Roe v. Wade.

[Calliecake]

So his grand plan is to have this “unborn child” that’s incompatible with life feel pain for a full 9 months, if it doesn’t die in-utero, rather than be in pain for only 16 weeks.

You just can’t argue with people like this, logic doesn’t exist

If this doesnt drive home the point that cruelty and control are their main agenda, nothing ever will. They have laid all their cards bare. They have shown everyone who they really are. They aren’t even trying to pretend anymore.

 

[Demon]

If this doesnt drive home the point that cruelty and control are their main agenda, nothing ever will. You have to hand it to them. They have laid all their cards bare. They have shown everyone who they really are. They aren’t even trying to pretend anymore.

Mitch is still trying to hide it though

https://twitter.com/x/status/1569758063544123393

 

[yssie]

Is there a public registry of how many of these buffoons have had mistresses abort inconvenient pregnancies

 

[stracci2000]

Is there a public registry of how many of these buffoons have had mistresses abort inconvenient pregnancies

I have been wondering about this for months......!!
Surely..... if only these women would start talking....

 

[monarch64]

I have been wondering about this for months......!!
Surely..... if only these women would start talking....

If only death wasn’t a very potential consequence of talking…

 

[monarch64]

Is there a public registry of how many of these buffoons have had mistresses abort inconvenient pregnancies

It wouldn’t be public, but I can almost guarantee the women who are involved as mistresses have their own network and records and talk amongst themselves.

A Republican theme on abortions: 'It's OK for me, evil for thee' | Republicans | The Guardian

An illustrious list of Republican men are publicly anti-choice, but privately have supported women in their lives having abortions

amp.theguardian.com

 

[Calliecake]

They would just call the women who came forward liars. If there is one these men are good at, it’s lying and denying.

 

[monarch64]

They would just call the women who came forward liars. If there is one these men are good at, it’s lying and denying.

Lying, denying, and gaslighting. The holy trinity of abusers.

 

[Calliecake]

@Demon, He said back in May that a nationwide abortion ban was on the table.

 

[monarch64]

Dragonflies and whiskey on Instagram: "This is why we need more #women in office. Sign the #womenarevoting pledge today! LlNK lN BlO #womenvote #voteblue #liberal #womensrights #womenshealth #womenpower #foryou #foryoupage"

1,435 likes, 79 comments - dragonfliesandwhiskey on September 13, 2022: "This is why we need more #women in office. Sign the #womenarevoting pledge today! LlNK lN BlO #womenvote #voteblue #liberal #womensrights #womenshealth #womenpower #foryou #foryoupage".

www.instagram.com

If you’re able to view that video please do. Men know so little about women’s bodies…WHY are they allowed to make decisions about them?!

 

[Demon]

@Demon, He said back in May that a nationwide abortion ban was on the table.

Mitch? Yeah, but I think that was before the Kansas vote scared them. Now they want to pretend they aren't doing it in hopes that they'll keep the women's vote. Until they have control, then watch out.

 

[Calliecake]

So true @monarch64 , When the men making these decisions started making comments about transplanting a fetus that was growing in a fallopian tube to a uterus, they needed to sit down and just shut up. You can’t go making laws that impact the health and lives of women and make them blindly without knowing the ramifications of these decisions. These decisions need to be made between a woman and her doctor.

 

[Calliecake]

Mitch? Yeah, but I think that was before the Kansas vote scared them. Now they want to pretend they aren't doing it in hopes that they'll keep the women's vote. Until they have control, then watch out.

@Demon , BINGO!!! It’s amazing how stupid they think women are.

 

[Lookinagain]

People need to vote on this issue. Not on the economy/inflation. Inflation comes and goes. We've seen it before. If a national ban passes, it could last for decades. Inflation does not. Just like interest rates and housing prices are cyclical. But we are stuck with this SCOTUS for goodness knows how long. So the only way to circumvent their agenda is to vote on this issue, and others like it that will undoubtedly come up. I was never a one issue voter. But now I am.

 

[missy]

"

The Future of Abortion Rights in the U.S.​

— For providers, it's understanding the law and the limits of the law, says Elizabeth Nash, MPP​

by Emily Hutto, Associate Video Producer October 12, 2022



Play Video
In this video, Elizabeth Nash, MPP, principal policy associate of state issues at the Guttmacher Institute in Washington, D.C., offers an overview of the abortion rights landscape -- and the barriers many people will face -- in the U.S. after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision by the Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections conferred by Roe v. Wade.
The following is a transcript of her remarks:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/obgyn/pregnancy/99423
When we're thinking about the landscape of abortion rights, it has changed dramatically since the Dobbs decision overturned abortion rights in the federal constitution. Since then, we've seen 13 states ban abortion, primarily in the South and the Midwest, and also we've seen a state like Wisconsin, where abortion is unavailable because the clinics are not providing care because the status of the law is unclear.
So you really have 14 states where abortion is unavailable. And then we have another set of states where there are abortion bans, but they're not in effect because of court cases. So we're waiting to see how those court cases are going to play out.
Then we have states that are protecting access to abortion rights, and those states are primarily along the West coast and the Northeast. Suffice it to say, we're still in this bifurcated status where it's very hard to access abortion in the South, in the Midwest, in the middle of the country, and much easier along the West coast and the Northeast, and the mid-Atlantic.

In those 14 states where abortion is unavailable, that compromises 19.2 million women of reproductive age, and that's about a quarter of all the women of reproductive age in the country. And that's an undercount because we don't have good estimates for transgender individuals, so the numbers are actually higher. In these states, if someone needs an abortion, they generally need to leave the state for care because the exceptions in these laws are so narrowly tailored that even if you should qualify, you don't.
When we're thinking about the possibility of leaving a state or traveling far distances, we're thinking about journeys of hundreds of miles, of days away from home, so the people who are most impacted by these bans are the people who've been most impacted by restrictions: it's low-income individuals; it's Black and brown individuals; it's young people; it's LGBTQ individuals. We're seeing that those who have been systemically oppressed are the ones who face the most barriers to accessing healthcare.

