A Third Woman Died Under Texas’ Abortion Ban. Doctors Are Avoiding D&Cs and Reaching for Riskier Miscarriage Treatments.

Thirty-five-year-old Porsha Ngumezi’s case raises questions about how abortion bans are pressuring doctors to avoid standard care even in straightforward miscarriages.

by Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana
Nov. 25, 2024

Wrapping his wife in a blanket as she mourned the loss of her pregnancy at 11 weeks, Hope Ngumezi wondered why no obstetrician was coming to see her.

Over the course of six hours on June 11, 2023, Porsha Ngumezi had bled so much in the emergency department at Houston Methodist Sugar Land that she’d needed two transfusions. She was anxious to get home to her young sons, but, according to a nurse’s notes, she was still “passing large clots the size of grapefruit.”

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/porsha-ngumezi-miscarriage-death-texas-abortion-ban

USA / Global – Second Trimester Taboo

Abortion pills are more important than ever, and safe far later than most people know

By Cecilia Nowell
Illustrations by Zhenya Oliinyk
Lux Magazine, June(?) issue

In a small Texas courtroom last spring, Erik Baptist, senior counsel for the conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom, insisted that the Food and Drug Administration had been reckless when it approved the abortion pill mifepristone for use before seven weeks of pregnancy in 2000, and then, in 2016, for up to 10 weeks.

The judge agreed, suspending the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, one of two pills used in the typical protocol for medication abortions in the U.S. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule this summer on whether to uphold the suspension or otherwise restrict the use of mifepristone.

Continued: https://lux-magazine.com/article/second-trimester/

Texas Can Ban Common Form of Second-Trimester Abortion, Appeals Court Rules

The lower court “committed numerous, reversible legal and factual errors,” according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

By Azi
Paybarah

Published
Aug. 18, 2021

A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a Texas law banning the most common
form of second-trimester abortion, ruling that a lower court had erred in
finding that the law imposed “an undue burden on a large fraction of women.”

At issue is a Texas law that was passed in 2017 but has not yet been in effect
because of legal battles. The law, known as Senate Bill 8, prohibits a
dilation-and-evacuation abortion method and requires doctors to use alternative
abortion methods, according to Wednesday’s decision by the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/us/abortion-texas-ruling.html

How the Supreme Court could overturn Roe — while claiming to respect precedent

Conservatives could build on abortion restrictions that point to “scientific uncertainty.”

By Mary Ziegler
July 1, 2020

The Supreme Court’s recent abortion ruling shows that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. means it when he says that “the legal doctrine of stare decisis requires us, absent special circumstances, to treat like cases alike.” Casting the deciding vote Monday in June Medical Services v. Russo, he ruled against an abortion restriction that Louisiana claimed protected women against unscrupulous doctors. The state even asked the court to prevent abortion providers from suing on behalf of their patients, claiming a conflict of interest. If these arguments were new, the chief justice almost certainly would have accepted them both. The problem was that the Supreme Court had heard them before: In 2016, the justices invalidated an identical Texas law. Roberts couldn’t distinguish the two statutes enough to make a different ruling — not while respecting precedent.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/how-supreme-court-could-overturn-roe/2020/07/01/51fe4a2c-bb1e-11ea-80b9-40ece9a701dc_story.html

USA – Medical Residents Struggle to Find Abortion Training as Statewide Restrictions Tighten

Medical Residents Struggle to Find Abortion Training as Statewide Restrictions Tighten
Only about two-thirds of obstetrics and gynecology residency programs provide routine, scheduled abortion training.

Jul 5, 2019
Olivia Miltner

Dr. Maryam Guiahi was concerned when she applied for Loyola University Medical Center’s obstetrics and gynecology residency program. It was the mid-2000s, and family planning was becoming a more prominent component of OB/GYN care. Guiahi knew she wanted to learn how to provide abortions, but because Loyola was a Catholic-affiliated program, she wanted to make sure she could get this training during her residency.

