Arrested at gunpoint, charged as a felon: a midwife’s lot in anti-abortion Texas

Some observers believe that the timing of all this is also strategic. Abortion activist Jessica Valenti (who used to write this newsletter and now writes Abortion, Every Day) has noted that Rojas was arrested weeks ago. Why did Paxton wait until now to send out a press release? Valenti reckons he is trying to distract … Read more

Judge Points Out That Pregnant Women Have Become The New Undesirable Patients

“When EMTALA passed, these ‘undesirable’ patients were the indigent,” Judge B. Lynn Winmill of the District of Idaho wrote. “Today, they are pregnant women. Although Congress could not have foreseen this dimension of patient dumping — women transferred to other facilities not because they are poor but because the emergency service they need has been … Read more

Louisiana woman pleads not guilty to a felony in historic abortion case

The woman’s arraignment is part of a cross-state legal battle that involves what may be the first instance of criminal charges against a doctor accused of sending abortion pills to another state, putting Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban in tension with New York’s shield laws. Read more at NBC News  

In red states, GOP lawmakers revive an “incredibly regressive” push to treat abortion as murder

Republican state lawmakers in more than 10 states, including South Carolina, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, North Dakota and Oklahoma, have all introduced bills that would redefine abortion as homicide by defining a “person” or “human being” as inclusive of an “unborn” or “preborn” child. All seek to criminalize abortion in a way that has been rejected by even the … Read more

Texas banned abortion. Then sepsis rates soared

The rate of sepsis shot up more than 50% for women hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester, ProPublica found. The surge in this life-threatening condition, caused by infection, was most pronounced for patients whose fetus may still have had a heartbeat when they arrived at the hospital. Read more at ProPublica … Read more