Trump stokes fear, confusion with pulled emergency abortion guidance

“Clinicians are scared to provide basic medical care, and this care is clearly in line with medical ethics … medical standards of care, and they’re being put in this situation where they can’t win,” said Payal Shah, director of research, legal and advocacy at Physicians for Human Rights. Read more at The Hill  

Trump rescinds guidance protecting women in need of emergency abortions

“This action sends a clear message: the lives and health of pregnant people are not worth protecting,” Dr Jamila Perritt, an OB-GYN and the president of Physicians for Reproductive Health, said in a statement. “Complying with this law can mean the difference between life and death for pregnant people, forcing providers like me to choose … Read more

‘Weaponized environmentalism’? A Texas Republican wants to test wastewater for abortion medication

The group has been succeeding in its efforts, too. According to Jessica Valenti, an abortion reporter who writes the Abortion, Every Day newsletter, in addition to the new Texas bill, legislation that calls for testing wastewater for mifepristone has been introduced in Oklahoma, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, Maine, Idaho, and West Virginia. Valenti asserts that Students … Read more

Meet the new American refugees fleeing across state lines for safety

Kayla Smith and Kylie Cooper Left Idaho for Washington and Minnesota to flee a strict abortion ban The number of people internally displaced by anti-abortion laws is startling. A recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research of 13 states with strict abortion bans found that, between them, they are losing 36,000 residents … Read more

State lawmakers are weighing bills that would treat abortion as homicide

The bills, filed in Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina and Texas, stem from the Prenatal Equal Protection Act, model legislation crafted by the Texas-based advocacy group the Foundation to Abolish Abortion. Three similar bills were introduced in Indiana, North Dakota and Oklahoma but failed to pass in committee or on the floor … 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

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