January 26, 2024 Naomi Cahn, Sonia Suter
More than a year after the Supreme Court found there is no fundamental right to get an abortion, 21 states have laws in effect that ban abortion well before fetal viability, generally allowing it only in the first trimester.
Fourteen of these 21 states have also issued near-total bans on abortion from the point of conception. But it’s not clear when, if ever, an abortion would be permissible under these near-total bans.
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Washington Post
January 25, 2024
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — Framed ultrasounds hang next to Allie Philips’s mantel, a shrine to the child she never had: delicate silver necklaces and receiving blankets embroidered with the name Miley Rose, beside a tiny pink urn containing fetal ashes.
It’s here, by the fireplace, where Phillips runs her in-home day care, greets her mechanic husband at the end of his workday and watches their daughter play with the family’s pit bull rescue. It’s also here where she’s coordinating her campaign for state legislature, motivated by the trauma of seeking an abortion while pregnant with Miley Rose.
Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/01/25/allie-phillips-tennessee-abortion-ban/
The federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known as EMTALA, requires hospitals to provide medically necessary care to stabilize patients in emergency situations.
By Pam Belluck
Jan. 18, 2024
One of the newest battlefields in the abortion debate is a decades-old federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known by doctors and health policymakers as EMTALA.
The issue involves whether the law requires hospital emergency rooms to provide abortions in urgent circumstances, including when a woman’s health is threatened by continuing her pregnancy. But, as with many abortion-related arguments, this one could have broader implications. Some legal experts say it could potentially determine how restrictive state abortion laws are allowed to be and whether states can prevent emergency rooms from providing other types of medical care, such as gender-affirming treatments.
Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/18/health/emtala-abortion-supreme-court.html
By Tracy Smith
January 14, 2024
Video: 8:32 minutes
Lifelong Texans Kate and Justin Cox were already parents to a young girl and boy when they found out last August that Kate was pregnant again. "We have the two children that we absolutely adore, and yeah, the thought of having a third one added to the family was incredible," Justin said.
But a series of tests revealed the baby they were expecting, a girl, had trisomy 18, a genetic condition that causes severe developmental problems.
Continued: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kate-cox-on-her-legal-fight-for-abortion-trisomy-18/
Jan 12, 2024
by BONNIE FULLER
“I can’t carry a pregnancy again,” Amanda Zurawski said sadly, but matter of factly. The Austin, Texas, resident will never be able to carry a pregnancy again because she was refused a necessary abortion in her state after her water broke at 18 weeks, long before her baby would have been viable.
Tragically, the delay in receiving what used to be normal healthcare allowed a massive bacterial infection to develop and turn into life-threatening sepsis—which ravaged her body and reproductive organs.
Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2024/01/12/amanda-zurawski-texas-abortion-kate-cox-republicans-womens-health/
Number of pregnant people harmed by U.S. state abortion bans continues to grow.
Center for Reproductive Rights
Jan 8, 2024
As the number of pregnant people harmed by state abortion bans continues to grow, four more women have joined the Center for Reproductive Rights lawsuit against Tennessee after being denied medically necessary abortion care for their severe and dangerous pregnancy complications. With today’s filing, there are now nine plaintiffs in the case, Blackmon v. State of Tennessee.
The plaintiffs added today faced pregnancy complications including devastating fetal diagnoses and life-threatening sepsis infections. Because of Tennessee’s total abortion ban, they were forced to travel hundreds of miles out of state to receive the care they needed, rather than wait until they were near death to receive abortion care in their home state.
Continued: https://reproductiverights.org/blackmon-v-tennessee-abortion-ban-more-plaintiffs/
Melissa Brown, Nashville Tennessean
Jan 8, 2023
Rachel Fulton and her husband had reached the nesting phase of her second pregnancy last fall, pulling up their baby stuff from the basement to dust off and decorating the new nursery.
Despite a few concerning conditions identified early in her pregnancy, Fulton was ecstatic to bring another baby boy home to join their toddler. They named him Titus, from the Bible.
But a November appointment changed everything.
By Selena Simmons-Duffin, Sarah McCammon, NPR
December 26, 2023
As 2023 comes to a close, so too does the first full year of the post-Roe era in America. Some of the year's developments were expected, like more conservative states enacting abortion restrictions. Others were surprising, like the fact that there were more abortions nationally in the year after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health decision than the previous one.
In the final weeks of the year, the country followed the story of Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two in Texas, as she sought to end a tragic pregnancy to ensure she could have a future one.
Here is the state of play when it comes to abortion heading into 2024.
BY KIMBERLEE KRUESI AND GEOFF MULVIHILL
December 20, 2023
Ever since the nation’s highest court ended abortion rights more than a year ago, vaguely worded bans enacted in some Republican-controlled states have caused bewilderment over how exceptions should be applied.
Supporters have touted these exemptions, tucked inside statutes restricting abortion, as sufficient enough to protect the life of the woman. Yet repeatedly, when applied in heart-wrenching situations, the results are much murkier.
The government won’t admit what it’s actually doing.
BY DAHLIA LITHWICK
DEC 18, 2023
(1-hour podcast, partial transcript)
… Last summer, Amanda Zurawski and a number of plaintiffs sued to have Texas clarify its inscrutable and malleable “exception” rule, that, as it currently stands, does not seem to allow many exceptions at all, and instead threatens all abortion providers with losing their licenses, paying extortionate fines, and going to prison for 99 years if they help their clients access such care. That case went to the Texas Supreme Court on the same day Kate Cox learned that her baby would die of trisomy 18, the week before the Texas courts forced her to travel out of state to terminate her pregnancy.
On Amicus this week, Amanda Zurawski, the lead plaintiff in that ongoing Texas lawsuit, and one of her lawyers, Jamie Levitt, of Morrison and Foerster, who joined with the Center for Reproductive Rights to protect the rights of women in Texas, joined the show. Our conversation, lightly edited for clarity, follows.
Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/12/amanda-zurawski-on-challenging-texas-abortion-law.html
Facebook
Google+
Twitter
LinkedIn