Nebraska Bill Paves the Way for Criminalization of Miscarriages
4.16.25
Click to skip ahead: In the States, news from Nebraska, Texas, and more. Stats & Studies has Guttmacher’s 2024 abortion data, and a new study showing that teens are disproportionately impacted by abortion bans. In the Nation, a few quick hits. You Love to See It congratulates the latest TIME 100 inductee. Finally, Coming Soon has a sneak peek of tomorrow’s newsletter.
In the States
Let’s talk about Nebraska, where the cruelty is most definitely the point. Legislators advanced a bill yesterday that would require abortion providers to dispose of fetal and embryonic remains by burial or cremation. I first told you about LB632 last month, when I pointed out that this mandate would be limited to ‘elective’ abortions—proving that the intent was never about the ‘dignity’ of fetuses, as Republicans claim, but punishing women.
There’s been quite a lot of debate in the Nebraska legislature over the past few days about just that—with Sen. Ashlei Spivey remarking that the bill “disrespects patients by essentially imposing a funeral requirement for abortion.” And Sen. Megan Hunt asked just “how much blood has to be on the pad” before women would be required to give their fetus a burial.
What worries me about this legislation, though, isn’t just its cruelty, but the precedent it sets—and what it could mean for the criminalization of any pregnancy loss.
After all, we just watched a young woman in Georgia arrested over her miscarriage, charged with ‘concealing a death’ and ‘abandoning a dead body’ after she placed her fetal remains in the trash. A bill like the one in Nebraska would make it easier for prosecutors to argue that women who don’t dispose of their miscarriages ‘properly’ are breaking the law.
Indeed, Nebraska Sen. Dan Lonowski said during the floor debate that, “The absence of regulation in many states means babies can be treated as medical waste." And bill sponsor Sen. Ben Hansen said if the bill isn’t passed that providers might dispose of fetal remains by “throwing them in a dumpster.” That’s exactly what Georgia cops and prosecutors accused this young woman of doing.
If all of that wasn’t clear enough that the legislation is meant to target any sort of pregnancy loss, consider something else Hansen said, as reported by Nebraska Public Media:
“These are human bodies, and as such, they deserve to be treated with some measure of human respect. All of us understand the need and desire to treat dead bodies, including the bodies of miscarriages, stillborn children, with dignity.” (Emphasis mine)
They are not even bothering to hide it. All of which is to say, this isn’t just about one piece of legislation in one state—it’s a major hint over the future of pregnancy criminalization for all of us.
Nebraska’s LB632 also highlights another anti-abortion strategy: conservative claims that fetal remains ‘poison’ the groundwater or are unsafe for the environment. Hansen argues as much in his legislation—right as Texas is advancing a bill that would require wastewater management plants to test for abortion medication, birth control pills, and hormones associated with gender affirming care. Why? You guessed it! Because they claim it poisons the environment.
If you missed Abortion, Every Day’s reporting on that legislation, make sure to read it here. We are going to see more and more legislation like this—bills that make false claims about the environmental impact of abortion pills and birth control. The sooner we familiarize ourselves with them, the better.
In related news, thanks to Fast Company for picking up this story. I hope we see a few more outlets cover the Texas bill and what it means more broadly for abortion rights.
While we’re on Texas, let’s do a little catch up on the Trojan Horse bill I’ve been warning about. Click here for a refresher, but the short version is that Republicans claim SB31 & HB44 would ‘clarify’ the state’s ban and make it easier for doctors to provide life-saving care. In reality, the bill could revive a century-old ban that allows for the prosecution of abortion funds, helpers, and maybe even patients themselves.
The legislation would also mandate a state-run ‘education’ course on abortion law for doctors. (We’ve seen what this looks like before, in South Dakota, and it ain’t good!)
Before AED’s report, the bill was flying through the legislature with bipartisan support and glowing press coverage; now, lawmakers are being called on by abortion rights activists to amend or scrap the bill. (Though, unfortunately, some Democrats are still on board.)