And when we're thinking about what these barriers mean, it means things like coming up with not only the $550 it costs for your typical abortion, but it's the cost of travel -- that's hundreds of additional dollars, right? We're thinking about gas prices, hotel prices, food, all of those incidentals that add up to travel. We're thinking about time away from work; 75% of abortion patients are low-income, so if they take time off of work, it is probably not paid. That's additional money out of their pockets. Sixty percent of abortion patients already have a child, so they're also looking to arrange for childcare. The logistics of an abortion are also incredibly difficult when you think of all of these circumstances.
We need to show compassion towards providers and patients. For providers, it is understanding the law; the limits of the law and what is possible under the law; and getting involved with the advocates and the lawyers that have been doing the reproductive health work, so that you know the kinds of conversations you can have, and the kind of resources that are available, because probably your patients, if they need an abortion, need information, need some compassion and some real conversations around what it means to access abortion care, and resources to help them pay for that care and where they can travel.

The future of abortion rights is one where we are seeing mobilization and a momentum around protecting access to care. We're certainly seeing that in the progressive states along the West Coast, the mid-Atlantic, Northeast, and states like Illinois, Colorado, New Mexico, and Minnesota. We're seeing in more of the conservative states, people showing up to protest [restricted access] to testify to their legislators in ways that we just hadn't before.
So if we think about what happened in Indiana -- Indiana recently passed a near total abortion ban. It's not in effect because of a court case, but what we saw were providers, patients, the public showing up and telling their legislators that they support abortion rights. What happened in that special session was a real conversation by legislators around the abortion ban and the exceptions in it. Now, the exceptions are minimal in the ban, but it did help start to change the conversation.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/22/poli... judge on Thursday,after it went into effect.
In South Carolina, in their special session, it essentially fell apart because of the public outcry around an abortion ban, and the South Carolina legislature didn't pass one. So the public coming out and speaking up around abortion rights is incredibly important, and then we will see how this translates into this election cycle, and the next one, and the next one.

• 
  
  
  
• 
  Emily Hutto is an Associate Video Producer & Editor for MedPage Today. She is based in Manhattan.
  "

 

[missy]

From NEJM

"

Perspective

Abortion Access as a Racial Justice Issue​

List of authors.

• Katy Backes Kozhimannil, Ph.D., M.P.A.,
• Asha Hassan, M.P.H.,
• and Rachel R. Hardeman, Ph.D., M.P.H.

• 5 References

Restrictions on reproductive bodily autonomy — the freedom to decide whether, when, and how to have a child, with whom, and under what circumstances — have long been leveraged to oppress and control persons and communities that are devalued by racist, classist, or ableist societies.1 On June 24, 2022, in the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, the U.S. Supreme Court revoked the right to abortion. Even though abortion is an essential component of comprehensive reproductive health care that has been protected in the United States for nearly 50 years, future access will be severely limited or denied in the 26 states that have banned or are likely to ban abortion care.
Decisions regarding the legal status of abortion and other reproductive health services reflect the status of civil rights for anyone with the capacity for pregnancy, but they have a particular resonance for Black and Indigenous people living in the United States, who have experienced reproductive oppression for centuries. The Dobbs decision rolls back fundamental rights for many people, and it is a direct assault on efforts to improve racial equity in health care. Indeed, abortion access is fundamentally a racial justice issue. We believe that clinicians, health care delivery systems, and policymakers should approach it as such.

The United States was built, in part, on racially differentiated policies toward reproduction. During the 256 years when slavery was legal, the country had a substantial economic interest in the fertility of Black people; increased fertility meant a larger labor supply and higher property value. Slaveholders therefore condoned rape of enslaved people, withheld from them knowledge about birth control, allowed gynecologic experimentation on them without anesthesia, and provided “incentives” to coerce them into reproducing.2 Abortion was an important tool leveraged by enslaved pregnant people to control their fertility and prevent future children from experiencing the horrifying and inhumane conditions of chattel slavery.2
After emancipation and during the Jim Crow era, U.S. economic interest in Black bodies shifted. Once Black people were no longer a source of free labor, “eugenic” depopulation policies informed by White supremacist ideology began emerging in both government and clinical care.1,2 In 1927, the Supreme Court legitimized eugenic sterilization laws in Buck v. Bell, a case that has never been explicitly reversed. Forced sterilization, colloquially known as “Mississippi appendectomy,” was commonplace in the 20th century, with some estimates suggesting that as many as 70,000 people were involuntarily sterilized by government-sponsored family-planning programs.2
Other racialized groups in the United States have also experienced reproductive injustice; for instance, between the 1930s and the 1970s, as many as one third of Puerto Rican women underwent forced sterilization, commonly referred to as “la operación.”2 Atrocities such as this are not confined to the past: in 2020, Immigration and Customs Enforcement forcibly sterilized female migrants in federal detention facilities who were seeking asylum at the southern U.S. border. Also, in the mid-20th century, Puerto Rican women were enrolled in clinical trials of hormonal birth control without their knowledge and used as test subjects for contraceptives that had not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
U.S. policy toward Indigenous peoples has promoted erasure by means of genocide, rape, family separation, boarding schools, language eradication, cultural assimilation, and reproductive exploitation.3 In the 1900s, many states passed laws allowing sterilization of the “feeble-minded,” which was practiced extensively on reservations and at government-run boarding schools, where Indigenous children who had been forcibly separated from their families were raised without connection to their tribal communities.3 In addition, tribal membership rules informed by eugenic concepts and U.S. government policy may infringe on reproductive freedom: to be a member of a tribe with treaty rights negotiated by their ancestors, many Indigenous people must demonstrate a minimum “blood quantum” from a particular tribe. Such requirements force Indigenous people to consider reproductive choices in the context of their potential children’s eligibility for tribal membership; children born as a result of rape or unwanted pregnancy may be denied enrollment in the same tribe as their birth parent, if the rapist or other parent does not have the requisite blood quantum from the same tribe. With every reproductive choice denied, Indigenous peoples and tribes move closer to erasure.3
Systemic racism affecting reproductive health shows up today in maternal mortality statistics; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show that Black and Indigenous people are two to four times as likely as White people to die during pregnancy or around the time of childbirth. Abortion, which is now criminalized in many U.S. communities, is safer than pregnancy and delivery, especially for Black and Indigenous people. Recent estimates suggest that a nationwide abortion ban would increase maternal mortality by 21% overall and by 33% among Black Americans.4
Racial and ethnic disparities in reproductive health outcomes follow from inequities in access to care. Owing to a wide range of factors (e.g., interpersonal racism, distance from health care institutions, health insurance status, employment benefits, state policies), Black and Indigenous people, immigrants, and rural residents have comparatively limited access to abortion care and other reproductive health services.2,3 In communities where people can no longer readily obtain contraceptives or terminate an unwanted pregnancy, access to prenatal services and obstetrical care is declining, with the steepest decreases occurring in communities — both rural and urban — that are predominantly Black, Indigenous, or Latinx.5 When people can’t prevent or terminate an unwanted or medically risky pregnancy, can’t easily access prenatal care, and live hundreds of miles from a hospital with an obstetrical unit, clinicians struggle to prevent tragedies and people’s health suffers.
As restrictions on abortion increase, racial injustice in health will persist and worsen. The adverse health effects of the Dobbs decision will fall hardest on patients, clinicians, clinics, health care systems, and communities in states with the highest maternal mortality and the biggest racial inequities in maternal and reproductive health. For example, Michele Goodwin has noted that in Mississippi, a Black person is 118 times more likely to die from carrying a pregnancy to term than from having a legal abortion. Indeed, Black and Indigenous people face disproportionate health risks when they become pregnant, and the places where these risks are highest are also those where it’s nearly impossible to receive or provide the health care patients may need to protect their life, their safety, or their family.2,3
The Dobbs decision raises the stakes for clinicians, health care administrators, and policymakers who value racial justice in health. Reproductive health care restrictions exacerbate untenable racial inequities in health across the life span, not just during pregnancy. Abortion is health care, and the Guttmacher Institute estimates that one in four people with the capacity for pregnancy have needed or will need an abortion. Some patients who need abortions, racialized by a society that devalues them, may experience tragic consequences if they do not get the abortion they need. Clinicians can help by providing abortion care, supporting others who do so, and advocating for safe, dignified, humane reproductive health care services to be provided in their health care systems, to the extent allowed by state law.
The organization SisterSong defines reproductive justice as “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.” Access to reproductive health services — including abortion — is essential for protecting the full humanity of anyone with the capacity for pregnancy. In the United States, the full humanity of Black and Indigenous people has long been denied. Indeed, statistics related to health, education, and poverty reveal the racism that underpins U.S. politics and policies. Generations have fought against these unjust tenets to ensure and advance civil rights, and the fight continues.1-3 We believe that clinicians have a professional obligation to champion policies that improve the lives of their patients and potential patients, including doing whatever is in their power to expand and protect abortion access. Abortion access is a racial justice issue, and it is today’s civil rights battle worthy of tenacious engagement by professionals in medicine, policy, and public health.
Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available at NEJM.org.
This article was published on September 7, 2022, at NEJM.org.

