Woman Denied Health and Life Saving Abortion—in California

10.1.24

Click to skip ahead: In the States, news out of Georgia, Louisiana, California, New Jersey and more. Care Denied reminds us that living in a pro-choice state doesn’t always protect you. Ballot Measure Updates from Florida, Arizona and Missouri. In the Nation, some quick hits. We’re prepping for the VP debate tonight in 2024 news. And in You Love to See It, some more book news!

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I can’t believe it’s finally here: My new book, Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies and the Truths We Use to Win is out today! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all of the support this community has given me in the lead up to Abortion’s pub date. You all have been amazing. If you pre-ordered you should start to receive your books now—I would love to hear what you think about it. I’ll be hosting a live-stream soon for paid subscribers (so it’s a good time to upgrade!) and will do an open thread for all Abortion, Every Day readers later this week.

If you’d like see me in person: This Thursday, I’ll be in Brooklyn at Books Are Magic with Renee Bracey Sherman (who also has a book out today, Liberating Abortion!) and the inimitable Busy Phillips. Those tickets are definitely going fast.

On Saturday, I’ll be at Politics & Prose in Washington, DC. And on Monday, October 7th, I’ll be at NYU in conversation with Hysteria host Alyssa Mastromonaco, law professor and pundit Melissa Murray, and Pregnancy Justice's Legal Director Karen Thompson. More events to come!

Also, if you’ve gotten the book, take a selfie with it and tag me on Instagram! I’d love to share pics of the incredible AED community in my stories.

In the States

Lots happening on the state level today so let’s start there. As I told you yesterday, a judge repealed the 6-week abortion ban in Georgia, eviscerating the law as forcing women to be “human incubators.” (Seriously, if you haven’t read the quotes from this judge, you should.)

A few important things to know: As the Associated Press notes, this is not the last word on the Georgia abortion ban. The last time that Judge Robert McBurney repealed this ban, the state Supreme Court overruled his decision a little over a week later, and we know the Republican state Attorney General is already planning to appeal.

The good news, though, is that people can get abortions in Georgia right now up until about 22 weeks of pregnancy. That means thousands of patients will be able to get care; before the 6-week ban went into effect, there were about 4,400 abortions every month in the state.

Something else interesting, but infuriating: In response to the ruling, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said, “Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives has been overruled by the personal beliefs of one judge.” The projection is astounding. Because we know who is actually overriding what voters want based on their personal beliefs, and it’s not this judge. (If you’re a regular reader, you know all about “the will of the people” nonsense that Republicans are trying to pull.)

The decision repealing the 6-week ban comes just a few weeks after ProPublica’s investigation into the deaths of two women killed by Georgia’s abortion ban, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller. Today, a lawyer for Thurman’s family announced that they’ll be bringing a suit against the hospital where the young mother died.

The other big state news is that Louisiana’s law classifying abortion medication as a controlled substance goes into effect today. Check out my explainer for a refresher, but the short version is that this means in addition to criminalizing people who have the pills without a prescription, the state can now track who uses abortion medication in a database and that the medication—which helps to control hemorrhaging—will be less accessible to doctors in emergencies.

Hospitals have already started to remove the medication from their obstetric crash carts, with some doctors running timed drills to see how long it would take them to get to the locked-away pills and bring them back to their bleeding patients. Because when a patient is bleeding out, every second matters. Lorena O’Neil at the Louisiana Illuminator reports that doctors have asked the state health department for guidance on how to make access to the drug safer, but haven’t gotten a response.

One solution some hospitals are considering is encouraging OBGYNs to order the medication ahead of time for all pregnant patients, so that the doctor can have the medication on hand prior to delivery. I’m glad folks are thinking creatively about how to help patients, but the fact that doctors need to sort out loopholes to save people’s lives is a nightmare.

For more, read Louisiana OBGYN Dr. Veronica Gillispie-Bella at MSNBC, who writes that the law doesn’t just hurt patients, but makes it more likely that doctors will not want to practice in the state.

Given how dangerous it is to be pregnant in a state with an abortion ban, New Jersey Democrats are working to create travel advisories for pregnant people considering a visit to an anti-choice state. As they should! On a practical level, pregnant people should know that they may be traveling to regions where they can’t get care. Politically, it’s also so important that we’re reminding voters again and again that this is not normal.

