Post Roe Abortion Problems

[AndyinPA]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... r-abortion

Lauren Miller’s fetus had no skull. Her pregnancy threatened her life, and that of her twin boy. Now, she is one of 15 women suing the state
by Lauren Miller, with intro by Poppy Noor
Mon 19 Jun 2023 03.00 EDT
Last modified on Mon 19 Jun 2023 11.49 EDT

Below is the journal of Lauren Miller, 36, a Texan who unexpectedly found herself needing abortion care shortly after Roe v Wade was overturned one year ago. When she first started writing the diary, Miller had no idea of the obstacles she was about to face. Now, she is suing the state of Texas with the Center for Reproductive Rights alongside 14 other plaintiffs for being denied access to life-saving abortion care.

Miller came to the Guardian wanting to publish the journal – a real-time diary of the twists and turns of going from discovering a very wanted pregnancy, to navigating the need for a termination in a state where abortion is now banned. It has been edited and condensed.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://arkansasadvocate.com/2023/06/19 ... ion-policy

A year after Dobbs: Congress takes a back seat on federal abortion policy

One year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, the courts rather than a divided Congress are leading the way on decisions on reproductive rights that would affect the entire nation.

Congress has not enacted federal legislation to either preserve reproductive rights or to restrict abortion in the year since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling nullified the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. And that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

Despite many Republicans campaigning for the U.S. House on promises of a nationwide abortion ban, the chamber hasn’t brought such a bill to the floor six months after the GOP took control.

And in the U.S. Senate, Democrats who control that chamber don’t have the 60 votes needed to overcome the legislative filibuster, leading to a stalemate on abortion legislation as well as protections for birth control access.

The next nationwide policy on abortion is much more likely to be written by the same U.S. Supreme Court that wrote one year ago “the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.” That court is dominated 6-3 by conservative justices.

“To the extent that Congress continues to be inept in many regards in legislating, it falls to the courts,” said Suzanne Bell, assistant professor in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The stalemate within Congress is in sharp contrast to new laws from dozens of state legislatures, where lawmakers have moved to either restrict abortion access or solidify it within the last year. But many of those proposals have landed in the state court systems, with some ending up at a state’s Supreme Court.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://theconversation.com/one-year-af ... ies-207390

One year after the fall of Roe v. Wade, abortion care has become a patchwork of confusing state laws that deepen existing inequalities

While there is no law in the U.S. that regulates what a man can do with his body, the reproductive health of women is now more regulated than it has been in 50 years. And the scope of reproductive health care that women can receive is highly dependent on where they live.

This creates a system of inequalities and further exacerbates health disparities.

I am a nurse practitioner who studies women’s reproductive health across the lifespan.

My research found that college women are concerned about pregnancy, but they lack knowledge and skills about navigating sexual consent and often participate in sexual activity without explicit consent, leaving them at risk for not using contraception and exposure to sexually transmitted infections.

These findings indicate that women are at risk of pregnancy at a historic time when women’s reproductive rights in the U.S. are restricted and not guaranteed.

The Dobbs v. Jackson ruling returned decisions regarding abortion to individual states. This has led to a patchwork of laws that span the entire range from complete bans and tight restrictions to full state protection for abortion.

In some states, such as Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, abortion is banned beginning at six weeks gestational age, when very few women even know they are pregnant. Other states, such as Massachusetts, Vermont, New York and Oregon, have enacted state-level protections for abortion.

The patchwork of state laws also results in a great deal of confusion. In the past year, women’s rights organizations and women’s health advocates have brought numerous legal challenges to restrictive abortion laws. These cases have halted the implementation of some of the strictest abortion regulations until additional court rulings are finalized.

Abortion training is considered essential health care and a core competency for physicians in obstetrics and gynecology, or OB-GYN, residency programs. Approximately 50% of OB-GYN residency programs are located in states with restricted or highly restricted access to abortion. This will logically result in not only fewer health care providers being trained to perform gynecologic procedures for abortion, but also other conditions such as miscarriage, fetal death and nonviable pregnancies.