Author Affiliations
From the Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity and the Division of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

"​

 

[missy]

"

Good morning. Women in states with abortion bans are turning to telemedicine.​

A practical shift​ ​ Just two years ago, about 250,000 people had abortions in the U.S. states where the procedure is now banned or severely restricted, or probably soon will be. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, allowing those prohibitions to take effect, where have women in these states turned?​ They’re increasingly using telemedicine to get abortion pills. Because of access to the pills, a gray zone for providing abortions has emerged in the months since the court’s decision. The method is safe and effective, though in states with bans, the delivery mechanism is not legal.​ Only one telemedicine service, Aid Access, openly provides pills in states with abortion bans. In the months preceding a leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s decision, Aid Access received an average of about 83 requests a day from people seeking abortion pills in 30 states, new research found. In 27 of those states, abortion is now banned, likely to be banned or allowed only during the first six weeks of pregnancy. For comparison’s sake, the study also included three states where the procedure is still widely available.​ Across the 30 states, requests to Aid Access for pills has risen to about 218 a day since the court released its decision at the end of June through September. The largest increases in queries came from states that enacted total abortion bans, as this chart shows:​ Data is from Sept. 1, 2021 to June 23, 2022 and from June 24 to Sept. 30, 2022, before and after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. | Source: Aid Access​ This shift accompanies another one in how people get abortions. In states that have banned or restricted access, clinic-based procedures fell in July and August, according to other new research. As a result, women are carrying pregnancies they didn’t plan or want. The increase in women seeking pills, however, mostly offset the drop, The Times reported. (Most, though not all, requests for pills to Aid Access end up being filled.)​ Clinics in states like Colorado, Illinois and New York have also seen more patients as women travel out of state for abortions. But the shift to telemedicine makes sense for practical reasons. First, having an abortion with pills at home, which has the physical effects of miscarrying, is as safe and effective in the first trimester as going to a clinic.​ Second, a quarter of women of childbearing age in the United States live — or will soon live — at least 200 miles from an abortion clinic. That distance is likely to pose an insurmountable obstacle for a significant number of people, especially those with low incomes. The telemedicine option is far cheaper than traveling. Aid Access asks patients for $105 to $150 and will accept less or nothing from people who can’t afford to pay. By contrast, a trip out of state for an abortion often takes a few days and can run to $1,500 or more.​ It’s also notable that abortion by telemedicine has risen in states that have not restricted abortion access, suggesting that more women are choosing it for “comfort and privacy” as well as necessity, said Abigail Aiken, a public health researcher at the University of Texas at Austin and a co-author of the study of the Aid Access data.​ Is it legal?​ ​ Providing abortion pills via telemedicine, across state lines, raises legal questions. The Dutch physician Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, the founder of Aid Access, writes prescriptions for abortion pills for women in red states, using her Austrian medical license. I wrote a cover story for The New York Times Magazine last month about the efforts of American doctors and midwives to work with Gomperts. “I just want to scream, ‘This is a public health emergency!’” one of the doctors, Linda Prine, texted me while I was reporting. Abortion opponents, on the other hand, say their state laws should bind out-of-state providers.​ Doctors like Prine, who is 71 and lives in New York, want their home states to shield them from out-of-state prosecutions, lawsuits and threats to their medical licenses. So far, several blue states have passed laws that seek to shield providers who perform abortions for women who travel from states with bans. Over the summer, Massachusetts went a step further, passing a law that aims to shield its providers when they offer telemedicine abortions to people within red states.​ A basic premise of the federalist system in the U.S. is that states help enforce each other’s laws. Whether blue states can refuse to do so, on behalf of abortion providers, is an open question.​ The bottom line​ ​ The answer depends on politics as well as law. Republicans have expected to pay a price for the end of Roe in Tuesday’s midterm elections. If they perform better than expected, legislators and prosecutors in red states may be more likely to aggressively pursue doctors like Prine if they follow through on defying the state abortion bans. They could also try to punish women who receive abortions via telemedicine, though abortion opponents currently say that’s not their plan.​ Aiken’s study suggests that the end of Roe may not have yet succeeded in reducing abortion as much as its proponents hoped. Women are proving resourceful in avoiding states’ restrictions. But the real test is probably yet to come.​ For more​ ​ Democrats are worried their party has focused too much on abortion access as a midterm election issue and not enough on the cost of living. J.D. Vance, the Republican Senate nominee in Ohio, and Representative Tim Ryan, his Democratic opponent, sparred over abortion in a town hall event. ​ ​

"

 

[Calliecake]

It will be interesting to see what happens after November 8th. I think the SC leak was leaked well ahead of November for a reason. This doesn’t seem to be considered nearly as an important issue as it was months ago. It makes so sad.

