US state abortion ban exemptions aren’t vague by accident. Uncertainty is the point

Anti-choice statutes are designed to keep health providers fearful of running afoul of the law. Women suffer for it

Judith Levine
Fri 7 Jun 2024

Anyone who has lived under the control of an abusive partner or parent knows that the problem is not just what’s prohibited. It’s what you’re unsure is prohibited. The prospect of punishment instills fear. Vagueness about what will be punished promotes caution. Just in case, the teenager doesn’t hang out with certain friends. The teacher deletes the controversial book from the curriculum.

The doctor decides not to perform an abortion when the patient’s health or life is at risk, but, maybe, not imminently so.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/07/state-abortion-ban-exemptions-uncertainty

Biden rips into Trump over abortion statement

The president’s campaign launched a barrage of attacks – putting every draconian state law at the ex-president’s feet.

By ADAM CANCRYN and ELENA SCHNEIDER
April 8, 2024

Joe Biden’s advisers didn’t know if Donald Trump would ever offer up a formal policy on abortion.
But when the moment finally arrived, they were ready.

Trump’s announcement on Monday that he supports leaving the debate about abortion restrictions to the states sparked a torrent of political attacks, with Biden and his allies accusing their GOP rival of ushering in “cruelty and chaos” in the post-Roe v. Wade era.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/08/trump-abortion-biden-2024-00151062

08.04.2024

national abortion ban

A Young Woman Almost Died Due to Texas’ Abortion Bans. Now She’s Battling to Save Other Women

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/

‘Deeply Disturbing’: Federal Court Rules Texas Can Ban Emergency Abortions

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray called the 5th Circuit's ruling "a horrifying and astonishingly dangerous decision from a court that has shown repeatedly they have absolutely no regard for women's lives."

JAKE JOHNSON
Jan 03, 2024

The conservative-dominated 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled late Tuesday that Texas hospitals and physicians are not required by federal law to perform abortions under emergency circumstances.

The 25-page decision stems from a legal challenge that Texas filed in response to guidance issued in July 2022 by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department. The guidance states that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) "protects providers when offering legally-mandated, life- or health-saving abortion services in emergency situations."

Continued: https://www.commondreams.org/news/5th-circuit-texas-abortion

What It’s Really Like to Challenge Texas’ Absurd Abortion Laws

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

Kate Cox case reveals toll of US abortion bans on women in medical emergencies

Lawsuits from women denied the procedure despite health risks shows how bans don’t allow for complexities of pregnancy

Carter Sherman
Sat 16 Dec 2023

When Kate Cox got the news that her baby would probably only live for a few days, she went online to figure out her options. A 31-year-old mother of two living in Texas, Cox could not get an abortion, but she also knew that she did not want to make her baby suffer.

That’s when Cox came across the news that 20 Texas women had come forward to tell a court that they, like her, had been unable to get abortions in medical emergencies. Within days, Cox went public too: she became the first woman since the fall of Roe v Wade to sue for an abortion while actively pregnant.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/16/abortion-ban-lawsuits-pregnancy-complication-emergency-kate-cox

Some Republicans Were Willing to Compromise on Abortion Ban Exceptions. Activists Made Sure They Didn’t.

ProPublica reviewed 12 of the nation’s strictest abortion bans. Few changed in 2023, as state lawmakers caved to pressure from anti-abortion groups opposing exceptions for rape, incest and health risks.

by Kavitha Surana
Nov. 27, 2023

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending nearly 50 years of federal protection for abortion, some states began enforcing strict abortion bans while others became new havens for the procedure. ProPublica is investigating how sweeping changes to reproductive health care access in America are affecting people, institutions and governments.

State Rep. Taylor Rehfeldt was speaking on the floor of the South Dakota Capitol, four months pregnant with her third child, begging her Republican colleagues to care about her life. “With the current law in place, I will tell you, I wake up fearful of my pregnancy and what it would mean for my children, my husband and my parents if something happened to me and the doctor cannot perform lifesaving measures,” she told her fellow lawmakers last February, her voice faltering as tears threatened.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/abortion-ban-exceptions-trigger-laws-health-risks