Miscarrying Woman Forced to Drive Out-Of-State for Care

12.9.24

Click here to skip ahead: Care Denied has the story of a Texas teen who left the state for abortion care and a Louisiana woman who had to leave her state for miscarriage treatment. Attacks on Abortion Pills looks at Trump’s latest comments on abortion medication. In the States has news out of Texas, Florida, and South Carolina. All About Missouri outlines how Republicans are trying to restrict abortion despite voters passing protections. In the Nation has more on Elon Musk (sorry) and an update on the mifepristone lawsuit.

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Care Denied

Republicans keep insisting that abortion bans don’t hurt women and that doctors can provide necessary medical care. But story after story coming out of anti-abortion states—including those of women’s deaths—proves otherwise.

The latest nightmare experience comes from a woman who had to travel from Louisiana to Florida for miscarriage treatment. Tabitha Crowe, who shared her story with States Newsroom, started miscarrying at 12 weeks into her pregnancy while visiting her parents in Louisiana. And while the hospital there gave her misoprostol, they wouldn’t give her a D&C—even as she spent days in extreme pain and passing baseball-sized blood clots. From Crowe:

“We kept telling them, ‘Hey, can y’all just do this D&C, so like we can be done with this pain?’ They wouldn’t answer.”

It was Crowe’s sister, a nurse, who suggested that it could be the state’s abortion ban preventing them from giving her the necessary care. And so while miscarrying, Crowe drove four hours back to her home state of Florida where her husband took her to Eglin Air Force Base emergency department. There, she finally got a D&C. (States Newsroom reporter Sofia Resnick points out that women have been denied miscarriage treatment in Florida too, but living on a military base under federal jurisdiction may have helped Crowe.)

Stories like Crowe’s are becoming more common thanks to the increasing fear around doing D&Cs, with doctors in anti-abortion states too afraid to take any action that could be construed as an illegal abortion. That’s part of the reason we’re seeing an increase in c-sections rather than abortions—even when it’s too early for the fetus to survive.

It’s also worth remembering that what happened to Crowe is exactly how women die. I don’t know how many different ways to say it, but I’ll repeat myself for the hundredth time: they simply don’t care.

Houston Landing published a story that’s just as infuriating but has a happier ending—they followed one teenager’s journey out of Texas to get an abortion. A 17 year-old called ‘J’ knew she didn’t want to be pregnant from the get-go and was understandably pissed off that she couldn’t just get care at home:

“It’s completely unfair. It’s absolutely disgusting that we have to travel to another state just because we don’t want to give birth to a whole other living being. So many women have given up on their dreams because they are forced to have a baby.”

J’s sister took her to an El Paso clinic where she could get abortion medication, with Houston Landing reporting that if J took the pills in Texas, her sister could be seen as ‘aiding and abetting’ abortion.

It’s awful, but reading about a young woman who was able to get the care she needed—while being supported by a loved one—brought me a little bit of hope today. This last line, especially, describing what the two sisters did after they found out that J’s abortion had completed and she was no longer pregnant:

“The sisters smiled and held hands as they skipped down the hallway to the elevator, heading out to their car and off to wait anxiously for emails from college admissions offices that might offer J some good news.”

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Something to keep an eye on: Buried in the above piece is an important bit of information about the Texas anti-abortion movement. John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, told Houston Landing that his group is working with the Texas legislature to find a way to prosecute clinics like the one J went to in New Mexico. He said, “Just because the abortions started in another state and ended here in Texas, that doesn’t erase their criminality.”

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Attacks on Abortion Pills

To no one’s surprise, Donald Trump admitted in a “Meet the Press” interview this weekend that he may restrict abortion medication. Here’s what he said when asked by Kristen Welker about possible restrictions while in office:

TRUMP: I’ll probably—I’ll probably stay with exactly what I’ve been saying for the last two years. And the answer is no.

KRISTEN WELKER: You commit to that?

TRUMP: I commit? I mean, things change. I think they change…I don’t like putting myself in a position like that. So things do change.

That refusal to commit pretty much says it all. Not to mention, he’s a habitual liar anyway!

The truth is that asking Trump about “restrictions” on abortion medication is not ever going to get the American people a straight answer. Instead, reporters should ask Trump if he plans to use the Comstock Act to ban the shipping of abortion medication, or whether his administration will revoke Biden-era FDA rules that increased access to the pills. (Like allowing the medication to be used a few weeks later into pregnancy, and removing a requirement for an in-person visit.)

This is the same thing that happened in the lead-up to the election when media outlets asked Trump and JD Vance questions about a national abortion ban. By declining to get into the nitty gritty, they gave the men a rhetorical out: Conservatives could claim they opposed a ‘ban’ while simultaneously supporting a ‘minimum national standard.’ Without reporters asking them what the difference was (there is none), they were able to lie to American voters unchecked.

