the poll found; so do almost half of all Republican women. The survey was fielded from May 15 to June 18, looking at a nationally representative sample of 3,901 people ages 18 to 49 who identified as women, trans, nonbinary or another gender. It found that almost 1 in 10 either struggled to get an abortion after Roe v. Wade‘s overturn or knew someone who had. Almost two-thirds said they feared abortion bans could jeopardize the health of their own future pregnancy or that of someone close to them – including almost 40 percent of Republican respondents. “Across the board, people are really concerned about the impact of abortion restrictions and abortion bans on people’s health and on safety,” said Usha Ranji, associate director for Women’s Health Policy at KFF. The findings underscore that, while the major political parties remain divided on abortion, American women – and especially those considered to be of reproductive age – are fairly aligned. A person’s political party affiliation doesn’t have a big influence over whether they are more likely to have had an abortion, either. The survey found that about 14 percent of respondents – about 1 in 7 – have had an abortion in their lifetime. Black and Hispanic respondents were more likely than White ones to say they’d had an abortion.
Arizona Ballot Leaflets Can Call Fetuses ‘Unborn Human Beings,’ Court Says
The Washington Post, August 15, 2024
As Arizona prepares to give voters the choice of whether to enshrine abortion as a constitutional right in November, the state’s Supreme Court has ruled that informational pamphlets sent out to all voters can use the phrase “unborn human being” to refer to embryos or fetuses. The court said Wednesday that the language “substantially complies” with impartiality requirements, backing the majority-Republican legislative council that drafted the language. Two justices dissented. The ruling noted that the phrase is used in existing legislation but did not explain the justices’ thinking in further detail. A full opinion will be released later, the ruling said. Arizona for Abortion Access, which is leading the ballot-measure campaign and sued to change the language, said in a statement posted on social media that the court’s decision “means that Arizona voters won’t get to learn about the questions on their ballot in a fair, neutral, and accurate way but will instead be subjected to biased, politically-charged words.” “We are deeply disappointed in this ruling, but will not be deterred from doing everything in our power to communicate to voters the truth of the Arizona Abortion Access Act and why it’s critical to vote YES to restore and protect access to abortion care this fall,” said the group. If passed, the Arizona vote would allow abortion until fetal viability, or about 24 weeks – the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb. The state currently bans abortion in most cases after 15 weeks. Ben Toma, Arizona House Speaker and co-chair of the Legislative Council that drafted the language, said the wording is intended to help voters understand the current law, according to the Associated Press. “The Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling is correct,” he said. The Supreme Court’s decision overturned an earlier ruling by a judge from the Maricopa County Superior Court, who said the term “unborn human being” was “packed with emotion and partisan meaning” and ordered it to be replaced “with a neutral term.”
After Dobbs Decision, More Women Are Managing Their Own Abortions
NBC News, August 11, 2024
Kaniya was right in the middle of spring finals at college last year when she found out she was pregnant. “I didn’t have the resources to support a child,” said Kaniya, who asked to use only her first name to protect her privacy. “I wasn’t making enough money financially. I was working multiple jobs. I didn’t have the capacity to care for a child.” The now-21-year-old made a difficult decision to have an abortion. Her first choice was to do it near her family so she would have their support and care. But they lived in Kentucky, a state that implemented a near-total abortion ban after the Dobbs decision two years ago. Kaniya tried to make an appointment near her Maryland home. But every clinic she called was booked for weeks, she said. The wait time was likely the result of an influx of women from states with strict bans, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports access to abortions. “You had to wait at least a month,” she told NBC News. “I even thought about traveling an hour away and still couldn’t get an appointment.” After connecting with advocacy groups for help, she made the decision to have an abortion without a doctor or clinic visit, a process known as a self-managed abortion. Most commonly, women use the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol. “Someone got the pills for me from one of the organizations that I connected with,” she said. “I didn’t have to pay for anything. Even though I was working multiple jobs, this can be a lot of money.” As more states implement abortion restrictions, the number of women undergoing self-managed abortions is rising, according to a new study from the research group Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco. Researchers surveyed 7,000 women ages 15 to 49 and found that in the year before the Dobbs decision, 2.4% reported self-managing abortions. In the year after Dobbs, that percentage increased to 3.4%, according to the report published recently in JAMA Network Open.
Florida Is Waging an All-Out War on Its Abortion Clinics
HuffPost, August 15, 2024
Florida was once a safe haven for abortion care, even in the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. But nearly half of the country has criminalized abortion in the two years since, and Florida has enacted its six-week ban. In the two months after Florida’s ban went into effect, the state saw a 575% increase in people looking to travel out of state for care, according to new data from the National Abortion Federation. Some people are optimistic about a November ballot measure that seeks to restore access until the point of fetal viability. It would be a monumental win for advocates if the measure passes, re-establishing the state as a critical safe haven in the Southeast, where most states have near-total abortion bans. But even if the pro-choice measure succeeds, some abortion clinics might not be around to see it enacted. The amendment, if passed, wouldn’t restore access until early next year – effectively an eternity for many small clinics already struggling to pay the bills just four months after the six-week abortion ban went into effect. The hostility from politicians and anti-choice advocates “has always existed around abortion, but it has reached a fever pitch since the Dobbs decision,” said Dr. Chelsea Daniels, an abortion provider with Planned Parenthood South, East and North Florida. Under DeSantis’ leadership, the state passed a 15-week abortion ban with no exceptions, and later the six-week ban that included a $25 million annual allotment of taxpayer money to anti-abortion, faith-based pregnancy centers that are unregulated. Even some state agencies are combative toward the very clinics they are responsible for licensing. Florida abortion clinics are flooded with a kind of fear and anxiety many of them have never known.
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
More than 100 pregnant women in medical distress who sought help from emergency rooms were turned away or negligently treated since 2022. https://t.co/IBh1VjmXPz
— National Partnership (@NPWF) August 12, 2024
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