USA – Inside the Internal Debates of a Hospital Abortion Committee

In states that banned abortion, doctors are forced to wrestle with tough decisions about high-risk pregnancy care. “I don’t want to have a patient die and be responsible for it,” one Tennessee doctor said.

by Kavitha Surana
Feb. 26, 2024

Sitting at her computer one day in late December, Dr. Sarah Osmundson mustered her best argument to approve an abortion for a suffering patient.

The woman was 14 weeks pregnant when she learned her fetus was developing without a skull. This increased the likelihood of a severe buildup of amniotic fluid, which could cause her uterus to rupture and possibly kill her. Osmundson, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who helps patients navigate high-risk pregnancies, knew that outcome was uncommon, but she had seen it happen.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/abortion-doctor-decisions-hospital-committee

Most state abortion bans have limited exceptions − but it’s hard to understand what they mean

January 26, 2024 Naomi Cahn, Sonia Suter

More than a year after the Supreme Court found there is no fundamental right to get an abortion, 21 states have laws in effect that ban abortion well before fetal viability, generally allowing it only in the first trimester.

Fourteen of these 21 states have also issued near-total bans on abortion from the point of conception. But it’s not clear when, if ever, an abortion would be permissible under these near-total bans.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/most-state-abortion-bans-have-limited-exceptions-but-its-hard-to-understand-what-they-mean-221389

26.01.2024

Commentary

abortion exemptions

abortion law exceptions

Center for Reproductive Rights

‘I Cried for Joy’: Texas Judge Blocks Texas Abortion Ban for Dangerous Pregnancies

While the Texas Supreme Court instantly blocked the injunction by filing an appeal, it was seen as a victory by reproductive rights advocates.

OLIVIA ROSANE
Aug 05, 2023

In what The Associated Press reports is the first legal pushback since an abortion ban took effect in Texas in 2022, State District Judge Jessica Mangrum issued a temporary injunction against the ban late Friday afternoon in the case of unsafe pregnancies.

While the Texas Supreme Court instantly blocked the injunction by filing an appeal, it was seen as a victory by reproductive rights advocates.

"For the first time in a long time, I cried for joy when I heard the news," lead plaintiff Amanda Zurawski said in a statement. "This is exactly why we did this."

Continued: https://www.commondreams.org/news/texas-judge-blocks-abortion-ban

05.08.2023

News

Amanda Zurawski

Center for Reproductive Rights

Zurawski v. State of Texas

USA – Women’s stories may change the abortion narrative

Testimony about the horrors of abortion bans is more powerful than abstract conversations about life and choice.

By Mary Ziegler
August 3, 2023

In a courtroom in Austin, Texas, last month, five women put the state’s harsh abortion laws on trial.

Officially, their lawsuit aims to clarify the exceptions in the state’s complex scheme of abortion bans and restrictions. Since 2011, Texas has had an abortion law that defines a “medical emergency” to include any “life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that, as certified by a physician, places the woman in danger of death or a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.” Somewhat different definitions apply in other Texas laws, including SB8, the law allowing anyone to sue a doctor or someone aiding them for at least $10,000 per abortion. The Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing the women who brought the lawsuit, argues that because Texas’s exceptions are unclear or even contradictory, physicians are unsure when they can provide care and thus are likely to turn away even patients who qualify for a legal abortion because they have a life-threatening condition.

Continued: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/08/03/opinion/center-for-reproductive-rights-lawsuit-texas-women-abortion/