That’s exactly what’s happening with abortion medication. Trump’s FDA will simply revert back to old rules on the pills and claim that they’re not new restrictions; Trump will say the same thing should they use the Comstock Act.

It’s not just the questions that need to be changed, of course—but the coverage itself. In response to Trump’s interview, multiple media outlets made it sound as if Trump promised to leave abortion medication alone: TIME magazine, for example, reported that Trump said he wouldn’t restrict abortion medication; and USA Today’s header reads, “Trump says he will not restrict abortion pills.”

In the States

Sticking with attacks on abortion medication for a moment: Texas Republicans want to make the pills a controlled substance—a disaster for women’s health in a place where the abortion law is already killing women.

Because remember, this medication is often used to stop postpartum hemorrhage. When Louisiana made the pills a controlled substance back in October, doctors were even running timed drills in hospitals to see how long it would take them to get to the locked away drugs and back to their bleeding patients.

Texas OBGYN Dr. Todd Ivey tells Houston Public Media that having the pills in the room or easily and quickly available is vital. “Every second counts when you’re talking about a postpartum hemorrhage,” he says.

But as we know, women’s lives and health don’t mean shit when stacked up against Republicans’ political goals. They are desperate to make abortion medication seem dangerous, and making the pills controlled substances are just one part of that broader strategy.

Texas Republicans also want to pass this law because it could allow them to increase the penalties associated with having the medication, and because it would mean that the pills would be tracked in a state database. And you know how much conservatives love tracking women’s reproductive health information!

If you want to know more about what might happen in Texas, check out Abortion, Every Day’s explainer on the Louisiana law here.

Let’s talk about death by a thousand cuts. Something I write about often is how Republicans like to chip away at a right bit by bit. It’s what they did with abortion rights, and what they’re doing now with birth control and the right to travel. Republicans are also using that approach to run abortion providers out of town and/or out of business.

Take what’s happening in Florida, for example, where Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has been trying to get an abortion provider’s medical license revoked. Surely if they’re using taxpayer money and government energy to strip a doctor of their license, this provider must be a serious danger to patients, right?

Of course not—they tried to revoke her license over a technicality: The provider didn’t adhere to Florida’s 24-hour waiting period for the first few days after the requirement went into effect. Not only had the mandate been litigated for years, but the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) didn’t inform clinics until months after the effective date. What’s more, the provider’s office had actually repeatedly tried to contact the AHCA to ask when the waiting period would go into effect.

And by the way, this comes after the state agency tried to fine the clinic out of existence.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about one individual doctor or clinic; it’s about Republicans using the power of the state to punish abortion providers any way they can. If they can’t ban abortion outright, they’ll attack providers one-by-one.

In our last bit of state news, the South Carolina Supreme Court announced that they’ll hear arguments this Friday about the state’s abortion ban. Specifically, whether the state bans abortion at six or nine weeks.

You may remember this case: South Carolina’s law bans abortion when there’s “cardiac activity,” but the notion of fetal heartbeat that early in pregnancy is pretty much a myth—there’s not even a heart at 6 weeks! Given that medical reality, abortion providers in the state are arguing that the ban should be moved up by a few weeks. (By the 9th week, most of the primary parts of the eventual heart have formed.)

As I’ve written before, I initially wasn’t thrilled that the legal challenge was seeking out such small incremental change. But a representative from Planned Parenthood South Atlantic made this incredibly important point: The difference between a 6-week ban and a 9-week ban is the difference between doctors turning away half of their patients or 90% of them.

Doctors also sued late last year over the definition of ‘fetal heartbeat’, asking the Court to allow abortion until the 9th week of pregnancy. But the then all-male state Supreme Court declined to take up the case. As of this summer, there’s one female justice on the bench.

For more on the lawsuit and the history of South Carolina’s abortion ban (a lot has happened there since Roe was overturned) check out Abortion, Every Day’s past coverage below:

South Carolina's “Heartbeat” Lawsuit

Quick hits:

• More on the Oklahoma legislation I told you about last week;

• Montana abortion providers and funds are worried about what the next administration will mean for them;

• Abortion funds are taking on a larger role in Maine;

• Finally, how Wisconsin abortion providers and clinics are preparing for a Trump presidency.

All About Missouri

Thanks to a pro-choice ballot measure win, abortion rights are protected in Missouri’s constitution until ‘viability.’ But Planned Parenthood clinics are holding off on prescribing or performing abortions until they hear back from a judge about whether the state’s total ban has been blocked.

