SCOTUS v. Pregnant Patients: Idaho’s Abortion Fight Could Blow Up a “Revolutionary” Health Care Law

“My reaction can be summed up as ‘appalled,’” says health policy guru Sara Rosenbaum.

NINA MARTIN, Mother Jones
Apr 27, 2024

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in what could end up being its most consequential abortion decision since Dobbs. In a case pitting Idaho’s extreme abortion ban against a federal law known as EMTALA—that since 1986 has required hospitals to provide emergency care—conservative justices seemed to embrace the idea that states can deny crisis medical treatment to pregnant patients, even if doing so means those patients suffer catastrophic, life-altering injuries. “My reaction can be summed up as ‘appalled,’” says Sara Rosenbaum, emerita professor at George Washington University who is one of the country’s foremost experts in health policy issues affecting women and families. “Will [the court] really say it is fine [to enforce] a law that costs women their organs as long as they don’t die?”

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/04/scotus-v-pregnant-patients-idahos-abortion-fight-could-blow-up-a-revolutionary-health-care-law/

27.04.2024

Interviews/Podcasts

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act

USA – The Reactionary Justices Won’t Stop Until Abortions Are Illegal Everywhere

Oral arguments in Idaho case make clear that further, even more radical attacks on reproductive freedom are coming.

JEET HEER
April 26, 2024

The five right-wing Supreme Court justices who overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the 2022 decision Dobbs v. Jackson built their argument on lies, one of which was a promise (pinkie swear!) that, despite the apparent radicalism of extinguishing Roe v. Wade, the court would henceforth respect precedent, leave abortion to the political arena, and not touch other decisions recognizing social and sexual rights. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito told a story that went something like this: Roe was such a bad decision that it was an outlier, a rare precedent that—like the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that enshrined racial segregation—was so egregious the court had to cast it aside. Roe was bad because it took abortion, properly a decision best left to the democratic contestation in the state and federal legislatures, and imposed a national consensus that had no popular legitimacy. According to Scalia, “The Court short-circuited the democratic process by closing to it the large number of Americans who dissented in any respect from Roe.”

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/supreme-court-abortion-idaho/

26.04.2024

Commentary

Clarence Thomas

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act

The US supreme court heard one of the most sadistic, extreme anti-abortion cases yet

Idaho’s law requires doctors to treat pregnant women’s health as disposable – and the loss of their lives as an acceptable risk

Moira Donegan
Thu 25 Apr 2024

The risk of stating plainly what Idaho argued at the US supreme court on Wednesday morning is that it is so sadistic and extreme that people might not believe you. Idaho has one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country. Prohibiting all abortions at any stage of gestation, with no exceptions for rape or incest, the Idaho law allows doctors to perform abortions in cases where the life – but not “merely” the health – of the pregnant woman is at risk.

In practice, this has wound up being a ban on abortions needed to save women’s lives: according to Idaho hospitals, six pregnant women experiencing medical emergencies have had to be airlifted across state lines to hospitals in states with life and health exemptions in the months since Idaho began enforcing its abortion ban. One way to describe this state of affairs is to say that Idaho’s abortion law has come into conflict with medical best practice. Another way to describe it is to say that the law has forced pregnant women to flee the state for their lives.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/25/supreme-court-idaho-anti-abortion-case

25.04.2024

Opinion

Anya Cook

Elizabeth Prelogar

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act

Emergency rooms refused to treat pregnant women, leaving one to miscarry in a lobby restroom

BY AMANDA SEITZ
April 19, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — One woman miscarried in the lobby restroom of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to check her in. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died.

Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, federal documents obtained by The Associated Press reveal.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/pregnancy-emergency-care-abortion-supreme-court-roe-9ce6c87c8fc653c840654de1ae5f7a1c

U.S. Supreme Court Challenge to Abortion Pills Could Boost Illegal Imports

Safeguarding access to pills from online foreign distributors may become a flashpoint in the reproductive care battle

by Chloe Searchinger
April 5, 2024

After hearing oral arguments last week, the Supreme Court appeared dubious of the plaintiff's legal challenge to the abortion pill in Food and Drug Administration (FDA) v. Hippocratic Alliance of Medicine, the latest major abortion case since Dobbs v. Jackson overturned the constitutional guarantee to an abortion. Even though this outlook could lead pro-choice activists to breathe a minor sigh of relief and temporarily quell Big Pharma's fear over other challenges to FDA approvals, one indirect consequence regardless of the case outcome is the growing American reliance on imported abortion pills from overseas.

