‘How sick do they have to get?’ Doctors brace for US supreme court hearing on emergency abortions

As states ban abortions, a 1968 federal law requires hospitals that receive Medicare dollars to stabilize patients in a medical emergency, creating a catch-22 for care providers

Carter Sherman
Tue 23 Apr 2024

Dr Lauren Miller used to cry every day on her way to work.

A fetal maternal medicine specialist in Idaho, Miller despaired over the possibility she might be forced to tell patients she could not help them. Idaho has one of the strictest abortion bans in the nation, which means Miller could only perform abortions to save a woman’s life – and many patients, even those facing medical emergencies with potentially deadly consequences, were not yet sick enough to qualify.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/23/supreme-court-verdict-emergency-abortions-patients-doctors

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

After Idaho’s strict abortion ban, OB-gyns stage a quick exodus

Reviewed by Emily Henderson
May 2 2023

At a brewery in this northern Idaho city, hundreds of people recently held a wake of sorts to mourn the closure of Sandpoint's only labor and delivery ward, collateral damage from the state's Republican-led effort to criminalize nearly all abortions.

Jen Quintano, the event's organizer and a Sandpoint resident who runs a tree service, called to the crowd, packed shoulder to shoulder as children ran underfoot, "Raise your hand if you were born at Bonner General! Raise your hand if you gave birth at Bonner General!" Nearly everyone raised their hand.

Continued: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230502/After-Idahoe28099s-strict-abortion-ban-OB-gyns-stage-a-quick-exodus.aspx

USA – Despite dangerous pregnancy complications, many abortions are being denied

Health News Florida | By Associated Press
November 25, 2022

Increasing numbers of physicians and families nationwide say a post-Roe fear has come to pass: Pregnant women with dangerous medical conditions are showing up in hospitals and doctors’ offices and being denied the abortions that could help treat them.

Weeks after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Dr. Grace Ferguson treated a woman whose water had broken halfway through pregnancy. The baby would never survive, and the patient’s chance of developing a potentially life-threatening infection grew with every hour.

Continued: https://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/politics-issues/2022-11-25/despite-dangerous-pregnancy-complications-many-abortions-are-being-denied

Despite dangerous pregnancy complications, abortions denied in U.S.

Laura Ungar And Heather Hollingsworth, The Associated Press
Published Nov. 20, 2022

Weeks after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Dr. Grace Ferguson treated a woman whose water had broken halfway through pregnancy. The baby would never survive, and the patient's chance of developing a potentially life-threatening infection grew with every hour.

By the time she made it to Pittsburgh to see Ferguson, the woman had spent two days in a West Virginia hospital, unable to have an abortion because of a state ban. The law makes an exception for medical emergencies, but the patient's life wasn't in danger at that moment.

Continued: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/despite-dangerous-pregnancy-complications-abortions-denied-1.6161102