In states with changing abortion laws and legal challenges to new laws, physicians are uncertain of what procedures can be legally done. Penalties for violating abortion laws may include arrest, loss of medical license, fines and discipline by state boards of medicine.

As a result, physicians are choosing to leave states with the most restrictive abortion laws, and clinics are closing, which is contributing to the current shortage of health care providers.

[AndyinPA]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng- ... -men-women

It’s been one year since the US supreme court ended the constitutional right to abortion. The procedure is now prohibited in 14 states and restricted in six more, leaving large swaths of the midwest and south without access to basic reproductive care.

To mark the first anniversary of the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, the case that overturned Roe v Wade, the Guardian has created a visual directory of state legislators who embraced the opportunity to restrict abortion access. These are the faces of lawmakers and governors whose votes helped pass bans on abortion at conception or after six weeks, before most women know they are pregnant.

Because of the sheer volume of anti-abortion laws that have taken effect over the past year, bans that predate Roe – like the 19th century statute that Republicans are trying to resurrect in Wisconsin – are not included here. Additional bans in Wyoming, Ohio, Utah and North Dakota are also excluded, because state courts have indefinitely blocked those laws from taking effect. The remaining 1,600 legislators in this graphic are responsible for the chaotic patchwork of abortion restrictions that has emerged in the year without Roe.

Rogue's gallery follows.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://arkansasadvocate.com/2023/06/22 ... ost-dobbs/

Echoing history, reliance upon travel rises for abortion care post-Dobbs
Restricted access adds logistical, emotional and financial burdens for patients, advocates say

Editor’s note: This report is part of a special States Newsroom series on abortion access one year after the U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down the federal right to abortion.

When the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision one year ago, people of childbearing age in states across the country suddenly faced what seemed like a new prospect — having to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles from home to get an abortion.

But historians say it is merely continuing a long tradition of pregnant people seeking out the sometimes lifesaving care they need wherever it can be found, and other people helping them along the way.

[AndyinPA]

I just heard on the local news last night that abortion is up 19 percent in Pittsburgh because it's legal in Pennsylvania. It's close for women in West Virginia and Ohio, but there are other southern states where women would not have to travel too far. Still, it's a shame, given all the complications of having to travel for an abortion, that it has to happen at all. It's medical care, and no other field of medicine has anywhere near this level of restrictions.

I don't know how long it will take for these anti-abortionists to realize what they have done. But, based on an interview with one of them on MNSBC as I'm writing this, they won't care. As some jerk from Georgia just said, but think about all those beating hearts of unborn children.

[raison de arizona]

What happened to leaving it up to the states?

2024 GOP candidates call for federal abortion limits ahead of anniversary of Roe reversal

Top Republican presidential candidates called Friday for imposing federal limits on abortion, declaring at a gathering of some of their party’s most influential evangelical Christian leaders that the year-old Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade didn’t go far enough.

Hundreds of attendees of the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual conference believe abortion policy can continue to be a strength for Republicans, even as Democrats insist the issue will buoy them in 2024.

“The battle for life is far from over. We’ve not come to the end of our cause,” former Vice President Mike Pence said. “We’ve simply come to the end of the beginning.”

Former President Donald Trump, whose three Supreme Court nominees allowed for the reversal of nationwide abortion rights, will give the keynote address Saturday night, the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. Many other Trump rivals, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, were speaking Friday.

“But we’re certainly going to do everything that we can, as an organization and as a pro-life and pro-family movement, to give our candidates a little bit of a testosterone booster shot and explain to them that they should not be on the defensive,” Reed said in an interview before the conference began. “Those who are afraid of it need to, candidly, grow a backbone.”

https://apnews.com/article/evangelical- ... b84c286b71

[raison de arizona]

States where abortion is illegal even in cases of rape

Saudi Arabia doesn't even do this

[bob]

I just heard on the local news last night that abortion is up 19 percent in Pittsburgh because it's legal in Pennsylvania. It's close for women in West Virginia and Ohio, but there are other southern states where women would not have to travel too far.

