Texas Teen Killed by Abortion Ban

11.4.24

Click to skip ahead: Election Day at Abortion, Every Day takes you through what to expect from our coverage tomorrow. Post-Dobbs Deaths has another story of a young woman killed by Texas’ abortion ban and the anti-abortion response. Care Denied looks at the story of a Florida woman denied an abortion despite qualifying for an ‘exception.’ In the States, news from Texas and more. Ballot Measure Updates looks at which states got the most fundraising dollars and how anti-choice activists are using Nebraska as a testing ground. 2024 gets into that Iowa poll and whether abortion rights can bring home wins for Democratic candidates. In the Nation, some quick hits. Finally, news so weird it defies a section.

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Election Day at Abortion, Every Day

Okay, tomorrow is going to be stressful—but at least we can take the day in together. Here’s some of what you can at AED:

At 1pm EST, I’ll be hosting a video live-stream with fellow Substacker and Iowa political writer Lyz Lenz. We’ll be talking about the poll that has everyone excited, abortion rights and the election. (Duh.) And at 8pm EST, I’ll open up a live-chat to watch the results roll in. The plan for now is to keep it open until about midnight, unless it looks like we might get a result. In which case I’ll keep it open however long I can.

If you’re not a paying supporter, please upgrade your subscription now to join the conversation tomorrow!

In addition to the live-chat and live-stream, I’ll be updating this page with ballot measure wins and losses, sending you emails about notable results, and be generally around on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Threads & Bluesky. Whew!

Seriously, though—the best way to keep updated on what’s happening with abortion rights results tomorrow is by joining the live-chat. So if you’ve been waiting to upgrade your subscription, it really is the best time.

Post-Dobbs Deaths

ProPublica has the story of another young woman who was killed by Texas’ abortion ban: Nevaeh Crain didn’t even get a chance to reach her 19th birthday. Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana report that the teenager was sent home after screening positive for sepsis, with doctors telling her that her six-month fetus had a heartbeat.

Crain had three emergency room visits in 20 hours before she was finally admitted to a hospital. Even after the fetal heartbeat stopped, Crain’s doctor at Christus St. Elizabeth—a Catholic hospital—wanted a second ultrasound to confirm as much before he acted. ProPublica describes Crain’s mother screaming for someone to “do something.”

It is, in short, a nightmare. The story comes just days after ProPublica’s investigation in to Josseli Barnica’s death—another young woman killed by Texas’ abortion ban. I truly don’t know what to say that I haven’t said before. The fact that this girl was so young—just a few years older than my own daughter—has had my heart in my stomach all day.

How Many of Us Have to Die?

In response to the news, over 100 OBGYNs in the state have sent a letter urging Texas lawmakers to take action. “Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain should be alive today,” they write.

Critically, the doctors also push back on the lie that it’s not the state’s abortion ban hurting and killing women, but pro-choice scare tactics and misinformation about the law:

“Anti-abortion groups and others are saying blame does not fall on Texas law. That is simply not true. As OB-GYNS in Texas, we know firsthand how much these laws restrict our ability to provide our patients with quality, evidence-based care.”

As you know, anti-abortion organizations have launched a full-scale assault on the truth in an attempt to shirk blame for what their laws have done. Their claim is that abortion rights activists have scared doctors out of providing care, and women out of seeking it. It is a truly despicable move.

Care Denied

While we’re talking about the reality of abortion bans, let’s take a look at how useless ‘exceptions’ are: Thea Thompson in Florida found out at 18 weeks into her pregnancy that her fetus had a fatal condition. But before she could officially qualify for Florida’s exception for fatal abnormalities, she would need two doctors to sign off, in writing, that the fetus would die upon birth or “imminently thereafter.” (Let’s leave aside for a moment what that means for people whose fatally-ill newborns might live for a few days—is that imminent enough for the law?)

Thompson’s doctor would only sign off on the abortion if she got an amniocentesis, the results of which might take one or two weeks to come in. At that point, it would be even harder to find somewhere to have an abortion, and abortion gets more complicated the further along someone is in pregnancy. Thompson was told the amnio might also cause her water to break early—which could lead to a serious infection. And we’ve seen what happens when women get those.

