Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Women Denied Care In Oklahoma, Tennessee, Idaho Sue Over Abortion Bans
AP: Women In Idaho, Tennessee And Oklahoma Sue Over Abortion Bans After Being Denied Care
Eight women in Idaho and Tennessee are asking state courts to place holds on their states’ abortion laws after being denied access to the procedure while facing harrowing pregnancy complications that they say endangered their lives. Four physicians have also joined the lawsuits, saying the state laws have wrongly forced medical experts to weigh the health of a patient against the threat of legal liability. A woman in Oklahoma who said she had a dangerous and nonviable pregnancy filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday asserting that she was denied an abortion despite a U.S. law that requires doctors to perform the procedure when it’s medically necessary. (Kruesi, 9/12)
The New York Times: Legal Actions Seek Guarantee Of Abortion Access For Patients In Medical Emergencies
Early in her pregnancy, Jaci Statton was in her kitchen when she felt like she was going to pass out and saw that her jeans had become soaked with blood. Doctors told her the pregnancy was not viable and that it could threaten her life if an abortion was not performed soon, she said. But Ms. Statton lives in Oklahoma, a state that bans most abortions. Three hospitals declined to provide the procedure, she said. At the third, “they said, ‘We can’t touch you unless you’re like crashing in front of us,’” Ms. Statton, 26, said in an interview. The hospital’s only suggestion, she said, was “we should wait in the parking lot until I was about to die.” (Belluck, 9/12)
From North Carolina, Kansas, and elsewhere —
Axios Raleigh: North Carolina Remained A Southern Abortion Destination In Early 2023
North Carolina remained the South's destination for abortions in the first six months of this year, as state lawmakers debated how far to go in restricting the procedure. Patients are proving highly motivated to travel to get the care in the face of state bans, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. (Sherman, 9/12)
Kansas Reflector: Medical Experts Question Kansas Lawmaker’s Anti-Abortion Testimony For ‘Born Alive’ Law
A Republican lawmaker’s misleading narratives before a Kansas House hearing this spring supported a state law prohibiting physicians from euthanizing infants who survive abortions — despite medical experts’ assertion that the scenario is a non-existent scare tactic. The lawmaker, Rep. Ron Bryce, acknowledges he had little first-hand evidence for the claims he repeated on and off the House floor. He speculated that abortion providers murder infants, and his testimony appeared to be based on unreliable data. (Donnelly, 9/12)
The New York Times: The Surprising Places Where Abortion Rights Are On The Ballot, And Winning
After Dobbs, the political ground seems to be shifting in some unpredictable ways. (Bazelon, 9/12)
In other reproductive health news —
Stat: Postpartum Depression Takes Toll On Immigrant Farmworkers
Over more than a decade working with immigrant farmworkers in the public clinics of the Santa Clara River Valley, Rosemary Hernandez has seen many new moms struggle during the postpartum period. Some were separated from their families in Mexico. Others’ husbands or boyfriends had to head straight back to work picking fruit after the baby arrived. Some mothers had to return to work themselves while they were still recovering from childbirth, or else risk losing their jobs in the fields and fruit-packing houses. Their isolation and vulnerability compounded the challenges of caring for a newborn, and drove many of these mothers into anxiety and depression. (Rubenstein, 9/13)
AP: Helping Mothers And Babies Survive Childbirth Is A Personal Goal, Says Melinda French Gates
Melinda French Gates says she takes personally the deaths of hundreds of thousands of women and babies during child birth each year and believes more people should get involved in the fight for improving maternal health care. French Gates, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation co-founder and co-chair told The Associated Press that when her daughter, Jennifer, gave birth to Leila — Jennifer’s first child and the Gateses’ first grandchild — earlier this year, she couldn’t help but think of her own experience giving birth. (Beaty, 9/12)
