MARCH 19, 2024
By Rosemary Westwood
4-Minute Listen with transcript
In the wake of Louisiana's abortion ban, pregnant women have been given risky, unnecessary surgeries, denied swift treatment for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies, and forced to wait until their life is at risk before getting an abortion, according to a new report first made available to NPR.
It found doctors are using extreme caution to avoid even the appearance of providing an abortion procedure.
The 25-year-old woman and her mother blame the state’s abortion ban for a delay in care that doctors say put her “in extreme danger of losing her life”
By Caroline Kitchener
February 23, 2024
ARLINGTON, Tex. — Kelsie Norris-De La Cruz tried not to cry as the doctor in the emergency room delivered one of the most frightening diagnoses a pregnant woman can receive.
The 25-year-old college senior was told she likely had an ectopic pregnancy, a highly dangerous condition where the embryo implants outside of the uterus. Without immediate treatment, the fallopian tube can rupture — and the patient can die.
Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/23/texas-woman-ectopic-pregnancy-abortion/
Menstrual regulation—sometimes referred to as “missed period pills"—is a new front in women's battle for bodily autonomy. Here's how it works and what you need to know.
Dec 30, 2023
Cari Siestra first learned about menstrual regulation when they were working on the Myanmar-Thailand border. At the time, abortion was broadly criminalized in both countries. But if a person’s period was late, it was relatively easy to get access to pills that would induce menstruation in just a few days. In Bangladesh, where abortion is largely illegal, menstrual regulation is available up to 10 weeks after a missed period, and public health advocates routinely talk about it as a promising way to reduce maternal mortality and rates of unsafe abortion.
Menstrual regulation isn’t completely unknown in the United States. Melissa Grant, chief operations officer and cofounder of Carafem, recalls friends who would have their periods brought back through manual vacuum aspiration in the 1980s, when early pregnancy tests weren’t as common. But in recent years, it hasn’t been a widespread option, and for a while, Siestra wasn’t sure if there was a place for menstrual regulation in the US.
Continued: https://www.wired.com/story/missed-period-pills-menstrual-regulation-how-it-works/
In post-Roe America, the medical and legal stakes associated with losing a pregnancy are high, especially in the 14 states where abortion is now almost entirely outlawed.
Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
December 7, 2023
It had only been three weeks since Ann Carver and her husband started trying to have a baby, and somehow, she was already pregnant. In the summer of 2022, she’d become a mom.
The couple told everyone they knew, too excited for early pregnancy secrecy and caution. Carver was 26. She felt like there was no reason to worry.
Continued: https://19thnews.org/2023/12/pregnancy-loss-post-roe-america-abortion/
Reviewed by Emily Henderson
May 2 2023
At a brewery in this northern Idaho city, hundreds of people recently held a wake of sorts to mourn the closure of Sandpoint's only labor and delivery ward, collateral damage from the state's Republican-led effort to criminalize nearly all abortions.
Jen Quintano, the event's organizer and a Sandpoint resident who runs a tree service, called to the crowd, packed shoulder to shoulder as children ran underfoot, "Raise your hand if you were born at Bonner General! Raise your hand if you gave birth at Bonner General!" Nearly everyone raised their hand.
I was flabbergasted by the cost of medical care I could have died without – but surprise fees are standard in a system motivated first and foremost by profit
Robin Buller
Sun 16 Apr 2023
On 27 January, I was just under six weeks pregnant. My fertility app – one of several pinned on my phone’s home screen, I am reluctant to admit – told me that the embryo growing inside me was the size of a green pea.
That morning, I felt both elated and nervous. Between Zoom calls and spurts of distracted writing, I thought about spilling the beans to my sister, but resisted. After two miscarriages, I was wary of sharing the news too early.
Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/16/cost-of-abortion-us-expense
Nov. 5, 2022
By Jessica Valenti
Despite Republican assurances that their draconian abortion bans wouldn’t hurt women, a flood of heart-wrenching accounts from across the country prove otherwise. Yet even with that outpouring of stories, plus polls showing broad opposition to the bans and an increase in women registering to vote, it’s still unclear if the issue will be the deciding factor for voters in the midterm elections on Tuesday.
It should be.
In a report shared first with The 19th, major medical organizations uniformly told lawmakers that the overturning of Roe v. Wade will also worsen racial inequality and create barriers to critical medical treatment.
Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
November 1, 2022
Major medical groups say that the loss of federal abortion protections has diminished access to pregnancy care such as treatment for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages. The groups are sounding the alarm that racial gaps in pregnancy-related deaths will be exacerbated, according to a new Senate report first shared with The 19th.
The analysis comes on the heels of preliminary data suggesting that in the first two months since the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — a case that eliminated federal abortion rights and opened the door for states to ban abortions entirely — abortions fell by about 6 percent, or about 10,000 abortions, across the country.
Continued: https://19thnews.org/2022/11/abortion-bans-restrict-critical-pregnancy-care-senate-report/
By Eleanor Klibanoff | The Texas Tribune
October 25, 2022
“It was just a matter of time before the baby died, or maybe I’d have to go through the trauma of carrying to term knowing I wasn’t bringing a baby home,” said 27-year-old Lauren Hall. “I couldn’t do that.”
The protesters outside a Seattle-area abortion clinic waved pictures of bloody fetuses, shouting that she was a “baby killer” and begging her to choose life. Lauren Hall, 27, fought the urge to scream back and tell them just how badly she wished life was a choice she could have made.
Many pharmacies and physicians are forced to deny patients access to drugs, such as methotrexate, that can be used to help induce an abortion
Maya Yang
Mon 26 Sep 2022
A few weeks after the supreme court’s 24 June decision to overturn the nationwide abortion rights established by Roe v Wade, the pharmacy chain Walgreens sent Annie England Noblin a message, informing her that her monthly prescription of methotrexate was held up.
Noblin, a 40-year-old college instructor in rural Missouri, never had trouble getting her monthly prescription of methotrexate for her rheumatoid arthritis. So she went to her local Walgreens to figure out why, standing in line with other customers as she waited for an explanation.
Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/26/us-abortion-bans-restrict-access-essential-medications
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