Can Texas’ abortion ban be fixed? Skeptics say an effort to “clarify” the law could make it worse
Women who have suffered pregnancy complications under Texas’ ban say new legislation wouldn’t have helped them. Read more at Salon
Texas
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
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
Texas midwife arrested and charged with performing illegal abortions
The arrest appears to be the first time a health care provider in Texas has been criminally charged under the state’s abortion ban, which went into effect in 2022. Read more at NBC News
A new Texas bill is coming after online abortion pills
If passed and signed into law, the measure would introduce civil liabilities for distributors of abortion pills and create a civil liability for “the wrongful death of an unborn child” as a result of taking the medications — and empower the “biological father of the unborn child” to file those civil lawsuits. It would also … Read more
Key court hearing as Alabama threatens prosecutions over abortion support
Now, experts worry that a victory for Alabama could serve as a green light for other states’ efforts to attack people who want to end their pregnancies but live in states that ban abortion. Read more at The Guardian
Texas Won’t Study How Its Abortions Ban Impacts Women, So We Did
Since Texas banned abortion, no one has studied the statewide effects on pregnant women experiencing complications. Here’s how we sifted through data on millions of pregnancy hospitalizations and analyzed the outcomes before and after the ban. Read more at ProPublica
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
Two states are coming after a New York doctor for mailing abortion pills. Here’s what’s next.
Under President Joe Biden, the Justice Department said it did not believe Comstock prohibited mailing these pills. But abortion opponents have been pressing the Trump administration to change that policy. The Supreme Court’s most conservative members, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, have also expressed openness to that legal interpretation. That approach, too, could spark … Read more
Texas judge fines New York doctor for mailing abortion pills to patient in Texas
Judge Bryan Gantt orders doctor to stop prescribing and sending pills to state, setting up challenge to ‘shield laws’ Read more at The Guardian