In the States
Content warning: Descriptions of severe fetal abnormality, medical trauma, infant loss
Three women took the stand yesterday in their lawsuit against Texas and Attorney General Ken Paxton over the state’s abortion ban. The suit, brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights, seeks to change the state law around pregnancy complications and health conditions. The testimony was torturous.
Samantha Casiano—forced to give birth despite the fact that her baby had anencephaly and was missing parts of her brain and skull—became so distressed while testifying that she vomited. She said that remembering the experience “just makes my body remember and it just reacts.”
After a court recess, Casiano recalled giving birth to her daughter Halo:
“She was gasping for air. I just kept telling myself and my baby that I'm so sorry that this has happened to you. I felt so bad. She had no mercy. There was no mercy there for her."
If you can bear to listen, you can hear a snippet of Casiano’s testimony here. Ashley Brandt, who had to leave the state for abortion care after one of her twins was diagnosed with a fatal condition, said, “I would have had to give birth to an identical version of my daughter without a skull and without a brain and hold her until she died.” She said she no longer feels safe to have children in Texas. “I knew it was very clear my health didn't matter,” she said, “but my daughter's health didn't really matter [either].”
If attorneys for the state were looking to disprove the abortion ban’s cruelty—they didn’t do much to help their cause. NPR reports that Assistant Attorney General Amy Pletscher frequently interjected and objected as the women spoke about their experiences, and that she asked each women individually if Attorney General Ken Paxton had personally denied them an abortion.
Plaintiff Amanda Zurawski, who nearly died after being denied an abortion, put it this way: “I survived sepsis and I don't think today was much less traumatic than that.”
Texas’ strategy, clearly, is to blame the doctors in all of these cases. Pletscher told the judge that the law didn’t need to be changed because “plaintiffs sustained their alleged injuries as a direct result of their own medical providers failing them.” I’ve written about this tactic before; it’s not just meant to shirk blame for the current horror stories coming out of anti-abortion states, but to preempt what all conservatives know is coming—the first reported post-Roe death.
CBS News has a short segment about the lawsuit, if you’d like to hear some of the testimony:
Testimony continued on today, this time from physicians who have been impacted by the state’s ban. I’ll have more on that in tomorrow’s newsletter.
Meanwhile, also in Texas, some news that will surprise no one: Since the state passed its abortion ban, the infant mortality has gone up. Experts believe that it’s part thanks to the women who are being forced to carry doomed pregnancies to term. CNN reports that statistics from the state health department show infant mortality went up by 11.5% over the last year, and that infant deaths caused by severe abnormalities rose by nearly 22%.
From Dr. Erika Werner, the chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Tufts Medical Center, told CNN:
“We all knew the infant mortality rate would go up, because many of these terminations were for pregnancies that don’t turn into healthy normal kids. It’s exactly what we all were concerned about.”
Related: If you missed Abortion, Every Day’s investigation into how Texas is fabricating abortion ‘complication’ data, please make sure to check it out. Fucking with data is a huge part of conservatives’ anti-abortion strategy.
I think after Texas, we could all use some good news: Missouri’s Supreme Court came down with an unanimous decision ruling against Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s attempts to inflate the cost of a pro-choice ballot measure. Click here for some background, but essentially Bailey has refused to sign off on the state auditor’s cost estimate of the measure, claiming that restoring abortion rights in Missouri would cost billions of dollars. Until he does sign off, pro-choice advocates can’t start to collect signatures. (Which is the point: to stop voters from having a say on abortion.)
The Missouri Independent reports that the Court issued a “scathing” opinion, ruling that the law doesn’t give Bailey the authority to question the state auditor’s assessment, and acknowledged that the AG’s refusal to sign off on the estimate unlawfully delayed the ballot initiative process. Hopefully this means that signature gatherers can start their work soon.
In the meantime, the ACLU has also brought a suit in Missouri against Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft for his totally bananas ballot language that would ask voters if they want to “allow for dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions, from conception to live birth, without requiring a medical license or potentially being subject to medical malpractice.” Totally normal stuff!
Pro-choice activists in Florida have collected more than half the signatures they need to get abortion rights on the ballot. Floridians Protecting Freedom, a coalition of reproductive rights groups in the state report that they have nearly half a million signatures; they need around 890k to move the measure forward. The measure will need 60% of the vote to pass, but we’re keeping out fingers crossed because polls show broad opposition to the recently-passed 6-week abortion ban.
If you’re in Florida, show the petitioners some love if you see them: anti-abortion groups recently launched a harassment campaign against them. (They’re collecting information on where signatures are being gathered and then rushing there to picket and yell at people.)
More in ballot measure news: the truly gross tactics of Ohio anti-abortion groups are finally getting national media attention. For months, Abortion, Every Day has been covering the multi-million dollar anti-trans ad campaign launched by conservative groups in the state. The campaign seeks to convince voters, without evidence (or shame), that a pro-choice ballot measure would allow children to get gender-affirming surgery without parental consent.