538 recently wrote a piece on this, showing the states that had an increase in abortions.

[AndyinPA]

I just heard on the local news last night that abortion is up 19 percent in Pittsburgh because it's legal in Pennsylvania. It's close for women in West Virginia and Ohio, but there are other southern states where women would not have to travel too far.

538 recently wrote a piece on this, showing the states that had an increase in abortions.

Good article. Thanks.

[bob]

Good article. Thanks.

Politico has a similar article.

Its numbers are different, and notes the states with the largest net increases in abortions are Florida, Illinois, and North Carolina. Which are, unsurprisingly, bordering states with abortion bans.

[Ben-Prime]

Good article. Thanks.

Politico has a similar article.

Its numbers are different, and notes the states with the largest net increases in abortions are Florida, Illinois, and North Carolina. Which are, unsurprisingly, bordering states with abortion bans.

I was discussing this at dinner tonight with a good friend who I basically try to see every home leave or D.C. training period, since she was in the small knot of people who stood by me the most firmly when I was at rock-bottom, post-divorce (she's one of the three friends who helped my brother and sister-in-law reclaim Disney for me so it was no longer 'something I did with my wife that I now can't do post-divorce without being sad'). She's an attorney, and serves on a local council in the Greater Philly area, and is one of my Treknerds and has far ranging interests, so especially when the tyke isn't around, our discussions ramble and last hours and touch on everything under the sun.

Today, in the car en route to the steakhouse -- I'm up visiting for the weekend from D.C. on my current pre-assignment training period -- we discussed this exact conversational thread. She said "Yeah, Pittsburgh, sure, but Philly, too, because with the convenience to I-95, we're getting a lot of folks from other states just coming up and down the I-95 corridor for this."

I really do need to convince her to come play in this sandbox. Y'all would love her.

[raison de arizona]

In Oklahoma, a woman was told to wait until she's 'crashing' for abortion care

The molar pregnancy Jaci Statton had would never become a baby. It was cancerous, though.

At the last hospital in Oklahoma she went to during her ordeal last month, Statton says staff told her and her husband that she could not get a surgical abortion until she became much sicker.

"They were very sincere; they weren't trying to be mean," Statton, 25, says. "They said, 'The best we can tell you to do is sit in the parking lot, and if anything else happens, we will be ready to help you. But we cannot touch you unless you are crashing in front of us or your blood pressure goes so high that you are fixing to have a heart attack.'"

Oklahoma has three overlapping abortion bans, with different and sometimes contradictory definitions and exceptions. A study published Tuesday along with a commentary in the Lancet medical journal shows hospitals all over Oklahoma are struggling to interpret the laws and create policies that comply with the state's abortion bans. The resulting confusion is having dangerous consequences for women like Statton.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... -hospitals

[RTH10260]

[RTH10260]

this had made the headlines earlier this year

Man gets life sentence for raping girl, nine, forced to leave Ohio for abortion
Gerson Fuentes found guilty in case that dominated headlines when girl had to travel to Indiana for procedure banned in Ohio

Maya Yang
Thu 6 Jul 2023 10.00 BST

The man found guilty of raping and impregnating a nine-year-old Ohio girl who later traveled to Indiana for abortion has been sentenced to life in prison.

On Wednesday afternoon, 28-year-old Gerson Fuentes appeared at the Franklin county court of common pleas in Columbus, Ohio, where he entered a plea agreement which will allow him to be eligible to seek probation after 25 years. If granted parole, Fuentes would also have to register as a tier 3 sex offender and will have a lifetime of in-person verification every 90 days.

Last July, Fuentes was arrested and charged with raping the child in a case that dominated nationwide headlines after the girl, who turned 10 shortly after, was then forced to travel to neighboring Indiana for an abortion due to Ohio’s six-week “trigger ban” at the time which came into effect after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year.