 

[Matata]

Voters Protected Abortion Care In Every State Where It Was On The Ballot

Even in deeply Republican states, voters chose to uphold abortion rights in the first general election since the fall of Roe v. Wade.

www.huffpost.com

 

[missy]

"

New Lawsuits Target State Restrictions on Abortion Pills​

Matthew Perrone, AP Health Writer
January 25, 2023




WASHINGTON (AP) — Supporters of abortion rights filed separate lawsuits Wednesday challenging two states' abortion pill restrictions, the opening salvo in what's expected to a be a protracted legal battle over access to the medications.
The lawsuits argue that limits on the drugs in North Carolina and West Virginia run afoul of the federal authority of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which has approved the abortion pill as a safe and effective method for ending pregnancy.
The cases were brought by a North Carolina physician who prescribes the pill, mifepristone, and GenBioPro, which makes a generic version of the drug and sued in West Virginia.
While the federal court lawsuits target specific state laws, they represent key legal tests that could eventually determine access to abortion for millions of women. Medication recently overtook in-clinic procedures as the most common form of abortion in the U.S.

The new litigation turns on a longstanding principle that federal law, including FDA decisions, pre-empt state laws. Indeed, few states have ever tried to fully ban an FDA-approved drug because of past rulings in the agency's favor.




But with the fall of Roe v. Wade there's little precedent for the current patchwork of laws governing abortion.
After the Supreme Court overturned the decision in June, previously adopted restrictions on abortion kicked in and two states adopted new ones. Currently, bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy are being followed in 13 states.
On top of that, 19 states — including North Carolina and West Virginia — have separate laws controlling how, when and where physicians can prescribe and dispense abortion drugs.

"West Virginia cannot override the FDA's safety and efficacy determinations, nor can it disrupt the national market for this medication," David Frederick, an attorney representing GenBioPro, said in a statement.
Legal experts foresee years of court battles over access to the pills.
North Carolina bans nearly all abortions after 20 weeks, with narrow exceptions for urgent medical emergencies. Physicians can only prescribe medication abortion after state-mandated counseling for their patients and must dispense the drug in person.

The lawsuit, filed by Dr. Amy Bryant, an obstetrician and gynecologist, argues that such requirements contradict FDA-approved labeling for the drug and interfere with her ability to treat patients.

"We know from years of research and use that medication abortion is safe and effective — there's no medical reason for politicians to interfere or restrict access to it," Bryant said in a statement provided by the Expanding Medication Abortion Access project, an abortion rights group working on legal challenges to state laws.

The office of Attorney General Josh Stein, who is a defendant in the complaint because he's the state chief law enforcement officer, was reviewing the complaint on Wednesday, his spokesperson Nazneen Ahmed wrote in an email. Stein, a Democrat who announced last week a bid for governor in 2024, is an abortion-rights supporter.

The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000 to end pregnancy, when used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol. The combination is approved for use up to the 10th week of pregnancy.

For more than 20 years, FDA limited dispensing of the drug to a subset of specialty offices and clinics, due to safety concerns. In rare cases, the drug combination can cause excess bleeding, requiring emergency care. But since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency has repeatedly eased restrictions and expanded access, increasing demand even as state laws make the pills harder to get more many women.




In late 2021, the agency eliminated the in-person requirement for the pill, saying a new scientific review showed no increase in safety complications if the drug is taken at home. That change also permitted the pill to be prescribed via telehealth and shipped by mail-order pharmacies.

Earlier this year the FDA further loosened restrictions by allowing brick-and-mortar pharmacies to dispense the drug, provided they undergo certification.
That change was made at the request of the two drug manufactures: GenBioPro and Danco Laboratories, which makes brand-name Mifeprex.

In its West Virginia lawsuit, GenBioPro argues that state laws interfere with drug regulations crafted by the FDA, which has sole authority over the approval and regulation of all U.S. drugs.

West Virginia's law outlaws most abortions, with some exceptions for rape and incest victims and in cases of life-threatening medical emergencies and nonviable pregnancies. The near-total ban, signed into law in September, supersedes earlier laws on abortion pill access.

"The ban and restrictions make it impossible for GenBioPro to market and distribute mifepristone in West Virginia in accordance with FDA's requirements," the company states in its suit filed in the state's southern federal district.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said he would defend the new abortion law. "While it may not sit well with manufacturers of abortion drugs, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that regulating abortion is a state issue," he said in a statement.

Abortion opponents have filed their own lawsuits seeking to halt use of the pill, including a Texas suit arguing that the FDA overstepped its authority in approving the medication. Anti-abortion groups on Wednesday vowed to support state abortion limits.

"We stand with the people of North Carolina and West Virginia against the abortion lobby's reckless push to mandate abortion on demand in every state," said Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group.

Mifepristone dilates the cervix and blocks the effects of the hormone progesterone, which is needed to sustain a pregnancy. Misoprostol, a drug also used to treat stomach ulcers, is taken 24 to 48 hours later. It causes the uterus to cramp and contract, causing bleeding and expelling pregnancy tissue.

Associated Press writers Gary Robertson in Raleigh, N.C. and Leah Willingham in Charleston, West Virginia contributed to this story.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

"

 

[missy]

"

A Ban on the Abortion Drug Mifepristone Is Looming​

— A Texas lawsuit may be disastrous for effective abortion access and FDA's authority​

by Lawrence O. Gostin, JD, LLD, and Sarah Wetter, JD, MPH February 23, 2023

In the most consequential and controversial attack on reproductive rights since the overturning of Roe v. Wadeopens in a new tab or window, a Texas judge could ban the safest, most effective, and most common method for abortion in all 50 states. The hyper-conservative anti-abortion group Alliance Defending Freedomopens in a new tab or window (ADF) is seeking to overturn the FDA's approval of mifepristone (Mifeprex), a medication in a two-pill regimen used to terminate pregnancies through the first 10 weeks gestation. The lawsuit does not target the other medication, misoprostol (Cytotec)opens in a new tab or window, which FDA approved to treat stomach ulcers, and can be prescribed off-label for abortion. Misoprostol can induce abortion even without mifepristone, yet the two-pill regimen has become the gold standard.

