Maternity Deserts

As maternity wards close, community outrage rises in key battleground states

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Some 2.3 million American women of childbearing age live in a county where there is no place to give birth, according to the March of Dimes, a nonprofit advocacy group that works to improve health outcomes for mothers and babies. Among rank-and-file voters, there is no consensus about who is ultimately responsible for the series … Read more

Religious anti-abortion center finds opportunity in town without OB-GYNs

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“Crisis pregnancy centers have, for years and years, capitalized on gaps in access to healthcare,” she said. “In no way, shape, or form do crisis pregnancy centers have the infrastructure or ability or training to bridge those gaps.” According to Swartzendruber’s research, more than 2,600 crisis pregnancy centers operated in the U.S. as of 2024, … Read more

Early pregnancy care declines despite Trump’s pro-birth agenda

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Notably, nationwide, more than one-third of the U.S. is now considered to be a maternity care desert, leaving more than 5.6 million women in counties with no or limited access to maternity care. Hackney told Salon the rise in maternity deserts is most likely a factor to the decline in early prenatal care. Read more … Read more

Infant deaths continue to rise as more abortion bans are put in place, studies find

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The overturn of Roe v. Wade with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision has paved the way for legislation across the country to restrict reproductive health care. A pair of new studies shows the fallout of restrictive reproductive healthcare policies: More babies were born in states that enacted abortion bans between 2021 and 2023, and infant mortality … Read more

The Texas Ob-Gyn Exodus

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But the new laws were already having an effect on the health-care system. Across Texas, residency applications in ob-gyn dropped significantly. Data from the Gender Equity Policy Institute revealed a fifty-six-per-cent spike in maternal deaths in the state between 2019 and 2022. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Texas was no longer an … Read more

A Pregnant Teenager Died After Trying to Get Care in Three Visits to Texas Emergency Rooms

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It took three ER visits and 20 hours before a hospital admitted Nevaeh Crain, 18, as her condition worsened. Doctors insisted on two ultrasounds to confirm “fetal demise.” She’s one of at least two Texas women who died under the state’s abortion ban. Read more at ProPublica  

Inside The Mystery Of Why The Supreme Court Declined To Hear A Pressing Abortion Case

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The Supreme Court has never been a transparent institution, its justices shielded from reporters’ questions and increasingly making decisions via the shadow docket without oral arguments or often any writing at all to indicate their thinking. For women risking permanent injury or death from pregnancy complications, their right to get an emergency abortion (already nonexistent … Read more