NBC News reports that the anti-abortion group Protect Women Ohio has committed $25 million for ads that will run through the November election. The article also reaffirms what I’ve been writing here: conservatives know that abortion rights are incredibly popular, so they’re taking advantage of the current anti-trans panic in the hopes that bigotry will win them more votes. As Kellie Copeland from Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom told NBC, “These groups have had 50 years to make their argument for extreme bans on abortion, but people aren’t buying it. That’s why they’re spending millions to spread these lies to Ohioans.”
You may remember that when Iowa passed its latest abortion ban (currently blocked as the case makes its way through the courts), there were no guidelines on the criminal, civil, or professional penalties for doctors. It’s a complete absurdity: passing a law criminalizing abortion without laying out any of the risks for providers. Now the Iowa Board of Medicine says they will begin their process of adopting rules about the penalties during the board’s next meeting in September. That means if the state Supreme Court happens to uphold the ban before September, doctors will be thrown back into uncertainty.
Meanwhile, the anti-abortion extremists from Operation Save America have descended on Georgia this week to protest and strategize on how to push for a national ban. States Newsroom has a terrific (though terrifying) piece on the protests and the history of the group—which really is a domestic terrorist organization.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed expanded abortion access into law yesterday, allowing for abortions after 24 weeks when a doctor deems it medically necessary. Mills said, “We must recognize the complexity of pregnancy.”
Quick hits:
Nebraska Public Radio has more on the hearing yesterday in the legal challenge against the state’s recently passed abortion ban;
The Associated Press on the plea deal being for the Wyoming woman who set fire to a Casper abortion clinic;
Alaska lawmakers sent a letter to the state Attorney General, opposing his attempts to access medical records of patients who leave the state for abortion care;
How Connecticut is handling the increase of out-of-state abortion patients;
And the city manager in Worcester, Massachusetts is taking (deserved) heat for his refusal to regulate anti-abortion centers.
In the Nation
Despite Republicans’ continued efforts to get the Pentagon to reverse its abortion policy, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth says the Defense Department will continue to allow time off and travel reimbursement for service members who need to leave their state for abortion care:
“I see this, and I think the (defense secretary) does as well, as taking care of our soldiers, and it’s the right thing to do, and I don’t think we’re going to change it.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says he supports Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s protest of the policy, which has blocked hundreds of military promotions. (I reported yesterday that DeSantis called out the policy as the military supporting ‘abortion tourism’—a term we’re going to be seeing a lot of in the future.)
This is rich: HuffPo reports that while Republicans stripped the defense bill of the above abortion policy and other reproductive health services, they kept an allowance for a study on testosterone levels among troops in the Special Operations forces. Because of course they did.
I love this, though: U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada reintroduced the Reproductive Health Patient Navigator Act today, legislation that would establish a federal grant program to support abortion funds. Post-Roe, abortion funds and navigators (those who help pregnant people from anti-choice states find providers and money for care) have been completely overwhelmed. Cortez Masto says this grant program would take some of that pressure off and help “get women the necessary support, regardless of if they live in states that have eliminated abortion services.”
Quick hits:
Law professor Mary Ziegler at Slate on how Dobbs is being used to attack trans people;
And the Texas Observer on how abortion bans are disproportionately impacting Native people.
Criminalizing Care
Last week, Abortion, Every Day commenter Linda Prine (founder of the Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline) told us the great news that Aid Access was now mailing abortion medication to patients via doctors in states with shield laws—drastically cutting down on vital shipping time. Yesterday, The Washington Post published a piece about that change, the doctors mailing the medication, and the legal questions attached to the whole process.
Previously, the medication was mailed to anti-choice states from overseas. But with shield laws in place in Massachusetts, New York, Washington, Vermont and Colorado, doctors those states are less worried about possible criminalization and can ship the pills to patients directly.
One provider in the Hudson Valley of New York told reporter Caroline Kitchener, “Texas might say I’m breaking their laws, but I don’t live in Texas.”
That doesn’t mean there aren’t legal concerns about the process. As Kitchener writes, “one key question that could emerge in the coming months is whether prosecutors in any antiabortion states would attempt to extradite medical providers from shield law states, thereby challenging the power of the new laws.”
That’s what the shield laws are meant to protect providers from, obviously, but it doesn’t mean a zealous prosecutor in an anti-choice state wouldn’t try. In the meantime, though, that Hudson Valley doctor has the exact right attitude: “It feels like I’m giving a big middle finger to that part of the country that has done this.”
The Care Crisis
The post-Roe care crisis is only getting more urgent by the day. Maternity wards are shutting down in anti-abortion states, medical students and residents are struggling to obtain the training they need, and OBGYNs are leaving states with abortion bans en masse. But the issue isn’t just that doctors are moving out of anti-abortion states—it’s that they’re not moving to them, either.