Guiahi says during her residency interview, faculty downplayed the work she’d have to do to learn about abortions.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2019/07/05/medical-residents-struggle-to-find-abortion-training-as-statewide-restrictions-tighten/

USA – Supreme Court Rejects Alabama Bid to Bar Common Abortion Method

Supreme Court Rejects Alabama Bid to Bar Common Abortion Method

By Greg Stohr
June 28, 2019

The U.S. Supreme Court steered clear of the nation’s fractious abortion debate, refusing to consider Alabama’s effort to ban the most common method used for women in their second trimester of pregnancy.

The state was seeking to revive a ban on a method, known as dilation and evacuation, that involves dismembering the fetus and then removing it from the uterus. Alabama called the procedure a “particularly gruesome type of abortion” that states have the power to prohibit.

Continued: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/supreme-court-rejects-alabama-bid-to-bar-common-abortion-method?utm_source=google&utm_medium=bd&cmpId=google

USA – I Got An Abortion In One Of The Most Restrictive States — This Is What I Went Through

I Got An Abortion In One Of The Most Restrictive States — This Is What I Went Through

ByBridjet Mendyuk
Jan 30, 2019

In this op-ed, writer Bridjet Mendyuk explains the process she went through to get an abortion in Ohio, where laws restrict people's access to the procedure.

I felt the first moment of panic as the word “pregnant” popped up on the ominous stick. I had no health insurance, had just lost my job, and was living at home. It was late November, and I felt better than I had in months: I was sleeping eight hours a night, and I had lost weight. It wasn’t until I told my mom my cycle was later than normal that she bought me a pregnancy test. At 27 years old, I found out I had been pregnant for two months and had no idea.

Continued: https://www.bustle.com/p/i-got-abortion-in-one-of-the-most-restrictive-states-this-is-what-i-went-through-15870247

USA – Six Facts About Abortion to Counter March for Life’s Junk Science

Six Facts About Abortion to Counter March for Life’s Junk Science

Jan 16, 2019
Laura Huss

This year's March for Life claims that “being pro-life is not in opposition to science," though many of its positions fly in the face of evidence.

The 46th annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., has adopted “Unique from Day One” as its theme, an apparent declaration of the extreme anti-choice position that life begins at conception. The event not only asserts this view as a moral position but also claims that “being pro-life is not in opposition to science.”

This co-opting of science is in line with a strategy and infrastructure that the anti-choice movement has been building for some time.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2019/01/16/six-facts-about-abortion-to-counter-march-for-lifes-junk-science/

With new law, Ohio bans common abortion procedure

With new law, Ohio bans common abortion procedure

By Jessica Ravitz, CNN
Sat December 22, 2018

(CNN) A bill that would ban the most common abortion method used in the second trimester of pregnancy was signed into law Friday by Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Senate Bill 145 prohibits the dilation and evacuation (D&E) procedure, in which the cervix is dilated and the contents of the uterus extracted. Though there is no exception in the law in cases of rape or incest, there is one if the mother's life is at risk.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/21/health/ohio-de-ban-bn/index.html

A Texas abortion procedure ban is unnecessary, full of theatrics and harmful to women

A Texas abortion procedure ban is unnecessary, full of theatrics and harmful to women

By The Times Editorial Board
Nov 12, 2018

No matter how often a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion is upheld by federal courts, there’s a state legislature somewhere trying to make it impossible for her to have one. The assaults on abortion rights have come in waves, as state legislatures dominated by anti-abortion lawmakers simultaneously pursue the same new legal gambits until blocked by a federal judge, at which point they change tactics and try again.

Most recently, abortion opponents have shifted from seeking restrictions ostensibly designed to protect the health of a pregnant woman — such as requiring abortion clinics to be outfitted like outpatient surgery centers, or requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital — to ones that focus on the fetus. For example, Texas and a number of other states slapped tough new restrictions on the dilation and evacuation procedure, or D&E, the safest and most common second-trimester abortion, calling it a “dismemberment abortion” and describing the procedure in ghoulish detail.

Continued: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-texas-ban-second-trimester-abortion-20181112-story.html