This manner of accessing abortion has been increasing in popularity since Dobbs, and safeguarding the provision of these pills from unapproved foreign distributors could soon become a flashpoint in the American battle over reproductive care, given that these imports are illegal because they operate outside the formal U.S. health-care system and beyond FDA oversight.

Continued: https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/us-supreme-court-challenge-abortion-pills-could-boost-illegal-imports

Standard pregnancy care is now dangerously disrupted in Louisiana, report reveals

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.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/03/19/1239376395/louisiana-abortion-ban-dangerously-disrupting-pregnancy-miscarriage-care

There Is Only One Way for Biden to Fulfill His Promise to “Restore Roe”

If the president truly wants to protect reproductive rights, he’s going to have to do what he’s so far refused even to consider: expand the Supreme Court.

ELIE MYSTAL
Feb 20, 2024

At a campaign rally in Manassas, Va., on the night that Donald Trump effectively locked up the Republican Party’s nomination by winning the New Hampshire primary, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris kicked off their reelection campaign. They focused on a single issue: abortion rights. The two incumbents, and their spouses, gave speeches about the need to “restore Roe” and put the blame for its revocation squarely at Trump’s feet. “Let there be no mistake,” Biden said. “The person most responsible for taking away this freedom in America is Donald Trump. The reason women are being forced to travel across state lines for healthcare is Donald Trump…. The reason their fundamental right has been stripped away is Donald Trump.”

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/to-preserve-abortion-rights-biden-must-expand-court/

20.02.2024

Opinion

Elie Mystal

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act

USA – Do women still have a right to stabilizing abortion care under federal law?

BY MICHAEL J. DELL, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
02/02/24

Almost two years ago, the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion that had been recognized for almost 50 years.

Now, in Moyle v. United States, the court has strongly hinted that it is ready to eliminate the limited statutory protection for patients who need emergency abortions under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which was enacted by Congress in 1986.

Continued: https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/4444695-do-women-still-have-a-right-to-stabilizing-abortion-care-under-federal-law/

02.02.2024

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act

EMTALA

Michael J. Dell

Moyle v. United States

USA – ‘Very clear’ or ‘narrow and confusing’? Abortion lawsuits highlight confusion over emergency exceptions

N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY
Jan 27, 2024

A North Dakota judge's recent decision to deny a request blocking part of the state's restrictive abortion law highlights an issue abortion-rights advocates say is impacting doctors nationwide: The exceptions in strict abortion laws can be vague, causing medical providers to question when they can perform an abortion in a medical emergency.

A lawsuit in North Dakota is one of several recently filed by advocates seeking to clarify and expand the circumstances under which doctors can provide abortions during medical emergencies in states with strict abortion bans. Mary Ziegler, a professor of law at University of California, Davis, said the emergency exceptions written into these laws can be confusing for physicians and, given their high penalties, can lead doctors to "err on the side of protecting themselves and not providing care to patients."

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/01/27/abortion-lawsuits-emergency-medical-exceptions/72339103007/

USA – Ob/Gyns Face ‘Occupational Crisis’ Navigating Abortion Ban

Lara Salahi
January 25, 2024

A 14-year-old girl arrived at Angela Dempsey-Fanning's, MD, MPH, South Carolina clinic just one day after the state's anti-abortion law would have allowed her to terminate a pregnancy in instances of rape or incest.

Dempsey, an ob/gyn in Charleston, had to inform the teenager, a victim of incest, that she could not legally provide abortion care, so the girl and her mother decided to seek treatment in a different state.

Continued: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/obgyns-face-occupational-crisis-navigating-abortion-ban-2024a10001ux?form=fpf

25.01.2024