Given the FDA's rigorous risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS)opens in a new tab or window for mifepristone and its safe use for 23 years, the case is utterly frivolous and political, but due to "judge shopping" the repercussions for reproductive health and equity are real. Perversely, a single federal trial judge has the power to block a federal law, rule, or action on a national scale. The case could make its way to the Supreme Court, with potentially disastrous consequences for safe, effective abortion access and the authority of the FDA.
ADF claimsopens in a new tab or window FDA exceeded its authority in approving mifepristone in 2000. FDA acted under a federal law authorizing the agency to grant "accelerated approval" to drugs "studied for their safety and effectiveness in treating serious or life-threatening illnesses and that provide meaningful therapeutic benefit to patients over existing treatments." ADF claims that mifepristone does not treat an "illness," and provides no known benefit over surgical abortion. ADF also highlights subsequent FDA decisions to eliminate safeguards to accessing the drug.

The reality is that mifepristone was approved after a politically fraught journeyopens in a new tab or windowgiven intense opposition from anti-abortion groups. It took 4 years of FDA deliberations from submission to approval, despite a plethora of completed clinical studies, strong support from medical organizations, and over 10 years of safe use in Europe. When FDA approved mifepristone, it required post-market studies and controlled its distribution, requiring in-person distribution by qualified physicians. In 2008, the Government Accountability Office reportedopens in a new tab or window that FDA had acted within its authority in approving mifepristone, supporting FDA's position that "...the termination of an unwanted pregnancy is a serious condition, and that the drug provided a meaningful therapeutic benefit over existing therapies by allowing patients to avoid the procedure required with surgical termination of pregnancy."
Abortion medication is now used in over half of all pregnancy terminations. The two-pill regimen (mifepristone and misoprostol) is highly safe and effectiveopens in a new tab or window, with serious complications requiring hospitalization in just 0.3% of cases (fewer than Tylenol or Viagra), and with ongoing pregnancy in just 1.1% of cases. Compared with surgical abortion, abortion medications promote privacy, dignity, and convenience.

If anything, mifepristone has been treated starkly different than other drugs of the same safety and efficacy profile; FDA's detailed risk assessments and monitoring under a REMS, along with decades of safe use, make justificationopens in a new tab or window for its approval clear.
If FDA's approval of mifepristone is overturned, the drug would be unmarketable in all 50 states. FDA sets the national uniform standard, so states cannot authorize medication FDA does not approve.
As a result, 65 million women of reproductive age would lose access to the most effective form of existing medication abortion care. While medical termination of pregnancy is possible with only misoprostol, the risk of complications and pain increases, and the efficacy decreases, with studies demonstrating between 80-95%opens in a new tab or windoweffectiveness. The ruling also impacts miscarriage management, as mifepristone in combination with misoprostol offers the most effective regimen for managing a miscarriageopens in a new tab or window, which occurs in up to a third of pregnancies. Compared with misoprostol alone, taking mifepristone for miscarriage management reduces the likelihoodopens in a new tab or window of patients needing an additional procedure, promoting physical and emotional recovery.

Further, a ruling against mifepristone would clash with the Biden administration's recent strategy to make abortion medication more accessible, including allowing abortion medication to be dispensed by pharmaciesopens in a new tab or window and sent through the mailopens in a new tab or window -- policies that could significantly increase equity. People who couldn't take time off work, find child care, or drive long distances to receive the pills in-person from a physician could use telehealth and get the pills from their local pharmacy or delivered to their door. While misoprostol would still be accessible, the discord between the federal branches of government in their treatment of mifepristone has perhaps never been so evident.
As FDA points out in the lawsuitopens in a new tab or window, patients, healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, and other businesses rely on the agency's approval of mifepristone. More broadly, if FDA's approval of a medication were so easily overturned, especially one so closely studied and clearly proven to be safe and effective, it would dismantle the infrastructure that Americans depend on for medications to treat a whole host of conditions. When Congress gave FDA the authority to regulate drug approval, it recognized that the scientific agency was in the best position to make decisions in the interest of public health.

Beyond abortion, an adverse decision would have potentially disastrous consequences for a whole host of medicines and vaccines. It might open the door to states picking and choosing which FDA-approved products it will, or won't allow. Another lawsuit recently filed in West Virginiaopens in a new tab or window will examine whether the state's ban on abortion medication is lawful. Imagine a state denying access to an effective cancer or heart disease drug. Or what if states were to authorize products that aren't FDA-approved? Congress established the FDA to be the nation's regulator of medical products guided by science. It must have the undisputed power to set a national uniform standard that cannot be politically overturned by a governor, state legislature, or court.
It is unfathomable that a federal judge could side with ADF's baseless arguments given FDA's clear and long-recognized authority to approve the medication. Yet, when ADF sued FDA in a federal court in Amarillo, Texas, the group was acting strategically, or "forum shopping" to get the case in front of Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump-appointed judge who openly aligns with conservative Christian ideology, perhaps more so than any other judge in the country. (This same judgeopens in a new tab or window issued rulings to block the Biden administration's attempt to end the "Remain in Mexico" policy, prevent workplace guidelines from protecting transgender individuals, and require minors in Texas to get parental approval to access federally-funded birth control).

Judge Kacsmaryk should have dismissed the case from the start given its baseless claim. But since he allowed the action to proceed, regardless of the outcome -- expected as early as February 24 -- the case is likely to be appealed to the highly conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, and then further appealed to the Supreme Court. With a 6-3 conservative supermajority, our current Supreme Court has shown clear willingness to negate reproductive rights and ignore the consequences to reproductive health. The Court has also consistently ruled to decrease the authority of federal health agencies like the Environmental Protection Agencyopens in a new tab or window and the Occupational Safety and Health Administrationopens in a new tab or window. The FDA could be the Court's next target.
As we await the judge's decision and likely appeals, there has perhaps never been a more critical time for public health advocacy, engaging the wide range of stakeholders including anyone who might ever need, prescribe, or dispense FDA-approved medication. Even the staunchest opponents of abortion should stand up and recognize that this case has gone far too far in jeopardizing America's access to safe and effective medicines.

