Infant Deaths Rise After Dobbs
10.21.24
Click to skip ahead: Infant Mortality on the Rise is not shocking, but devastating nonetheless. In the States, news from Indiana, Louisiana and more. I have Ballot Measure Updates on Florida and Missouri. In 2024 news, Kamala Harris goes all in on Trump’s response to Amber Thurman’s death. In the Nation, a powerful new interactive project and info on advance provision. Finally, in You Love to See It, a spotlight on abortion storytelling.
Infant Mortality on the Rise
In news that will shock none of you, the infant mortality rate has gone up in the United States since Roe was overturned. A new paper in JAMA Pediatrics finds that infant death rates are higher than normal, with 80% of additional infant deaths attributed to birth defects and abnormalities.
This echoes the numbers that came out of Texas earlier this year, when researchers found that infant mortality rose almost 13% after the state enacted a total abortion ban—with a 23% increase in deaths due to congenital anomalies.
To put it plainly: More babies are dying because women are being forced to carry nonviable pregnancies to term.
Dr. Alison Gemmill of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who conducted the study on Texas’s infant mortality, said this to the Los Angles Times:
“Prior to these abortion bans, people had the option to terminate if the fetus was found to have a severe congenital anomaly—we’re talking about organs being outside of the body and other things that are very severe and not compatible with life.”
Still, the law now forces many of those women to give birth regardless, knowing that people will have to watch their babies die in front of them. The cruelty is astounding. (I will never forget the image of Samantha Casiano vomiting on the stand when recounting having to watch her daughter take pained last breaths.)
What’s more, the new paper looked at infant mortality across the country; if researchers were to focus in states with bans, the numbers would be even more stark.
What’s important to remember is that none of this is by accident. The anti-abortion movement has launched a massive but quiet campaign to mandate that women carry doomed pregnancies to term: They’re drafting ‘exceptions’ for fatal fetal abnormalities as narrowly as possible (if states have them at all); mandating biased counseling that tells women they may be ending a healthy pregnancy; and pushing for an end to prenatal testing altogether. Read more below:
In the States
Speaking of women forced to carry doomed pregnancies, the Indiana Capital Chronicle has a heart-breaking story this week about a woman who had leave Indiana for care after her fetus was diagnosed with a severe form of neural tube defect.
Abbey Hall was able to get an out-of-state abortion, but I appreciate that this piece outlines the horror of what it means to coordinate all that in the middle of such tragic news. Abbey Hall says, “I felt dehumanized; I felt like a criminal.”
The new law classifying abortion medication as a controlled substance in Louisiana is already having an impact on patients. Lorena O’Neil at the Louisiana Illuminator reports that women are having a hard time filling prescriptions for misoprostol, even when its use has nothing to do with abortion—like a patient who needed the medication in advance of a uterine polyp removal.
O’Neil spoke with a doctor who prescribed her patient miso because it helps to soften the cervix, which means she could do the procedure more safely and with less pain. But the patient was denied the medication at multiple pharmacies. (Ironically, the patient needed the procedure in order to help her get pregnant.)
Even if a pharmacy doesn’t outright refuse to a fill a prescription, the new law makes it harder for them to keep it the medication in stock. One pharmacist said, for example, “Sometimes pharmacies may borrow from one another. But it being a controlled substance, you can’t do that.”
The patient was able to eventually track down a pharmacy to give her the medication, but her procedure had to be moved back as a result. It’s safe to say that this happening across the state—and not all doctors and patients are talking to reporters.
Remember, doctors are extraordinarily worried about the new classification; so much so that those who work in hospitals are running timed drills to ensure that they can get to the locked away medication and back to a patient without her hemorrhaging to death. That’s what ‘pro-life’ policies look like.
Quick hits:
The Des Moines Register looks at the Iowa Supreme Court justice up for re-election after voting to uphold a near-total abortion ban;
Canvassers in Wisconsin are focusing on abortion rights;
And despite the positive numbers for abortion rights in Florida, new polling shows Trump with a sizable lead in the state.
Ballot Measure Updates
A new poll reports Amendment 4 has the support it needs to win in Florida. The survey from University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab found that 60% of voters would support the abortion rights ballot measure, with 32% reporting that they’d vote against it. The measure needs 60% support to win.
As you know, Florida Republicans have launched a full-scale assault against Amendment 4. Earlier today, for example, Abortion, Every Day reported that Gov. Ron DeSantis directed the threats against television stations running ads for the pro-choice measure:
Reuters has a profile piece up of Rachel Sweet, the woman who led the pro-choice ballot measure initiatives in Kansas and Kentucky and advised on Ohio’s Issue 1. Now Sweet is in her home state of Missouri, hoping to replicate the wins we’ve seen in every state where abortion has been on the ballot since Dobbs.
If pro-choicers in Missouri, it will be the first time that voters reverse a total abortion ban. “That's what's unique and why the stakes are so high in this race,” Sweet said. She also says the issue is personal to her here: “I really want to be a mom, and I don’t know that I feel safe doing that in Missouri.”
Quick hits: The Associated Press has a really interesting piece about what how language translations come into play for abortion rights ballot measures; Rewire looks at what happens next if abortion rights ballot measures win; and NPR reports that Catholic bishops are donating less to fight abortion rights measures than they have in the past.
2024
New polling shows Vice President Kamala Harris with a strong lead in early voting numbers. A USA Today/Suffolks University poll of those who have already voted found Harris leading Trump 63%-34%, or close to 2-1.
