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.
BY ANISHA KOHLI
MAY 24, 2023
The Louisiana state legislature shot down two bills last week that aimed to clarify the legality of abortion and miscarriage care in pregnancies with complications.
The existing laws in Louisiana allow for abortions in certain cases when a pregnant patient’s life or health may be at risk, but physicians have criticized the texts for being confusing and limiting their ability to provide essential medical care.
Continued: https://time.com/6282288/louisiana-abortion-exceptions-confusion-doctors/
December 29, 2022
ROSEMARY WESTWOOD
7-Minute Listen with transcript
BATON ROUGE, La. – When Kaitlyn Joshua found out she was pregnant in mid-August, she and her husband, Landon Joshua, were excited to have a second baby on the way. They have a 4-year-old daughter, and thought that was just the right age to help out with a younger sibling.
At about six weeks pregnant, Joshua, 30, called a physicians' group in Baton Rouge. She wanted to make her first prenatal appointment there for around the eight-week mark, as she had in her first pregnancy. But Joshua says the woman on the line told her she was going to have to wait over a month.
By Tierney Sneed and Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN
Mon August 8, 2022
Just how far people in the South will have to travel to access abortion care will be defined by legal challenges unfolding in Louisiana and Georgia.
Almost every state in the Southeast bans the procedure or limits it to all but the earliest stages of pregnancy -- with laws that were allowed to go into effect with the Supreme Court's reversal this summer of Roe v. Wade. But abortion rights advocates are fighting in state court for orders blocking those restrictions.
Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/08/politics/abortion-south-georgia-louisiana/index.html
PBS, Nation
Dec 13, 2021
NEW ORLEANS – Before Texas enacted the nation’s strictest abortion law this fall, sending hundreds over the Louisiana border to seek care, those in need of abortion services could get medical attention in a matter of days. But the possibility of an imminent Supreme Court decision allowing states to further restrict access has pushed the wait for people seeking abortions in Louisiana to weeks, said Kathaleen Pittman, the clinical administrator at Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport.
The stress is overwhelming clinics in Louisiana, already among the most restrictive states for abortion in the nation.
Continued: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/uncertainty-overwhelms-abortion-clinics-in-louisiana
Advocates say this judicial bypass case is a grim look at how anti-abortion activists use their connections with state lawmakers to advance their agenda.
Nov 9, 2021
Caroline Reilly, Rewire News
In October, a Louisiana teen asked a state judge to be allowed to have an abortion. She was seeking a judicial bypass—the procedure in which young people who cannot involve a parent in their abortion decision can be granted permission by a judge.
Her mother sued the state to stop it.
Despite the constitutionality of judicial bypass, which must exist in the states that require parental involvement for minors’ abortions, the Louisiana mother’s challenge was enough for a judge to grant a temporary restraining order, blocking all judicial bypasses in the state.
Texas and Ohio Include Abortion as Medical Procedures That Must Be Delayed
The moves by the states set off a new front in the political fight over abortion during the coronavirus pandemic.
by Sabrina Tavernise
Published March 23, 2020
Texas and Ohio have included abortions among the nonessential surgeries and medical procedures that they are requiring to be delayed, setting off a new front in the fight over abortion rights in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.
Both states said they were trying to preserve extremely precious protective equipment for health care workers and to make space for a potential flood of coronavirus patients.
Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/coronavirus-texas-ohio-abortion.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
No matter what the Supreme Court decides, abortion opponents have already won
As the Supreme Court considers a Louisiana law, this is how anti-abortion groups see the direction of the country.
By Anna North
Mar 5, 2020
WASHINGTON, DC — Standing in front of the US Supreme Court on Wednesday morning, Dennis McKirahan was in a hopeful mood. “It’s a great day,” he said, glancing at the blue sky. “The sun is shining in me and outside.”
He and around a dozen other activists were with the group Shofar Call International, a Christian group that blows a horn typically used in Jewish ceremonies called the shofar as part of anti-abortion demonstrations and religious events. “In Hebrew the Shofar is also referred to as the Bat Kol or the Voice of Heaven,” the group’s website states. “When the enemy hears the Voice of Heaven being proclaimed in the earth, he trembles in fear.”
Continued: https://www.vox.com/2020/3/5/21164953/abortion-supreme-court-louisiana-case-admitting-privileges
Getting an abortion in “the most pro-life state in America”
Welcome to the Louisiana clinic at the center of the court case that could gut Roe v. Wade.
By Anna North
Feb 19, 2020
Photographs by Annie Flanagan for Vox
SHREVEPORT, Louisiana — The first patients arrive around 10 am.
They wear boots and coats against the December cold, but there’s coffee inside to help them warm up. Christmas figurines — a Santa holding a tree, a quaint house covered in snow — give the place a homey feel. In the waiting room, Friends plays on the TV.
Even before they sit down, though, patients are confronted with reminders that this place is under threat.
Continued: https://www.vox.com/2020/2/19/21070703/louisiana-abortion-case-supreme-court-law-roe
The Louisiana Clinic At The Center Of Abortion Case Before Supreme Court
December 29, 2019
Sarah McCammon
On a recent Saturday morning at Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, La., Kathaleen Pittman was preparing for a day of procedures, as a couple dozen patients sat quietly in the waiting area.
Her clinic is challenging a law passed by Louisiana's state legislature in 2014, which requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital in case of an emergency. The case, June Medical Services, LLC v. Gee, is scheduled to go before the U.S. Supreme Court next year, and the court's decision has the potential to chip away at existing precedent protecting abortion rights.
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