Lawrence O. Gostin, JD, LLD,opens in a new tab or window is university professor, Georgetown University's highest academic rank, where he directs the O'Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law. He is also director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National & Global Health Law, and the author of Global Health Security: A Blueprint for the Futureopens in a new tab or window. You can read more of his writing in "The Health Docketopens in a new tab or window" column. Sarah Wetter, JD, MPH,opens in a new tab or window is an associate with the Health and Human Rights Initiative at the O'Neill Institute.

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[Matata]

The stories covered by news outlets about women being forced to carry dead/dying fetuses to term are heartbreaking. In come cases, it seems to me that doctors are not performing abortions on dead/dying fetuses because they are afraid of violating their state laws even though the procedure meets the criteria in the laws. The women suffer and in some cases the baby suffers. I saw a story yesterday about a woman forced to give birth to a baby with Potter Syndrome -- no kidneys, lungs unable to function -- so the baby will suffocate within minutes of birth. Inhumane but apparently biblically acceptable.

 

[ItsMainelyYou]

This is a different, more insidious form of terrorism against women and girls.
It's barbarity for the sake of control.
This is not freedom.

 

[ShinyPink]

I have a lot of trouble lately feeling positive about the future for women. Actually, not just women, but this isn't the thread for it. They are just stripping every.little.thing.they.can.

 

[missy]

Though we have discussed this before the irony is overwhelming.

The “pro-life” movement or what it really should be called, anti choice movement, is all about misogyny.

They’re hostile to women’s rights. Yes, the anti choice women too.
Erase the pregnant women while pretending to care about the fetus.
They sure don't care about "life" when the baby is born.
They want to cut aid to needy children and healthcare to poor mothers and pregnant women.


While preaching pro-life and anti-abortion stances, the government has continued to reject the idea of universal access to healthcare and this past May, almost 200 Republicans voted against aid to help with the baby formula shortage...one month before overturning Roe v. Wade. Yup.

The USA has the highest amount of school shootings (let's go NRA; let's continue voting against health care for all) so we can see post birth they really do not give a dam*.

There are over 400,000 children in the foster system across the country. The system is under a lot of financial stress as it is. Can you imagine with more children?

The overturning of Roe v. Wade shows not only a disregard for women’s choices and human rights but also represents an assault on reproductive rights for all who can get pregnant and for all who do not identify as biologically male.

The government's trying to control women take away our constitutional rights.
It’s not about “life”.
It’s about the fact that pro choice is connected to women’s freedoms and power.
Strip away our reproductive rights and rights to our own bodies because their goal is clear.
They do not want us to be equal players.
They want to control every aspect of our lives.

This is misogyny pure and simple. Misogyny is not only about hatred of women (and make no mistake about this the people voting against pro choice hate women), but also about controlling and punishing all who defy them.

Dead bodies possess more bodily autonomy rights than women because one cannot remove an organ from a dead person without prior consent from them or their loved ones. But women can be forced to carry a pregnancy.

Abortion is our right. We should be in control of our own bodies. What the eff happened to separation between Church and State? WTF is going on here...I hope the young people (men and women) continue fighting against this every way they can because ultimately this will fall on them. I would not want my daughters and sons growing up in what I see to be a terrible future should this path continue. Throughout history, when a group of people are oppressed by another group, that oppression continues until the oppressed group fights back.

We all know anti abortion legislation is NOT about children. It fails to protect children while punishing women who abort.
Let’s call anti-abortion legislation what it is.
It is anti-woman.
It is anti-mother.
It is, anti-child.
And it is anti-freedom.

Welcome to the USA.
Where the people forced to give birth are not rich but the Irony certainly is.

 

[Lookinagain]

What the eff happened to separation between Church and State?

That's a question I ask myself over and over.

 

[Matata]

Vote them out, vote them out, vote them out. That's all we can do unless the 61% of the population that favors choice rises up, goes on strike, and brings significant inconvenience to the nation. I do not know what to do with the anger and frustration I have toward those, particularly sanctimonious powerful men, who have chosen cruelty over compassion.

Abortion Ban a ‘Nightmare’ for Woman With Doomed Pregnancy

Her fetus will not survive, but her doctor cannot even give her advice about terminating.

www.thedailybeast.com

 

[missy]

"

Preventing Contraceptive Coercion in the Post-Roe Era​

— Reproductive autonomy must be at the center of contraceptive care​

by Christine Dehlendorf, MD, MAS March 3, 2023

Racism and classism -- and the related prejudices about who can and should bring a child into the world -- have shaped our country's history of birth control. Contraceptive care providers and systems have all too often reflected and perpetuated the oppression infusing our society as a whole.
While most healthcare providers would condemn the most blatant injustices -- such as researchers using Puerto Rican women as test subjects in birth control trials without informed consent, doctors performing "Mississippi appendectomies" sterilizing Black women without their knowledge, and judges coercing people to use birth control to avoid jail time -- the reality is that this history continues to be reflected in the care we provide today. I'm concerned this is becoming even more true with the fall of Roe.

My team's research, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 2010, found that providers were more likely to recommend long-acting intrauterine devices (IUDs) to low-income Latina and Black patients. Other research shows that Black women are more likely than white women to report that a clinician pressured the to use birth control. Additionally, policymakers and advocates often tout birth control programs not as ways to increase autonomy, but as tools to prevent young people or people without money from having children.
It takes a tremendous effort to realign our work away from a shameful history of reproductive coercion.
Belatedly and imperfectly, providers who offer contraceptive care have been engaging for years in a conversation about this historical and ongoing reality. More of us are firmly rejecting eugenic policies that targeted communities of color. We're identifying the vestiges of those policies that persist in reproductive healthcare and policy, and working to shift them. We've been working toward a future informed by reproductive justice advocates that honors the right of every person to have or not have a child, and to raise that child in a safe community. That means recognizing our role of shifting the contraceptive care we provide to be centered on reproductive autonomy and individuals' needs and preferences.

And then a bomb went off in the reproductive health field with the Supreme Court's decision stripping millions of Americans of a constitutional right to abortion. We're only beginning to see the devastation of the many ways this ruling interferes with reproductive autonomy.
In states that have banned abortion, fear hangs over people's reproductive decision-making. Media report stories about people rushing to get IUDs and other long-acting birth control. In my team's research (still ongoing), we've seen an uptick in people interested in permanent sterilization. Even some people who want to have a baby are holding off out of fear of everything that could go wrong, such as the horror stories about hospitals denying life-saving care.
Providers and health systems are under intense stress trying to provide care in these hostile environments. They fear for their patients. This pressure could make it very easy to slip back into old habits, letting fear of potential negative outcomes take precedence over someone's own ability to make informed decisions in this new context.