But don’t get overly excited, please! The folks voting early are more likely to support Harris, and Trump has an advantage with those planning to vote on election day.
USA Today also reported that early voters were very concerned with abortion rights, with one in five naming reproductive rights as their top issue. (Second only to the economy.)
Harris knows that abortion is top of voters’ minds, which is why she focused on the issue at her Georgia rally this weekend. Harris didn’t just call out Trump for the post-Roe nightmare we’re in—but for his disgusting comments about Amber Nicole Thurman’s death. In case you missed it (and lucky you, if you did), the disgraced former president joked at his Fox News town hall about having higher ratings than a press call Thurman’s family was holding at the same time. Watch Harris’ response below:
“A grieving family, a grieving family, sharing the memory of their daughter with our nation. Where is the compassion?…What we see continually from Donald Trump is exactly what that clip shows. He belittles their sorrow, making it about himself and his television ratings. It is cruel.”
Trump’s campaign spokesperson tried to do damage control, telling The New York Times that Trump supports exceptions, and that “it’s unclear why doctors did not swiftly act to protect Amber Thurman’s life.” As if he had nothing to do with the law that killed her.
Given all this (and so much more) it’s hard to understand how any woman could vote for Trump. That’s why I was interested, but blown away, by this description in POLITICO of a focus group conducted by the Harris campaign: When pollsters asked the group of women to describe Trump’s position on abortion, most said they thought he was “pro-choice.”
Now, I know I live in a liberal bubble, but come on. That said, this is what I mean when I say that Trump’s messaging on abortion is working; his deliberately-convoluted messaging is muddying the waters. Remember this poll of battleground voters? I sure do!
But here’s the good news: The Harris pollster later played the focus group a clip of Trump saying “there should be some form of punishment” for women who have an abortion, and the response in the room “was visceral.” One woman said, “That felt like a dagger.”
This is where the Harris campaign feels like there’s a lot of room—even this late in the game—to win even more women voters:
“It’s a strategy, described by several top campaign aides, with massive implications for the shape of the electorate. Between Harris’ push on abortion and Trump’s growth with male voters—especially young men—pollsters on both sides of the aisle are predicting that 2024 will represent the largest chasm in vote preferences between the two sexes in modern political history.”
You all know what I think: the more we talk about abortion the better. And I think there are so many polls that aren’t taking women’s anger over abortion into account.
Speaking of winning over women voters: The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) has announced a multimillion dollar ad campaign in battleground states Arizona and Pennsylvania that will focus on abortion rights.
In the Nation
If you missed this incredible interactive project from The New York Times, make sure to check it out now. The publication paints a stark and in-depth picture of post-Roe America through audio clips, videos, interviews and even texts. It was the short video of a pediatric gynecologist in South Carolina, though, that I still find myself thinking about days later.
Dr. Kristl Tomlin shared the various ways police have intimidated and threatened her simply for helping victimized children, and the impact it’s had on her own family. After treating a young girl who was impregnated after being raped, for example, Dr. Tomlin had to call the sheriff’s office to report the abortion—because that’s what the law requires in the state. She explains what followed at the Times and in this TikTok.
I really recommend going through the whole project, as tough as it is.
Slate reports on the growing number of people who are ordering advance provision abortion medication—pills women can have prescribed to them even if they’re not pregnant. The idea is to have the medication on hand in case you or someone you know needs it one day. I have several doses in my medicine cabinet for just that reason.
I really do believe that anyone with the ability to get pregnant should have abortion medication on hand. Pregnancy is dangerous, and we don’t know what the next few months or years will bring—no matter where you live. Knowing I have abortion medication makes me feel just a little bit more secure.
Safe websites to find abortion medication: Aid Access, Plan C Pills, Abortion Finder, I Need An A
Quick hits:
Diana Greene Foster, author of the Turnaway Study, was interviewed at CNBC about why abortion access is a personal finance issue;
Ms. magazine has more on the recent Republican attack against mifepristone;
And Salon points out we’re likely not hearing about many abortion ban deaths because doctors fear retaliation.
You Love To See It
I was at a really special event tonight in New York—the first screening of a powerful new abortion rights storytelling project, Everybody’s Fight. Karlie Kloss and Phoebe Gates were kind enough to bring me on as an advisor, along with incredible activists like Kwajelyn Jackson of Atlanta’s Feminist Women’s Health Center and groups like Indigenous Women Rising.
This series of scripted and documentary films will release tomorrow, but in the meantime you can watch a short trailer below:
They want to take us back to a time that's unimaginable. In January 1951, my mother had a stillbirth with her first pregnancy. In November, her second pregnancy ended in a very premature birth. The first baby died; the second survived, but was blind and had major cognitive and physical disabilities. Abortion and most contraception methods were illegal. (Condoms were prescription-only.) Most prenatal testing methods were far into the future. My mom, as it turned out, was Rh negative--a condition that put her at high risk during all her pregnancies, but wasn't understood until the 1960s. My mom died in 2009, at age 93. A couple of years before her death, I found out about what had happened in 1951. The reason that she went into weeks-long depressions every January finally became clear. Bottom line: mom, and women of her generation, had little to no control over their bodies. Mom, and women like her, suffered for the rest of their lives, and many grieved for those lost babies for decades after. That's where the cruelty comes in: they had the temerity to be born female, so they just got to suffer. That's what we're seeing now. The cruelty, as you've said, Jessica, is the point.
I am simply heartbroken and so angry that women are now being forced to carry doomed pregnancies to term knowing that their newborn will die, or be stillborn.
Of course, for the forced birth crowd the cruelty is the point.