USA – Three Years Later: No Fewer Abortions, But a Lot More Harm

The Medical Impact of Dobbs

Jessica Valenti
Jun 24, 2025

It’s been three years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, splitting the country into two Americas—one where abortion is still legal, and another a worsening reproductive police state.

…To give you all a bird’s-eye view of what America looks like under abortion bans, I’ve outlined three areas of impact: Medical, Legal, and Cultural. I’m sharing an analysis of the Medical Impact today, Legal tomorrow, and Cultural on Thursday. At the end of the week, I’ll share a link that contains all three sections.

Continued: https://jessica.substack.com/p/three-years-later-no-fewer-abortions

USA – Her baby was going to die. Abortion laws forced her to give birth anyway

Photographs by Danielle Villasana
Story by Rebecca Wright, CNN
Published March 31, 2024

Samantha Casiano spent this month planning her daughter’s first birthday party. The 30-year-old east Texas mother of four knows how to throw a good party for her kids.

But this family get-together on Friday was not a traditional party, despite Casiano purchasing a cake and balloons for the event.

Instead, Casiano’s family spent the day at the gravesite of Halo Hope Villasana, Casiano’s daughter who was born with anencephaly, a fatal condition that prevents a child’s brain and skull from forming properly.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/03/health/texas-abortion-law-mother-cnnphotos/

31.03.2024

fatal fetal abnormality

forced childbirth

Luis Fernando Villasana

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/

The women who made painful choices challenge Texas’s severe abortion ban

The state supreme court will consider arguments from 20 women who say they were denied medically necessary abortions

Carter Sherman
Tue 28 Nov 2023

After Danielle Mathisen and her husband realized they would be having a baby girl, they started calling her “Mini”. “We figured she would be a mini-me,” Mathisen said.

For months, Mathisen’s pregnancy appeared normal. Genetic testing went well. Her parents were thrilled – this would be the first grandchild in the family.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/28/texas-supreme-court-hears-extreme-abortion-ban-lawsuit

Our Abortion Stories: Two Years of Texas’ S.B. 8

On this grim two-year anniversary, we lift up the stories of Texas women and their families who are fighting for the right to abortion care.
9/1/2023
by VAL DIEZ CANSECO and ROXY SZAL

Last summer, the Supreme Court overturned the longstanding precedents of Roe v. Wade, representing the largest blow to women’s constitutional rights in history. In Texas, this has been part of women’s reality for years.

Two years ago, Texas’ S.B. 8 became law: the six-week ban with a “bounty hunter” provision. At the time S.B. 8 took effect, it was considered the most restrictive abortion ban to ever take effect in the U.S. post-Roe.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/09/01/texas-abortion-stories-women-risk/

For one Texas doctor, abortion bans are personal and professional

August 21, 2023
Selena Simmons-Duffin
4-Minute Listen with Transcript

On a recent Friday night, as her husband made dinner at the family's home in Dallas and her toddlers ran around underfoot, Dr. Austin Dennard saw an email come in on her phone.

The judge who heard her testify last month in an Austin courtroom about Texas's abortion laws had reached a decision. Dennard is among 13 women who sued the state arguing that the current abortion bans are unclear when it comes to pregnancy complications. She is also an OB-GYN, and she's nearing the end of a healthy pregnancy – she was visibly pregnant while on the stand.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/08/21/1194482842/texas-pregnant-doctor-abortion-bans

21.08.2023

Center for Reproductive Rights

How a trial in Texas changed the story of abortion rights in America

August 9, 2023
By Sarah Varney

During the five decades that followed Roe v. Wade, lawsuit after lawsuit in states across the country chipped away at abortion rights. And again and again, the people who went to court to defend those rights were physicians who often spoke in clinical and abstract terms.

"The entirety of abortion rights history is a history of doctors appearing in court to represent their own interests and the interests of pregnant people," said Elizabeth Sepper, a law professor at the University of Texas-Austin. But in July, in a Texas courtroom, the case for abortion was made by women themselves who had been denied abortions and sued the state to clarify the exceptions to its ban, which makes it illegal to perform an abortion unless a patient is facing death or "substantial impairment of a major bodily function."

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/08/09/1187378801/texas-abortion-law-trial-reproductive-rights

Texas Fights for the Right to Deny Women Life-Saving Abortion Care

A judge ruled Friday doctors may use “good faith judgment” in emergency situations. Texas’ AG challenged the ruling instantly

BY TESSA STUART
AUGUST 8, 2023

It was Friday afternoon, and Molly Duane had just left for a vacation when she got the news. Women with life-threatening pregnancy complications would be able to get abortions in Texas, a judge had ruled. Doctors who provided that care would be shielded from prosecution by the state. And Texas’ Senate Bill 8 — the abortion bounty law, which allows private citizens to sue anyone they suspect of aiding or abetting an abortion — had been declared unconstitutional.

Duane is a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights. She had spent the past year working on a case that challenged Texas’ abortion ban as too vague when it came to medically necessary exceptions.

Continued: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/texas-abortion-bounty-law-ruling-1234802301/

08.08.2023

News

Amanda Zurawski

Ashley Brandt

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

TESTIFYING AGAINST TEXAS, WOMEN DENIED ABORTIONS RELIVE THE PREGNANCIES THAT ALMOST KILLED THEM

One plaintiff vomited while recounting her ordeal. The case marks the first time patients denied abortions have sued a state since Roe was overturned.

Mary Tuma
July 21 2023

WHEN SAMANTHA CASIANO learned she was pregnant last year, she and her husband felt excitement. The 29-year-old mother of four and lifelong Texas resident began collecting baby toys and a bassinet for her fifth child. During a routine ultrasound at 20 weeks, she was chatting up the technician when the room suddenly grew silent. Casiano’s doctor delivered grim news: Her baby had anencephaly, a lethal condition in which the skull and brain fail to develop.

“My first thought was, maybe surgery can fix this, but I was told, ‘Sorry, your daughter is incompatible with life, she will be born without a skull,’” Casiano said in a Texas district court hearing on Wednesday. “She was going to die inside or outside of my womb.”

Continued: https://theintercept.com/2023/07/21/texas-abortion-zurawski-lawsuit/