According to a police investigator who testified at a hearing last year, Fuentes, who is from Guatemala and living in Columbus, Ohio, had confessed to raping the girl at least twice.

The case went on to gain further attention after the Indiana state attorney general launched an investigation into Caitlin Bernard, the doctor who performed the abortion on the child victim. The attorney general, Todd Rokita, accused Bernard of violating state law by not reporting the child’s abuse and violating patient privacy protections, despite Bernard’s refusal to discuss specific details of the victim’s case and identity.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... e-sentence

[RTH10260]

First Thing: Iowa Republicans pass six-week abortion ban
Legislation latest in raft of state anti-abortion laws since Roe v Wade was overturned. Plus, Trump not entitled to immunity

Mattha Busby
Wed 12 Jul 2023 11.03 BST

Iowa’s state legislature voted last night to ban most abortions after around six weeks of pregnancy, a time before most people know they are pregnant. Republican lawmakers, which hold a majority in the Iowa house and Senate, passed the anti-abortion bill after the governor, Kim Reynolds, called a special session to seek a vote on the ban.

The legislation will take immediate effect after Reynolds signs it on Friday and will prohibit abortions after the first sign of cardiac activity – usually around six weeks, with some exceptions for cases of rape or incest. It will allow for abortions up until 20 weeks of pregnancy only under certain conditions of medical emergency. Abortions in the state were previously allowed up to 20 weeks.

“The Iowa supreme court questioned whether this legislature would pass the same law they did in 2018, and today they have a clear answer,” Reynolds said in a statement. “The voices of Iowans and their democratically elected representatives cannot be ignored any longer, and justice for the unborn should not be delayed”.

The ACLU of Iowa’s executive director, Mark Stringer, said the reproductive rights of Iowans to control their bodies and their lives, their health and their safety should be protected and that it would file a lawsuit “to block this reckless, cruel law.”



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ortion-ban

[AndyinPA]

From above post:

“The voices of Iowans and their democratically elected representatives cannot be ignored any longer, and justice for the unborn should not be delayed”.

How was that said with a straight face?

[AndyinPA]

Just reported on MSNBC, judge halts new Iowa six-week abortion ban.

[poplove]

Rachel Maddow is reporting that 19 gop state AGs have signed a letter to President Biden in support of letting state officials obtain out-of-state abortion records.

[poplove]

Found the clip.

Rachel #Maddow, "They used to say the Republican Party was the party of limited government. This is a lot of things but this is not that."

[AndyinPA]

What the hell ever happened to HIPPA?


These assholes have no medical need for these private records.

[bob]

What the hell ever happened to HIPPA?

This actually is about HIPAA.

Although medical records generally are private, even under HIPAA they nonetheless can be obtained with, for example, a valid court order.

The Biden administration wants to modify a HIPAA rule and now would prohibit, even if a valid court order has been issued, the disclosure of protected health information if the procedure was legal in the jurisdiction where the procedure occurred.

In other words, even assuming a Mississippi (for example) prosecutor convinced a judge to issue a search warrant for a clinic in California (for example), under the proposed rule there would be no way to enforce the warrant in California.

The Republican AGs oppose this proposed rule change.

[raison de arizona]

States power? 'Member when Rs were all about the 10th? Seems so long ago.

[RTH10260]

Jackson County prosecutor fights Missouri abortion ban’s criminal penalties in court

Jonathan Shorman
Mon, July 17, 2023 at 1:00 PM GMT+2

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker is seeking to strike down Missouri’s criminal penalties for abortion, adding to an already intense legal confrontation playing out in St. Louis that could result in a judge overturning the state’s near-total ban.

The Democratic prosecutor, whose jurisdiction includes much of Kansas City, last month filed a petition in St. Louis Circuit Court arguing the criminal penalties violate the Missouri Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection. Baker’s filing came in an ongoing lawsuit brought by progressive faith leaders challenging the abortion ban on religious freedom grounds.