“I just didn't want to put myself through that, my own health through that, my husband through that, you know our child, it's dangerous,” Thompson told WUSF. So she traveled by herself out-of-state while her husband stayed back with their toddler. “We couldn’t even grieve together, we had to be separate and it was horrible,” she says.

And that’s the thing: Abortion bans don’t just kill women, they torture us. All while claiming there are ‘exceptions’ to help.

In related news, NPR has a piece on how abortion storytellers have become Democrats most powerful weapon in the lead-up to the election. We know that these stories move voters—and that they’re expected to impact tomorrow night’s results. What we don’t know, however, is whether these stories of care denied have reached Republican women, who are generally less likely to have heard women’s experiences than other voters. (I wrote about this in April.)

In the States

• The Associated Press looks at how the gubernatorial race in West Virginia might be the closest that voters get to having a say on abortion rights;

• More on the lawsuit against Louisiana’s law classifying abortion medication as a controlled substance;

• Georgia students report harassment while handing out emergency contraception;

• And 60 Minutes had an important segment last night on the consequences of Texas’ abortion ban. It’s worth a watch, if you can stomach it.

Ballot Measure Updates

Abortion rights groups have outspent anti-abortion organizations in ballot measure fights by more than 6 to 1, with the vast majority of the $160 million raised going to Florida’s Amendment 4. The Associated Press reports that Florida pro-choice activists have raised over $75 million to get abortion protected in the state constitution.

Conservative publications, which are clearly anticipating some major ballot measure defeats tomorrow, are already pointing to the numbers as an excuse for why they’re losing. If abortion rights amendments win big tomorrow, we can expect that anti-choice groups and politicians will claim that voters aren’t really that pro-choice—it’s just that people were tricked into supporting the measures by powerful outside interests.

The only states where abortion rights activists didn’t outspend their anti-abortion opponents were South Dakota and Nebraska. In fact, anti-abortion activists spent nearly as much in Nebraska as they did in Florida. My guess is that national anti-abortion groups are directing funding to Nebraska because this is the state where they’re trying out a new tactic: fake ‘pro-choice’ ballot measures.

Remember, Nebraska has two measure on the ballot: One to protect abortion rights until viability and another that would enshrine the state’s 12-week abortion ban. But anti-abortion activists didn’t tell voters in the state the truth about their measure; instead signature-gatherers told Nebraskans that they’d be signing in support of abortion rights. The idea was to weaponize abortion rights’ popularity in their own favor.

They’re counting on the same confusion to bring them home a win tomorrow night. And if they’re successful in Nebraska, anti-abortion lobbyists will know that the sneaky tactic works.

The other strategy they’ve been spending big money on in Nebraska and Florida is the lie that the state ban is perfectly safe and it’s pro-choice ‘misinformation’ hurting women. I reported last week how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen held press conferences claiming as much—even trotting out doctors (who were actually anti-abortion extremists) to defend the states’ bans.

Something else on Florida: The state’s first lady Casey DeSantis was on a local radio show this week complaining that voters might have the chance to upend Republicans’ regressive agenda using ballot measures:

“There are over a million more registered Republicans than Democrats. And so when they use this constitutional system to bypass the legislature where (Republicans) have supermajorities, they’re trying to pass an agenda.”

It’s almost as if…that’s democracy? How dare voters do something that legislators don’t like! Given her husband’s fascistic bullshit, no one is surprised.

Quick hits: The Guardian writes that Amendment 4 in Florida might come down to men’s votes. Gothamist covers the doctors who are speaking out in favor of New York’s Prop 1 and the anti-abortion misinformation that’s gained steam in these last weeks before the election. ABC News looks at Arizona’s ballot measure through the story of one family’s story of care denied.

And if you need a refresh on the states where abortion is on the ballot—and info on Republicans’ attacks on democracy—read AED’s explainer below. (This is also the link where I’ll be updating ballot measure results tomorrow night.)