Finally, California has two new important laws: One that will increase penalties for those who harass and threaten abortion patients, and another that will require insurance companies to cover fertility treatments, including IVF.

Quick hits:

• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the city of Austin over a small reproductive health fund dedicated to helping residents get out-of-state abortions;

• Michigan Democrats are urging voters not to be lulled into “a false sense of comfort” on abortion rights;

• The Washington Post looks at how Kentucky’s abortion ban impacts those trying to stay sober;

• And abortion numbers went up in Ohio this year, including out-of-state patients, who now account for over 12% of abortion patients in the state.

Care Denied

Living in a pro-choice state doesn’t mean you’ll be able to get an abortion when you need one: Right now, California is suing a Catholic hospital that denied a woman an abortion even though her health, life, and future fertility were at risk. The story, like so many post-Roe experiences, is a nightmare.

The New York Times reports that 36-year old Anna Nusslock was just 15 weeks pregnant when her water broke; there was no chance for her twin fetuses’ survival and she was more at risk the longer she stayed pregnant. But because there were still audible fetal heart tones, Providence St. Joseph Hospital refused to give her care.

Doctors there knew the risk to Nusslock’s life. The maternal-fetal medicine specialist wrote in her records that not terminating the pregnancy would likely cause “significant maternal morbidity,” but that hospital policy prohibited an abortion.

And then there’s this: The Times notes that “the specialist recommended ending the pregnancy by inducing labor or performing a procedure.” We know exactly what that means—they wanted to give Nusslock a c-section. This is something I’ve been raising the alarm about for months. Anti-abortion lawmakers and groups want doctors to force women into major abdominal surgery or traumatic vaginal birth even before fetal viability. It’s a horror.

Doctors there also wanted to transfer Nusslock to another hospital by helicopter, but her insurance wouldn’t cover $40,000 of that cost. And so despite the risk to her life, and despite being in a hospital that had everything it needed to provide her care, Nusslock’s husband ended up driving her to another emergency room. ABC News reports that the Providence hospital staff gave her a bucket and towels "in case something happens in the car.”

By the time they arrived at the second emergency room, Nusslock was “hemorrhaging and passing a blood clot the size of an apple.” She had to be rushed into emergency surgery.

Today, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a suit against Providence, noting that they violated the state law that requires hospitals to give not just life-saving care but care to prevent “serious injury or illness.” From Bonta:

"We need hospitals to follow the law, at the bare minimum. That is not too much to ask…If you are a human being, you can see how cruel this was."

And that’s the thing. This isn’t just about preventing death, but preventing suffering. Our standard for care can’t be, well, at least she lived! Watch the press conference with Nusslock and Bonta here.

Ballot Measure Updates

Let’s start with the good news (great, even!): Polling shows that abortion rights ballot measures may not just get some Republican support, but majority Republican support. That’s right, in some states, the majority of Republicans will vote to enshrine abortion rights. The Washington Post reports that “recent polls of the states holding 2024 ballot measures show Republican support between 28 and 54 percent.”

The highest support among Republicans is in Arizona and Nevada, where polls show GOP voters support pro-choice amendments at 50% and 54%, respectively. WaPo is careful to note that polls like this don’t paint a full picture, so we shouldn’t get overly excited. But even if Republican support doesn’t reach quite those levels, clearly something is shifting among GOP voters. (I’d guess mostly among women.)

Ok, now onto to the bad news:. A Florida judge has dismissed the suit against the state Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), which has been using taxpayer dollars to campaign against Amendment 4. The judge refused to stop the agency from disseminating misinformation about the pro-choice measure, ruling that Floridians Protecting Freedom had no standing to bring forward the case.

Remember, the AHCA launched a website that spreads anti-abortion propaganda about the pro-choice amendment, and insists it endangers women’s lives. (A rich claim, given what abortion bans do to women.) The state agency also used taxpayer funds to run TV and radio ads against the ballot measure, and Gov. Ron DeSantis just ordered millions in anti-Amendment 4 ads.