Remember: Amendment 3 doesn’t repeal the state’s ban automatically—abortion providers are suing to overturn the law, and asking a judge to issue an injunction so they can resume providing care while the legal challenge makes its way through the courts. (Jackson County Circuit Judge Jerri Zhang’s ruling was expected Friday, but it still hasn’t come.)

In the meantime, patients are understandably frustrated. Emily Wales, president of Planned Parenthood Great Plains told the Associated Press that many Missouri voters thought they’d have access right after election day:

“We’ve had patients calling for weeks now saying, ‘Can I get in? Can I stay close to home?’ Of course, that’s not true.”

The other thing to remember is that it’s not just Missouri’s ban stopping clinics from providing abortions. Republican-enacted TRAP laws and restrictions were preventing doctors from providing care even before Roe was overturned, laws Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit calls “impenetrable, onerous and medically unnecessary restrictions.”

As expected, Republicans are trying to keep those laws in place—claiming that restrictions like a 72 hour waiting period and unnecessary pelvic exams are there to ‘protect’ women. As I reported last week, the Missouri GOP is also using rhetoric around ‘coerced abortions’ to argue in favor of keeping those restrictions in place. Solicitor General Josh Divine, for example, insists (without evidence) that most women are being pressured into ending their pregnancies and that these restrictions help to stop that from happening.

So there’s a possibility that Zhang rules to block the total abortion ban, but keep certain restrictions. If that happens, St. Louis Public Radio reports that Planned Parenthood may still decline to resume care.

In the meantime, Republicans are thinking ahead about how else they can restrict abortion—or strip away the protections of Amendment 3. Lawmakers have introduced nearly a dozen bills aimed at restricting abortion rights, including a new ballot measure proposal to remove abortion rights protections from the state constitution.

The Kansas City Star reports that conservatives are even thinking about making changes to the Missouri Supreme Court, angry that justices allowed abortion rights to remain on the November ballot. That’s right, they’re pissed off that voters were given a choice on the issue.

Republicans are not even bothering to hide the fact that they’re trying to undo the will of the voters. Republican Sen. Rick Brattin said last week that they’d be “trying to unravel what people unfortunately passed.”

In the meantime, the editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called out Republicans for “their contempt” of the will of voters, and making “it clear that they won’t accept the decision of more than half the state’s voters protecting reproductive rights.”

In the Nation

The FDA has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit targeting mifepristone, arguing that the Attorneys General of Idaho, Missouri and Kansas have “no plausible connection” to the Texas court where they filed the challenges. (The Republican AGs filed in Amarillo in order to get the wildly anti-abortion Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk.)

Abortion, Every Day broke the news about this legal complaint back in October, and if you haven’t read my breakdown of the case yet, you really should. The bad science and anti-abortion misinformation in this thing is absolutely beyond the pale. Unfortunately, it’s also very much what we can expect to see in other cases, bills, and tactics moving forward.

For example, the Republican AGs want the FDA to revoke access to abortion medication for anyone under 18 years-old, claiming that mifepristone could impact little girls’ “developing reproductive systems.” It’s an extremely yucky argument—one that I think we’ll also see conservatives use against hormonal birth control for minors.

The AGs also mention in the suit that the FDA has the ability to mandate abortion medication patients “be subject to ‘certain monitoring,’” and that “each patient be enrolled in a ‘registry.’” If you’re a regular reader, you know how obsessed they are with tracking abortion patients; this is another nod toward that.

It gets even weirder—and more telling. So read (and share) the full piece below:

The GOP's Attack on Abortion Pills is Here

In other national news, we found out on Friday that Elon Musk was behind the absolutely shameless campaign to tie Trump to Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s legacy. A refresher: RBG PAC put out ads claiming that Trump supported abortion rights, and used the deceased Supreme Court Justice’s name and image with lines like “great minds think alike.” Disgusting.

This week, Ginsburg’s granddaughter responded to the news that Musk had bankrolled the group to the tune of $20 million. Clara Spera, an abortion rights attorney, told USA Today that if she had the chance she’d ask Musk, “If you believe so strongly in Donald Trump, why do you have to mislead and lie to people to get them to vote for him?" Also from Spera:

"He's not particularly outspoken about abortion or reproductive rights, generally. So it's interesting that this was where he chose to put so much money, demonstrating that he recognized how important reproductive rights were to this election."

Quick hits:

• A new survey from KFF finds that post-Dobbs, 70% of women think it’s important to avoid pregnancy;

• A new defense bill would keep the Pentagon’s ‘controversial’ abortion policy;

• And Texas AG Ken Paxton has dropped a lawsuit against the Biden administration on teen access to contraception, declaring victory.