The lawsuit, filed in January, is turning into a bitter fight over the role religion played in the crafting of Missouri’s ban and the meaning of the law’s sole exception – for medical emergencies – that critics say is far too vague and leaves doctors second-guessing when they can legally perform an abortion. It comes amid a nationwide wave of similar lawsuits deploying religious freedom arguments to challenge state-level bans.

As part of the legal fight, lawyers for Republican Gov. Mike Parson, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and other officials have suggested in court that a woman unable to obtain an abortion through the medical emergency exception could seek a court order to get one. And in court documents, attorneys for the faith leaders and Bailey’s office have even fought over the effectiveness of condoms.

Baker’s filing, which has drawn little public attention, is the newest front in the battle by Democrats, abortion rights advocates and others to reverse the ban. After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal right to the procedure last summer, Missouri became the first state to impose a ban, implementing it within minutes of the decision.

Separately from the lawsuit, supporters of abortion access are expected to try to use an initiative petition to place a state constitutional amendment on the ballot next year, but the effort is currently held up by Bailey, a staunch abortion opponent who is refusing to sign off on cost estimates for the petitions. The Missouri Supreme Court is set to hear arguments this week in a case seeking to force Bailey to complete the paperwork.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/jackson-coun ... 00658.html
(original: Kansas City Star)

[raison de arizona]

What the hell ever happened to HIPPA?

This actually is about HIPAA.

Although medical records generally are private, even under HIPAA they nonetheless can be obtained with, for example, a valid court order.

The Biden administration wants to modify a HIPAA rule and now would prohibit, even if a valid court order has been issued, the disclosure of protected health information if the procedure was legal in the jurisdiction where the procedure occurred.

In other words, even assuming a Mississippi (for example) prosecutor convinced a judge to issue a search warrant for a clinic in California (for example), under the proposed rule there would be no way to enforce the warrant in California.

The Republican AGs oppose this proposed rule change.

Here's the letter from the Republican AGs: https://www.mississippifreepress.org/wp ... y-rule.pdf
They specifically address HIPAA.

► Show Spoiler

At the same time, HHS recognized that privacy interests must be balanced
against “the public interest in using identifiable health information for vital public
and private purposes.” 65 Fed. Reg. at 82472; id. at 82566 (“[W]e must balance
individuals’ privacy interests against the legitimate public interests in certain uses
of health information.”). The Privacy Rule thus sets standards for using and
disclosing PHI in certain circumstances without an individual’s authorization.
These include disclosures: “for a law enforcement purpose to a law enforcement
official,” 45 C.F.R. § 164.512(f); “n response to an order of a court” or “a subpoena,
discovery request, or other lawful process,” id. § 164.512(e)(1)(i), (ii); “to a health
oversight agency for oversight activities authorized by law, including audits; civil,
administrative, or criminal investigations; inspections; licensure or disciplinary
actions; civil, administrative, or criminal proceedings or actions; or other activities
necessary for appropriate [health care] oversight,” id. § 164.512(d)(1); and to a
“public health authority ... for the purpose of preventing or controlling disease,
injury, or disability,” including “the conduct of public health surveillance, public
health investigations, and public health interventions,” id. § 164.512(b)(1)(i).
The Privacy Rule says that it generally preempts state law when it is
“impossible to comply with both the State and Federal requirements” or state law
“stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes
and objectives” of HIPAA. 45 C.F.R. § 160.202; see id. § 160.203. By its terms,
however, the Privacy Rule does not preempt a state law that: is “necessary” “[f]or
purposes of serving a compelling need related to public health, safety, or welfare,
and ... [any] intrusion into privacy is warranted when balanced against the need
to be served”; “provides for the reporting of disease or injury, child abuse, birth, or
death, or for the conduct of public health surveillance, investigation, or
intervention”; or “requires a health plan to report, or to provide access to,
information for the purpose of ... the licensure or certification of facilities or
individuals.” Id. § 160.203(a)(1)(iv), (c), (d); see 42 U.S.C. § 1320d-7.