An ectopic pregnancy put her life at risk. A Texas hospital refused to treat her.

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/


USA – For some pregnant patients, unregulated anti-abortion centers are the only affordable option

Research has found that crisis pregnancy centers often provide inaccurate information about pregnancy, which can influence people's reproductive decisions.

Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
February 9, 2024

Savannah McNally was 24 years old, and in the middle of a divorce, trying to sell her house, wrapping up her service in the Navy and figuring out a way to finish college. She was also pregnant.

“It was pretty much instantly a feeling of dread. I didn’t want to be pregnant. I don’t want kids,” McNally recalled. “I was crying and screaming, ‘This is not going to happen.’”

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2024/02/crisis-pregnancy-centers-anti-abortion-only-option/


Abortion providers on two years of Texas ban: ‘We’re living in a devastating reality’

Senate Bill 8 wiped out almost all abortion care in the second-most populous state in the US, and served as a harbinger of what was to come over the rest of the country

by Mary Tuma
Thu 31 Aug 2023

Nearly a year before the US supreme court eviscerated Roe v Wade, the court allowed an unprecedented abortion ban to take effect in Texas, serving as a harbinger of what was to sweep over the rest of the country.

…. In the two years since, Texas abortion providers – some of the first in the US to experience a nearly post-Roe world – reflect on the devastating and lasting effect of the severe law, the trauma they felt denying patients care, and the struggle they faced when deciding whether or not to flee the state or stay put.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/31/texas-abortion-ban-senate-bill-8


‘It’s Breaking My Heart’: Abortion Providers on Life After Roe

For many abortion providers, working in a clinic isn’t just a job—it’s a calling. But clinics are businesses, too, and in the 15 states that have banned almost all abortions, business has been turbulent.

Carter Sherman, VICE
June 28, 2023

Kathaleen Pittman was too angry to retire.

Pittman had worked at Hope Medical Group, one of the last abortion clinics in Louisiana, for thirty years. She’d started there as a part-time counselor in 1992; by 2022, she was running the place. She’d gone to the Supreme Court to defend her clinic and won, successfully striking down a Louisiana abortion restriction in 2020.

Two years after that victory, she watched as the Supreme Court dismantled her life’s work by overturning Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. She went back to court to try and fend off Louisiana’s cascade of abortion bans, but a month after the overturning, the clinic had to close. Louisiana had outlawed nearly all abortions.

Continued: https://www.rsn.org/001/its-breaking-my-heart-abortion-providers-on-life-after-roe.html


This Alabama Health Clinic Is Under Threat. It Doesn’t Provide Abortions.

Former abortion clinics in red states are trying to pivot to other services after Dobbs. But they’re finding it’s not so easy.

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
05/29/2023

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Patients arriving for an appointment at the West Alabama Women’s Center one year ago would brave a gauntlet of chanting protesters, skirt an idling police car, take seats in a crowded waiting room and wait for one of the clinic’s dozen busy staff members to help them terminate a pregnancy. Over the clinic’s nearly 30-year history, visits also included the risk of being shot, bombed or rammed by a vehicle.

But when Abigail arrived on a Tuesday morning in April, nearly 11 months after the fall of Roe v. Wade, the parking lot was so quiet you could hear the clinic’s windchime tinkling faintly in the hot breeze.

Continued:  https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/05/29/alabama-abortion-clinic-problem-00096020


USA – These abortion clinics no longer provide abortions – but are still hanging on

Even in states with bans, a handful of abortion clinics are still open, providing ‘aftercare’ for patients who travel out of state or manage their own abortions

Rebecca Grant
Fri 5 May 2023

The patient on 9 March was a tricky case.

She was pregnant and seeking an abortion, but had previously had a cesarean section, which could create complications if the placenta embedded in her surgical scar. Houston Women’s Reproductive Services couldn’t perform the procedure because Texas had banned abortions, but the clinic could do an ultrasound and communicate with the provider in New Mexico, where the patient was heading for her appointment. Then, once the patient was back in Texas, the Houston clinic would provide any follow-up care and support she needed.

Continued:  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/05/abortion-clinics-open-states-with-bans


The Most Unexpected Consequence of the Texas Abortion Ban

BY CHRISTINA CAUTERUCCI
APRIL 24, 2022

In a third-floor medical suite with sweeping views of a Texas highway, staff members at Houston Women’s Reproductive Services are adapting to the new demands the state’s restrictive abortion law has placed on their jobs.

They try to schedule every patient for a visit on the same day she calls, lest that patient lose a single valuable day of the narrow window for care. They linger on the phone with frantic women who are already terrified that they’ll be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, even though they are just a day or two late on their period. And they have pivoted, in many cases, to dispensing emotional and logistical support instead of medical care.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/texas-abortion-ban-women-decisions.html


Texas patients are rushing to get abortions before the state’s six-week limit. Clinics are struggling to keep up.

With Texas’s strict abortion ban still in effect, patients have been forced to wait weeks for an appointment — disqualifying many who otherwise would have been able to access abortion

By Caroline Kitchener
Feb 14, 2022

When the woman started crying in the ultrasound room, Joe Nelson tried to comfort her, as he has comforted dozens of other patients who are too far along to get an abortion in Texas.

She was a single mother with two kids at home, experiencing a rare pregnancy condition that had left her too nauseous to work, said Nelson, a doctor at Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion clinic in Austin. The woman was over the legal limit established by Texas’s restrictive new law, Nelson said, but just barely. A few days earlier, he could have performed the abortion.

Continued:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/14/texas-abortion-sb8


Despite latest court ruling blocking Texas abortion law, most providers are still reluctant to defy ban

by Caroline Kitchener, Emily Wax-Thibodeaux, Ann E. Marimow and Casey Parks
Oct 7, 2021

Abortions after six weeks of pregnancy were allowed in Texas on Thursday for the first time since the nation’s most restrictive abortion law went into effect there on Sept. 1. Some abortion providers resumed offering the procedure after a federal judge issued an order Wednesday evening blocking enforcement. But many providers said they would keep complying with the ban until the legal issues are resolved.

Less than two hours after U.S. District Judge Robert L. Pitman granted the Biden administration’s request for an injunction, Texas said it would appeal to the conservative-leaning U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. Regardless of how the appeals court rules, the issue could quickly make its way back to the Supreme Court, which last month turned down a request by abortion providers to stop the law from taking effect.

Continued:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/10/07/texas-abortion-injunction-reaction/


With ban in effect, Texas abortion clinics will no longer terminate pregnancies after 6 weeks

By Caroline Kitchener, Emily Wax-Thibodeaux, Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow
Sep 1, 2021

AUSTIN — A Texas law that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy went into effect Wednesday, as a midnight deadline for the Supreme Court to stop it came and went without action.

The court could still grant a request from abortion providers to halt the law, one of the nation’s most restrictive. But for now, abortion providers in Texas, including Planned Parenthood and Whole Woman’s Health, said they will no longer terminate pregnancies more than six weeks from a woman’s last period.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/texas-six-week-abortion-ban/2021/09/01/e53cf372-0a6b-11ec-a6dd-296ba7fb2dce_story.html