Today, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reminds us that nearly 80% of medical students say that a state’s abortion laws will impact where they apply for a residency, with almost 60% saying outright that they would not seek a residency in an anti-choice state.
And remember, no matter what the state law is, OBGYN residency programs are mandated to offer abortion training in order to be accredited. That means that medical schools are scrambling to send residents out-of-state for the proper training—with some of those residents paying out of their own pocket for travel and lodging. (Related: Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Patty Murray introduced the Reproductive Health Care Training Act last month, which would allocate $25 million a year for the next five years to provide funding to medical students who need to leave their state to learn how to provide abortions.)
But for students, it’s not just about their ability to train or practice medicine, but how safe they feel settling down personally: The Emory University study also showed that 72% of students said abortion bans would impact where they want to start a family.
From Emory medical student Nell Mermin-Bunnell, who conducted the study:
“The majority of medical students and residents now are women, so for both themselves and for their families and partners, they want to feel like they have access to comprehensive reproductive health care.”
In The American Independent, another Emory medical student says, “I think that people are starting to look a lot more towards applying to programs where abortion isn’t restricted because they’re thinking about themselves.” Which is reasonable and smart!
These doctors (and soon-to-be-doctors) don’t just have to worry about their patients and ability to provide ethical care, but their own health and lives.
Post-Roe Media Fails
I am flabbergasted by this piece at The New York Times about organizations that are helping pregnant women post-Roe and the decision to include an anti-abortion center. The mainstream media’s obsession with ‘both sides’ journalism has always been dangerous, but it’s incredibly toxic right now.
The piece says that “anti-abortion groups are stepping up efforts to support women preparing for childbirth by providing formula, diapers and counseling,” and reports that a women can take “free parenting classes” to earn credits that are exchangeable for baby supplies. As the kids say: be fucking for real.
This is a group that targets vulnerable women who are in desperate need of diapers and formula, and then makes them take faith-based ‘parenting classes’ in order to earn those supplies. There’s no mention of the fact that the classes are religious, nor is there any mention of how these centers refuse to counsel women on not just abortion—but birth control.
I’m not just mad about the journalism piece of this: Conservatives are in the middle of a huge push not only to increase funding to crisis pregnancy centers—but to make them seem as if they’re the best, most credible, resources for women in anti-abortion states. Articles like this are doing Republicans’ job for them.
You Love to See It
This interview with Monica Simpson, the executive director of SisterSong, is fantastic. I especially loved this quote from Simpson about their strategic focus on cultural work as a response to conservative misinformation:
“We are focused on meeting people where they are and on finding innovative ways to educate them about reproductive justice. They may not be reading results from a recent scientific study, but they are on social media, watching TV shows, and buying from their favorite brands. So, we’ve been working across industries and with influencers who have grabbed the public’s attention and who have garnered trust in their messages and brands. People will more likely stumble across a video from a content creator than they would something from the World Health Organization.”
Yes! More of this please!
I’m getting more and more uneasy about MA Gov Healy protecting women in our state. The link you provided to the article covering the controversy with Crisis Pregnancy Centers reveals that in 2022 when the Gov was still the state’s Attorney General, she told the Councilor to hold back on the Ordinance that would have regulated CPCs. There was some worry about being open to free speech lawsuits. But if these centers are endangering women’s lives by pretending to be medical professionals, surely that trumps any free speech argument. I had written the Gov when the story of a woman who had visited Center thinking she was getting medical care, later suffered from an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy which resulted in her losing a fallopian tube. She’s suing the Center. I don’t understand how these facilities are allowed to continue to defraud vulnerable women. That can’t be legal! I haven’t heard back from the Gov. and I wonder if her reluctance to take on these centers has anything to do with their Catholic backing. It’s beyond distressing.
I keep weeping around this issue these days
HELP!!!
I am so frustrated by CT. The state legislators are running around the state patting themselves on the back for how supported women's reproductive care, which they have only partially done. They have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to maintain access to safe birthing in rural corners, as a 3rd hospital files to close services. There will be a maternity desert across the norther tier of the state. They passed a bill SB 986, an act protecting maternal health, saying “improves maternal healthcare by expanding birthing hospitals in Connecticut.” LIE. It created liscensing requirements for Doulas and Birthing CENTERS, which must be located must be in close proximity to a hospital where full labor and delivery services are available. That is NOT a birthing hospital.
If the corrupt hospital administrators shudder the services, we cannot have a 'birthing center'.
A woman is 14X more likely to die in childbirth than from an abortion. And rural women are 60% more likely to die before, during or after childbirth than their urban counterparts. AHHHH!!! What is wrong with these people. The CT Dems are hiding from the real problem in our state, including our state Rep