Providers might look at the hurdles ahead and think that a patient simply can't afford to have a baby. They might make judgments that they aren't ready to parent, leading them to push the patient toward a particular birth control method. But we can't decide for someone else what an undesired pregnancy means in their lives. There is a serious danger that providers will ignore the needs and desires of patients of color and those with low incomes -- as well as those with disabilities or chronic medical illness -- continuing to devalue their ability to make informed decisions about their bodies and reproductive lives.
Acting on these biases also ignores the fact that there are plenty of valid reasons someone might not want to use a particular form of birth control. While there have been major pushes to get more people using long-acting contraceptives because they're easy and effective, many people do not want to use these methods for a range of reasons, including the fact that they have less control over them. People who are unhappy with their IUDs have complained about providers refusing to remove them, inspiring a slew of online videos on how to remove it yourself. People can also experience all kinds of unpleasant side effects of hormonal birth control. Those reasons don't change because abortion laws change. A provider might feel like avoiding pregnancy at all costs is the top priority. A patient might feel differently.

Our patients know their lives best. Our role as healthcare providers is to give them information about the options available, and the very real constraints they face in states that ban abortion. Then we need to trust our patients to make the decisions they see as best within that reality. That includes if they don't want a pregnancy, or if they would risk one and figure out what to do.
It's time to chart a new path forward: one that recognizes the cataclysm thatDobbs caused while still putting patient values front and center. All healthcare providers and systems must work to provide patients with every possible option, and then trust that they are the experts in their own lives. We must speak out against the inequality and structural oppression that constrains their choices to parent or not to parent. We cannot allow this tragic ruling to cause us to inflict more harm on the people who bear the brunt. This is a test of our commitment to autonomy and reproductive justice. We cannot and must not lose the essential progress we've made, even in the most dire of times.
Christine Dehlendorf, MD, MAS, is a family physician and director of the Person-Centered Reproductive Health Program at the University of California San Francisco.

"

 

[Calliecake]

A Texas man is suing his ex-wife’s three friends who helped her get abortion pills. The man is suing under the state’s wrongful death statue. The lawsuit claims assisting with a self managed abortion qualifies as murder under the state law, which qualifies the man to file a wrongful death claim.

The man’s ex-wife is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Texas law exempts pregnant women from being charged.

 

[missy]

Five Women Sue Texas Over the State’s Abortion Ban (Published 2023)

The women, backed by an abortion-rights group, say they were denied abortions under state law despite risks to themselves and their fetuses that made the procedure a medical necessity.

www.nytimes.com

​

Five Women Sue Texas Over the State’s Abortion Ban​

The women, backed by an abortion-rights group, say they were denied abortions under state law despite risks to themselves and their fetuses that made the procedure a medical necessity.

By Kate Zernike
March 6, 2023

Five women who say they were denied abortions despite grave risks to their lives or their fetuses sued the State of Texas on Monday, apparently the first time that pregnant women themselves have taken legal action against the bans that have shut down access to abortion across the country since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The women — two visibly pregnant — plan to tell their stories on the steps of the Texas Capitol on Tuesday. Their often harrowing experiences will put faces to what their 91-page complaint calls “catastrophic harms” to women since the court’s decision in June, which eliminated the constitutional right to abortion after five decades.
Their accounts may resonate with public opinion, which generally supports legalized abortion and does so overwhelmingly when a pregnancy endangers the woman’s life. The lawsuit, backed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, comes as the country grapples with the fallout from the overturning of Roe, with abortion banned in at least 13 states.
Texas, like most states with bans, allows exceptions when a physician determines there is risk of “substantial” harm to a pregnant woman. Yet the potential for prison sentences of up to 99 years, $100,000 fines and the loss of medical licenses has scared doctors into not providing abortions even in cases where the law would seem to allow them.



The suit asks the court to affirm that physicians can make exceptions, and to clarify under what conditions. But its greater power may be in appealing to public opinion on abortion. Similar lawsuits over exceptions, focusing public attention on stories of women who were denied abortions despite medical dangers, helped build momentum for legalized abortion in heavily Catholic Ireland and in South America.
The women who are bringing the suit contradict stereotypes about who receives abortions and why. Married, and some with children already, the women rejoiced at their pregnancies, only to discover that their fetuses had no chance of survival — two had no skulls, and two others were threatening the lives of their twins.

Though they faced the risk of hemorrhage or life-threatening infection from carrying those fetuses, the women were told they could not have abortions, the suit says. Some doctors refused even to suggest the option, or to forward medical records to another provider.
The women found themselves furtively crossing state borders to seek medical treatment outside Texas, worried that family and neighbors might report them to state authorities. In some cases, the women became so ill that they were hospitalized. One plaintiff, Amanda Zurawski, was told she was not yet sick enough to receive an abortion, then twice became septic, and was left with so much scar tissue that one of her fallopian tubes is permanently closed.
“You don’t think you’re somebody who’s going to need an abortion, let alone an abortion to save my life,” Ms. Zurawski, 35, said. “If anybody reads my story, I don’t care where they are on the political spectrum, very few people would agree there is anything pro-life about this.”

Anti-abortion groups argue that restrictions on abortion do not harm women’s health, that doctors can provide lifesaving care without needing to perform an abortion, and that the laws prevent only what the groups call “elective” abortions, or those that are intended to end an unwanted pregnancy. That is different, they argue, from the management of a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, situations that are often allowed under the exceptions in state abortion bans.

Abortion opponents have also been skeptical about the exceptions to the bans. The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, who is named as a defendant in the suit along with the state medical board and its director, sued the Biden administration last year over its guidance reminding doctors that federal law requires them to provide an abortion if it is necessary in emergency care.

“We’re not going to allow left-wing bureaucrats in Washington to transform our hospitals and emergency rooms into walk-in abortion clinics,” Mr. Paxton said at the time.

In response to a request for comment Monday night, Mr. Paxton’s office sent a copy of a memo he issued in July affirming that the overturning of Roe would automatically trigger an abortion ban in the state.
It quoted the Texas statute banning abortion unless there is “a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy” that places the pregnant woman “at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless the abortion is performed or induced.”
Mr. Paxton’s memo concluded: “Now that the Supreme Court has finally overturned Roe, I will do everything in my power to protect mothers, families, and unborn children, and to uphold the state laws duly enacted by the Texas Legislature.”