Abortion Ballot Measures, Explained

2024

I don’t know about you, but the news about this Iowa poll gave me a much-needed boost. For those who haven’t seen: Pollster J. Ann Selzer at the Des Moines Register, who is seen as the gold-standard in independent polling, found that Vice President Kamala Harris is leading Donald Trump by three points in Iowa.

What makes this poll so exciting is that Selzer is known for catching things others don’t, and what’s happening in Iowa—where independent and older women are driving Harris’ numbers—may be a sign of something we see nationally.

The short version? Women are fucking pissed off. As Iowa political writer Lyz Lenz pointed out on Twitter, the majority of voters in the state want abortion to be legal—and women voters are furious about the state’s 6-week ban.

Selzer found, for example, that women 65 years-old and older favor Harris by 35 points, and that Harris is ahead by 28 points with independent female voters.

If polls have been undercounting women’s rage, it could bode well for us tomorrow night. Fingers and toes crossed, because the only thing better than Harris winning would be Harris winning by a female-led landslide thanks to abortion rights.

That said: One of the reasons we may see Iowa women come out strong for Harris is because abortion is not on the ballot there. Voters don’t have an opportunity to support abortion rights directly, so supporting Harris might be the closest they can get.

In states where abortion is on the ballot, I think we’ll see plenty of women who cast a ballot both for their state’s pro-choice amendment and Trump.

Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom For All, for example, says that “ballot measures are going to out-perform Democrats in every state.”

“We have a lot of Republicans who are still uncomfortable with identifying as anything other than Republican, but are very comfortable on the ballot measures.”

Similarly, check out what reporters at The Wall Street Journal relayed today in their “What’s News” podcast:

“We have spoken with voters in places like Arizona who say, ‘I'm going to vote for the ballot measure, but Trump has said this is a state's rights issue and I believe him, and so I'm going to vote for access in my state and I'm going to vote for Trump.’”

I find it inexplicable, truly. But it just may be that Trump wins in states with abortion rights ballot measures because voters have the chance to signal their pro-choice bonafides without voting for Harris.

Quick hits:

• Carter Sherman at The Guardian lays out how abortion rights will play a role in state Supreme Court races tomorrow;

• States Newsroom spoke to pollsters and political scientists about how Americans’ votes might change thanks to abortion rights;

• And The 19th on Harris’ reproductive freedom messaging.

“A Trump Department of Justice would probably start by enforcing the Comstock Act against companies that ship mifepristone or against so-called shield doctors in states that protect abortion providers who mail pills into states with abortion bans. But there is no reason to think it will stop there. The Comstock Act does not define the term ‘abortion,’ and some anti-abortion advocates define common contraceptives, including emergency contraceptives, IUDs and the birth control pill, as abortifacients. And the statute’s language about obscenity reaches well beyond abortion to address a vague and broadly defined category of items ‘for indecent or immoral use’—language that could be applied to PrEP drugs for HIV prevention or medications used for in vitro fertilization or gender-affirming care.”

- Law professors Mary Ziegler and Reva Siegel write in POLITICO how Trump could ban abortion without Congress

In the Nation

• Ruth Marcus at The Washington Post writes about the mifepristone lawsuit brought by three Republican Attorneys General (this is the story AED broke a few weeks ago);

• The New York Times on the Women’s March in Washington, DC this weekend;

• Al Jazeera asks if abortion will decide the election;

• PBS Newshour on why maternal and infant mortality are on the rise since Roe was overturned;

• And THANK YOU to NBC News for laying out how it’s not just abortion rights on the ballot tomorrow—but the right to birth control.

Before you go, some news that doesn’t fit into any real section here but I had to mention anyway: Tucker Carlson has joined the incredible group of maniacs who claim that abortion causes hurricanes. I promise I am not joking. In the midst of a rant on abortion, which he called “the killing of kids,” Carlson said the following:

““I’m sure I’ll be attacked for saying this, but I really believe it. People are like, oh, well, we had another hurricane, must be global warming. No, it’s probably abortion, actually. Just being honest.”

Listen, you can’t have it both ways: Either Democrats are using their weather machine to dole out punishment to red states, or god is mad over abortion. Pick a side!

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