The most powerful voices in opposition to Texas’ Trojan Horse legislation have been the women who sued the state after being denied health- and life-saving abortion care. The plaintiffs in Zurawski v. Texas held a press conference yesterday about the legislation, saying that if the bill passed, reproductive rights in Texas would turn from "darkness into a black hole."
Hollie Cunningham, who had to leave the state twice for abortion care after two of her pregnancies were diagnosed with anencephaly, said, “This bill could prosecute a marine for helping his pregnant wife get care in Texas, care for babies who had no chance of survival.” And plaintiff Kaitlyn Kash said, “Our fear comes from the fact that we had people who loved us help us.”
Watch a video of the women speaking to legislators here, or read the letter they sent Texas lawmakers, urging them to oppose the legislation.
The other news out of Texas today is that Senate Republicans were able to pass SB33, legislation that bans any state funding from going toward helping women get out-of-state abortions. Since Roe was overturned, several cities—like San Antonio and Austin—launched abortion funds that provided financial support for things like travel and lodging. (State funding going directly for abortion care is prohibited by law).
Under SB33, even that kind of ancillary support would be banned. The bill prohibits “paying for, planning, or executing plans for travel accommodations, including transportation, meals, or lodging, with the intent of facilitating the procurement of an abortion, regardless of the location at which the abortion occurs.”
In response to the Senate vote this week, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick issued a statement accusing “rogue, liberal cities” of “skirt[ing] state law,” and saying that SB 33 “draws a line in the sand.”
The bill is part of a broader trend across the country—with Republicans honing in their attacks on abortion funds, or anyone who helps abortion patients to leave their state or obtain abortion medication. With data showing that the number of abortions isn’t going down, conservatives are growing increasingly pissed off that patients have been able to get care despite bans.
I mean, it was just a few weeks ago that Alabama lost their years-long fight for the right to prosecute abortion funds. You can be sure that we’ll see more cases and bills like this in the coming months—all targeting community support. They can’t help but reveal who they really are.
Quick hits:
New Orleans, Louisiana will soon have reproductive health vending machines that dispense condoms and emergency contraception;
Five South Carolina doctors are suing over the state’s abortion ban, arguing that denying women care violates their religious faith;
Bloomberg Law reports that a lawsuit challenging Arizona’s law banning abortion after a patient learns their fetus has a genetic abnormality has been dismissed;
And Idaho women harmed by the state’s ban say that a judge’s ruling allowing abortion for life-threatening pregnancies even if death isn’t ‘imminent,’ “really doesn't change much of anything.”
Stats & Studies
A few bits of research to highlight today. First, it will come as no surprise that new research finds that abortion bans disproportionately impact teenagers. A study published in JAMA Pediatrics found that a whopping two-thirds of teen girls 13 to 17 years-old live in states that ban or seriously restrict abortion access.
From study author Laura Lindberg, a public health professor at Rutgers University:
"Minors are often targeted by restrictive policies and less able to use routes to abortion care common for adults—traveling to another state or using telehealth—leaving them disproportionately impacted. Without access to abortion, these girls have lost the ability to control their lives and their futures."
You all know how I feel about restrictions on teens. Not only is it an absurd hypocrisy to claim that teens are too young to have a medical procedure, but old enough to go through childbirth—but what happens to teenagers today comes for the rest of us tomorrow. They’ve always been the canaries in the coal mines.
In other research news, the Guttmacher Institute—which publishes a “Monthly Provision Study” on abortion and abortion access—just released their data looking at all of 2024. You should check out their full analysis, but here are a few highlights in the meantime:
The group reports that there were more than 1 million abortions in 2024—but remember, that number is likely on the low side, because it doesn’t include patients outside of the formal healthcare system (like those who may have gotten pills from friends or online).
The state with the largest decrease in abortions in 2024 was (unsurprisingly) Florida. Thanks to the 6-week ban that went into effect in May, there were over 12k fewer abortions provided in the state last year than in 2023. South Carolina also saw a large decrease, due to a 6-week ban enacted in September 2023.