Data suggests that very few women have been allowed to receive abortions under exceptions. Medical associations have joined in lawsuits, saying that the bans have caused “chaos” for hospitals and providers in emergency situations.
“I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this in the nation, having people with pregnancy complications having to sue the state,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is acting as legal counsel for the women. “It puts a face on the reality of what it means when you criminalize abortion care. It shows that abortion care is health care.”
Unlike other suits from abortion rights groups, the Texas suit does not seek to overturn the state bans on abortion. Instead, it asks the court to confirm that Texas law allows physicians to offer abortion if, in their good-faith judgment, the procedure is necessary because the woman has a “physical emergent medical condition” that cannot be treated during pregnancy or that makes continuing the pregnancy unsafe, or the fetus has a condition “where the pregnancy is unlikely to result in the birth of a living child with sustained life.”
The women are not suing the medical providers that denied abortions, and the providers are not named in the suit; in most cases, the women say the providers were doing the best they could, but had their hands tied.
The Texas Medical Association has appealed to state authorities to offer more clarity on what exceptions are allowed. The author of one of the bans wrote to the state medical board in August, concerned that hospitals “may be wrongfully prohibiting or seriously delaying physicians from providing medically appropriate and possibly lifesaving services to patients who have various pregnancy complications.” He underscored that under the exceptions, hospitals had to protect the “mother’s life and major bodily function.”
The lawsuit says the five plaintiffs “represent only the tip of the iceberg,” and that “millions” of people across the country have been “denied dignified treatment as equal human beings.”


Few states have been more aggressively anti-abortion than Texas, the home of the original Roe case. Even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe, Texas passed a law allowing civilians to sue anyone who provided or aided and abetted an abortion, with rewards of at least $10,000 for successful suits.

Ms. Zurawski became pregnant in early 2022 after 18 months of fertility treatments. In her 17th week of pregnancy, and the day after she made the guest list for her baby shower, a scan found that her cervical membranes had begun to prolapse. Specialists told her that her fetus, which she had begun thinking of as her baby, would not survive.

Doctors told Ms. Zurawski they could perform an abortion only if she became acutely ill or went into labor naturally, or if the fetus’s heartbeat stopped. That night at home, her water broke, but when she went to the emergency room, doctors said she was not in labor. Without amniotic fluid, the fetus would die, but it still had a heartbeat. And because Ms. Zurawski’s vital signs were stable, they said, she did not qualify for an exception. The hospital sent her home.


Tracking the States Where Abortion Is Now Banned
The New York Times is tracking the status of abortion laws in each state following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Ms. Zurawski and her husband, Josh Zurawski, considered driving 11 hours to New Mexico, but had been told to stay within a 20-minute drive of the hospital in Texas in case she went into labor. She was so worried about being prosecuted, “I didn’t even feel safe Googling options,” Ms. Zurawski said. “I didn’t know what they could and couldn’t search.”

Three days later, her doctors again told the Zurawskis they could not legally abort the fetus because it still had a heartbeat. At home that night, Ms. Zurawski developed a fever, and her husband called the obstetrician to ask to go to the hospital. “We were in this mind-set of, ‘Surely now you’ll accept us,’” Mr. Zurawski said. A nurse told them, he said, that doctors would have to receive approval from the hospital’s ethics board.

He finally rushed his wife to the emergency room later that night. There her fever spiked to 103.2 degrees. Doctors confirmed that she had a blood infection and said her life was now in danger, so they could induce delivery without violating Texas’ abortion ban.

Later that night, she developed a secondary infection. Doctors told Mr. Zurawski that they had to give his wife a blood transfusion to stabilize her enough to move her to the intensive care unit. The couple’s families flew in, fearing that she would die.

Ms. Zurawski left intensive care after three days, and the hospital after a week. Two months later, she had an operation to remove scar tissue from her uterus and fallopian tubes, but the doctors were unable to clear one.

Now receiving I.V.F. treatments again, Ms. Zurawski said she was left with emotional scarring, as well. “Every ultrasound is going to be terrifying — not just scary, but traumatic,” she said. “Last time I heard a heartbeat inside of me, I was wishing for it to stop.”

Another plaintiff, Lauren Miller, had to travel to Colorado for an abortion.

When she was six weeks pregnant, she suffered such bad nausea and vomiting that she went to the emergency room, where she discovered she was carrying twins. At 12 weeks, a scan revealed that the fetus identified as Baby B was not growing as fast as its twin, and tests revealed that it had a genetic defect called Trisomy 18 and several abnormalities, including a malformed brain and an incomplete abdominal wall and heart.

A specialist told her that she needed to seek an abortion out of state to save her own life and the life of Baby A. A few days later, Ms. Miller, 35, ended up hospitalized with chills and severe dehydration. She and her husband went to Colorado at 15 weeks to abort Baby B. She is scheduled to deliver the surviving twin later this month.

“The feeling of packing was almost like we were fleeing Texas, which was such a strange feeling,” she said. “I’m from Texas, I have generations of Texans — here we’re fleeing Texas.”

Lauren Hall, another plaintiff, was 18 weeks pregnant and had set up a crib and bought clothes for the baby girl she had already named Amelia when scans revealed that the fetus had no skull and an undeveloped brain.

A specialist urged her to go out of state, but to tell no one where she was going or why, lest someone report her to a hotline that anti-abortion groups set up.

Ms. Hall, 28, said many of her relatives and neighbors considered themselves “pro-life” and believed there was a “loophole” if the fetus had a fatal condition. And many of her friends did not understand that the procedure she obtained at a clinic outside Seattle, dilation and curettage, was the same as an abortion.

“A lot of them are in support of this ban, but they don’t understand the scale of it,” she said. “They had this very narrow idea of what somebody who seeks an abortion looks like. They think it’s somebody who’s loose, who doesn’t want to take birth control.”

A correction was made on
March 7, 2023
:
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated exceptions to the Texas abortion ban. It includes exceptions for serious risks to the life or health of a pregnant woman. It does not include exceptions for rape, incest, or a fatal fetal diagnosis.

Kate Zernike is a national correspondent. She was a member of the team that shared a 2002 Pulitzer Prize for a series of stories about Al Qaeda and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Her book “The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the Fight for Women in Science” will be published in February.

"