Abortion-ban states pour millions into pregnancy centers with little medical care

Louisiana offers up to $5 million in tax credits a year for donations to anti-abortion operations

BY: ANNA CLAIRE VOLLERS
AUGUST 24, 2023

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, Louisiana Republican state Sen. Beth Mizell looked for a way to address her state’s abysmal record on infant and maternal mortality, preterm births and low birth weight. Louisiana has one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

Mizell and her colleagues borrowed an idea from neighboring Mississippi: a state tax credit program that sends millions each year to nonprofit pregnancy resource centers, also called crisis pregnancy centers. They’re private anti-abortion organizations, often religiously affiliated, that typically offer free pregnancy tests, parenting classes and baby supplies. They are not usually staffed by doctors or nurses, though some offer limited ultrasounds or testing for sexually transmitted infections.

Continued: https://lailluminator.com/2023/08/24/abortion-ban-states-pour-millions-into-pregnancy-centers-with-little-medical-care/

A 45-year-old got pregnant in a state with a ban on abortions. She flew across the country to get one

By Christina Zdanowicz, CNN
Sun July 9, 2023

When 45-year-old Victoria realized she was five weeks late and the lines showed as positive on two pregnancy tests, the New Orleans resident dreamed up a plan to get an abortion.

Traveling out of state was the only abortion option for Victoria, who asked CNN to withhold her last name out of fear of backlash against her and her family. Louisiana is one of several states that have essentially banned all abortions.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/09/health/abortion-cross-state-lines-louisiana-oregon/index.html

09.07.2023

Commentary

abortion bans

abortion story

traveling for abortion

‘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

Her unborn baby was developing without a skull. She had to leave Louisiana to get an abortion.

BY ASHLEY WHITE
June 13, 2023

The day before Mardi Gras, Brittany and Chris Vidrine got exciting news — Brittany was pregnant. They would be adding a third child to their family.

But when she went in for a 16-week checkup, Brittany Vidrine learned her baby had anencephaly, a fetal abnormality in which a baby’s skull does not form. There is no known cure or treatment. It causes almost all babies to die shortly after birth, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Continued: https://www.theadvocate.com/acadiana/news/louisiana-abortion-laws-prevent-healthcare-access-baby-forming-without-skull/article_ed2dcee2-096c-11ee-8321-5b7163addb32.html

13.06.2023

Doctors Are Still Confused by Abortion Exceptions in Louisiana. It’s Limiting Essential Care

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/

Louisiana doctors detail unintended consequences of state’s abortion ban

BY KEITH ZUBROW, CBS NEWS
APRIL 30, 2023

"I am more likely to die than my mother was in childbirth. So as a country, our outcomes are getting worse," Dr. Rebekah Gee, an OB-GYN and a former secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health, told 60 Minutes.

Gee was interviewed by 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi as part of Sunday's report on maternal mortality rates in the United States. According to the World Health Organization, the U.S. has one of the highest rates of maternal death in the developed world, with Louisiana possessing some of the highest rates of any American state.

Continued: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doctors-detail-unintended-consequences-of-louisiana-abortion-ban-60-minutes-2023-04-30/

30.04.2023

miscarriage management

How US abortion organisers are learning from Honduran activistsc

As networks, some clandestine, form to help women access abortion in the US, they look to Central America for a road map – and a warning.

By Delaney Nolan
Published On 19 Feb 2023

New Orleans, United States – The half dozen women gathered in the backyard pause for a moment to listen to the television next door. The neighbour is playing a football game at high volume. It’s loud. That’s good – it gives them cover.

“I couldn’t hear anything from the sidewalk,” says Ana,* referring to the women’s conversation. “I think we’re OK,” says another. The rest are reassured.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/2/19/how-us-abortion-organisers-are-learning-from-honduran-activists

Bleeding and in pain, she couldn’t get 2 Louisiana ERs to answer: Is it a miscarriage?

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.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/12/29/1143823727/bleeding-and-in-pain-she-couldnt-get-2-louisiana-ers-to-answer-is-it-a-miscarria

Louisiana woman faces ‘horrifically cruel’ abortion choice over fetus missing skull

Ramon Antonio Vargas in New Orleans
Sat 20 Aug 2022

A pregnant Louisiana woman faced with either carrying a skull-less fetus to term – for the baby to likely die within hours – or traveling several states away to obtain an abortion has hired a prominent civil rights attorney as she weighs how to move forward.

Nancy Davis, 36, has retained lawyer Ben Crump as she becomes the latest to embody the gut-wrenching decisions some women are being forced to make after the US supreme court’s decision in June to strip away nationwide abortion rights, according to a statement from the attorney’s office.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/20/louisiana-abortion-woman-nancy-davis-benjamin-crump

20.08.2022

fatal fetal abnormality

Abortion access in two ‘stalwart’ states in the South a focus of post-Roe court fights

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