Michelle Morton, staff attorney at the ACLU of Florida, called the decision “a blow to democracy and reproductive freedom.”

It’s important that we’re clear about what’s happening here: Republicans are using the power of the state—weaponizing state agencies!— to lobby against a citizen led initiative. Just unbelievable.

In better news, early polls show that Missouri voters support the abortion rights amendment that’s on the ballot this November. A survey from Emerson College Polling/The Hill found that 58% of voters support the measure.

And in Arizona, abortion rights activists are spending $15 million in an ad campaign to support the pro-choice ballot measure Proposition 139. Remember, Arizona was at the center of a national firestorm this year after the state Supreme Court voted in favor of an 1864 abortion ban. Here are one of the ads that voters will be seeing in the lead-up to November:

In the Nation

• Mainstream media outlets are catching on to a study I wrote about months ago showing that birth control use has decreased in states with abortion bans;

• The Nation points out that abortion bans aren’t boosting fertility rates;

• Ms. magazine says abortion is an economic issue;

• And in international news, there was a protest for worldwide abortion rights in Paris this week, and the pope called abortion providers “hitmen.”

2024

Tonight is the vice presidential debate, and I can’t believe we have to watch the nation’s Chief Executive Incel JD Vance explain why women should be forced into childbirth against their wills. Make sure to join me at the AED live-chat tonight so at least I won’t have to watch alone!

A few things to keep an eye on: It’s fair to assume that Vance will try to make Gov. Tim Walz sound like an anti-abortion extremist, using Minnesota’s pro-choice laws as ‘proof’ of his radicalism.

In case you need a refresher: Walz won reelection in 2022 by campaigning on abortion rights, and under his leadership, Minnesota became the first state to codify abortion protections after Roe was overturned. Walz signed the PRO Act in January 2023, a law guaranteeing the right to abortion, birth control and other reproductive healthcare.

Anti-abortion groups have glommed onto the PRO Act specifically, claiming that it legalizes abortions ‘up until birth’ and that Walz allowed for ‘coerced’ abortions in Minnesota. This is also where the leaked memo I reported on last week comes into play. Remember, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America is urging candidates—including Trump and Vance—to go after Walz for “leaving [babies] to die” and to claim that doctors in his state “break the baby’s neck” during abortions.

All of which is to say: They have very specific plans for how to attack Walz. So we can expect all sorts of anti-abortion talking points tonight, but I’ll be on particular lookout for language about ‘coerced’ abortions and the lie of ‘post-birth’ or ‘up until birth’ abortions. For more on Walz’s history with abortion rights and predicted conservative attacks, read my past coverage below:

Tim Walz Tapped for VP

Now let’s get into Vance, cat-lady-hater and misogynist trad-husband. Vance, who calls abortion “the first political issue” he ever cared about, not only supports a federal abortion ban, but opposes rape and incest exceptions. When he was asked about abortion access for sexual violence victims, he replied that “two wrongs don’t make a right” and that women shouldn’t get access to care based the “inconvenient” circumstances of how they got pregnant. So yeah, a real charmer.

If all of that wasn’t enough, Vance also encouraged women to stay in abusive marriages. So it’s no surprise that Walz has high favorability over Vance—especially when it comes to women and young voters. But it’s not just that Walz is charming; people also really don’t like Vance: Almost half of registered voters have an unfavorable view of the Republican vice presidential candidate. Which should make for an…interesting watch tonight.

You Love to See It

I’ll be doing lots of press in the coming days for Abortion, including Morning Joe tomorrow morning and some very exciting appearances next week that I can’t tell you about quite yet. (Am I sweating? A little!)

In the meantime, I was so happy to talk to Vanity Fair and fellow Substacker Parker Molloy about the book.

But I’m not the only one with an abortion book out—Liberating Abortion by Renee Bracey Sherman and Regina Mahone also has its pub day today! I cannot recommend this book enough; it’s just brilliant. Read more about Liberating Abortion in this interview Renee did with HuffPost, watch her segment on Morning Joe, and come see both of us in Brooklyn this week at Books Are Magic.

Also, if you want to get a look at last night’s Abortion book party, check it out on Instagram.