The states where we saw increases in abortions were Wisconsin (where clinics just started providing care again in late 2023), Arizona, California, Kansas, Virginia, and Ohio.
Guttmacher also reports that there’s been a rise in abortions via online-only telehealth clinics—from 10% in 2023 to 14% in 2024. We know from other studies, too—like WeCount—that there’s been a massive rise in abortion medication and telehealth.
That said, I thought the most interesting takeaway from Guttmacher’s report was that there are still quite a lot of people traveling out-of-state for in-person care. In fact, over 155k people crossed state lines for abortion care in 2024, making up 15% of all abortions provided in states without total bans.
The states with the highest number of abortions provided to out-of-state residents were Illinois, North Carolina, Kansas, and New Mexico. In some of those states, out-of-staters represented the vast majority of patients: Sixty-nine percent of abortions in New Mexico were given to those traveling from out of state, and in Kansas, it was 71% of patients.
Isaac Maddow-Zimmet, a lead researcher at Guttmacher, told the Orlando Weekly that the large number of patients leaving their states was surprising in some ways:
“[W]e know that that travel is incredibly costly, needs an enormous amount of support from providers, from practical support organizations, from abortion funds—and so it is really somewhat surprising that it has been able to be maintained. It speaks to the real motivation on the part of both patients and people supporting patients to make sure that people can access care.”
In other words, it’s a terrific time to support your local abortion or practical support fund! For more on Guttmacher’s 2024 report, watch PBS NewsHour’s segment below:
In the Nation
NOTUS takes a look at coming interstate court battles over the criminalization of abortion providers shipping pills into anti-choice states;
The National Women’s Law Center details how the Trump administration has started to enact their Project 2025 agenda;
The Nation on how clergy are showing up for abortion clinics;
And in international news, a new study out of Canada looks at how abortion access improved after mifepristone was made available at community pharmacies in Ontario.
You Love to See It
A huge congratulations to Julie Burkhart of Wellspring Health Access, who was just named as one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People! From TIME:
“Burkhart is no stranger to the ups and downs of this fight—she has faced arson, death threats, and legal obstacles while starting clinics in Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma. She’s now the co-owner of Hope Clinic in Illinois, which has seen a 700% increase in out-of-state patients since abortion restrictions went into effect in neighboring states. Burkhart is devoted to making sure patients can get abortion care, no matter where they live.”
Unfortunately, Wellspring—which is Wyoming’s only full-service abortion clinic—has had to stop providing abortions recently, thanks to a new law requiring clinics to be licensed as surgical centers. While Burkhart and other abortion providers and activists battle that decision in court, Wellspring is still taking calls and helping people however they can.
To learn more about Julie, consider listening to this 2023 interview she did with Slate about the arson attack against her clinic and violence against providers:
Coming Soon
In tomorrow’s newsletter: Missouri Republicans’ efforts to quash the will of voters; the latest in Wyoming’s abortion rights court battle; and all about ‘abortion tourism.’
Regarding the Nebraska law - and leaving aside for a minute all of the cruelty and outrageousness of it - is the state planning to pony up for that or are they going to force the expense of burial on the women and families who lose their children? Because my husband and I considered trying to cremate the remains of our second trimester pregnancy loss, but ultimately decided against it because the process involved was intensely insane (paperwork…) and expensive - not something either of us had the bandwidth for when we were trying to process our loss. We ultimately took the card with her footprints and moved on. So not only is this potentially criminalizing loss, but it also feels almost like taxing loss. And for women who don’t have insurance, that’s in addition to whatever they have to pay out of pocket for the care they receive when they’re miscarrying. Anyway, like I said, not the most important element here, but something that did occur to me when I read this. It’s hard enough to lose your baby. To have to worry about arranging proper burial and not going to jail is just a nightmare.
TN required this of planned parenthood when providing abortion care. I do not know the full details however. Has anyone brought up that medication abortion at home of early pregnancy may not result in the passage of anything recognizable as a fetus? Perhaps some life size pictures would help people understand that this is ridiculous!