PHILIPS: On the signing of the Texas Abortion Bans Softened-Quietly (with an Appendix by P. J. Johnson)
Both the Texas Medical Association and the Texas Hospital Association told NPR they were involved in helping to pass the bill and were present when Governor Greg Abbott signed it into law. National Review quoted Hughes as saying that a number of pro-life groups were present at the signing. It is set to go into effect on September 1.
Dr. Thoppil credits Johnson as “a tremendous advocate for women’s health.” He thinks that the new law will be helpful. He says the two conditions mentioned are common complications that OB-GYNs see and that the law will help avert some of the heartbreaking circumstances patients have experienced since the bans took effect.
In the legislature, Johnson says Hughes was a big help in lining up key supporters. She says she’s glad we had honest conversations. “This would not have happened without having him in the Senate get this through.”
Source: To expand abortion access in Texas, a lawmaker gets creative
The Minor Miracle of H.B. 3058: Medical Exception that Addresses Abortion, and Attorney General Ann Johnson argues that the bill was signed in a bipartisan way
The law was signed just a few weeks ago, so it might be a surprise to you. There was less of a buzz for that signing.
The bill passed with bipartisan support – in the Senate, it passed unanimously – and made it to the governor’s desk in the last few days of the session. That is a “minor miracle,” according to George Christian, senior counsel at the Texas Civil Justice League who wrote about helping to draft the legislation.
“It happened because of the masterful and discreet way that the bill’s House author, Rep. Johnson, and Senate sponsor, Sen. Hughes, handled things in their respective chambers,” he wrote.
Rep. Ann Johnson says she’s proud of H.B. 3058. She says no other piece of legislation that addressed abortions even got a hearing. “I think what was key about this legislation is that it did not have the term ‘abortion’ in it, and because of that, it did not become a political football.”
A lawsuit against the state argues that language in the medical exception is vague and confusing, causing hospitals and doctors to delay care, which harms patients. The plaintiffs include 13 patients and two physicians, and they’re represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights. The lead plaintiff, Amanda Zurawski, developed sepsis and nearly died when doctors delayed an abortion.
Johnson is aware of that criticism. “Yes, there are absolutely other pregnancy complications,” she says. We can accomplish this in this moment. In this moment, we could get bipartisan agreement of the recognition of ectopic pregnancies.
When abortions stopped, doctors stopped, and babies died – and the state didn’t stop there, Johnson told OP-GYNs
When the Texas legislative session began it was just a few weeks before she introduced a bill. Originally, the bill broadly allowed doctors to provide “medically necessary” services.
Johnson says she felt like the physicians she talked to and her Republican colleagues used the word “abortion” in completely different ways. If the fetus had a fatal condition, or the pregnant patient was facing a serious medical problem, the doctors used abortion to describe the end of the pregnancy.
In her post she said that the Texas health department, Texas Medical Board, Texas Medical Association and the Texas Hospital Association could help ward off dangerous situations by educating and giving guidance. She wrote “the silence of the medical, legal and bureaucratic organizations that could end the confusion is unconscionable.”
There’s also research on the effects of delaying care. A study published last year documented the outcomes for 28 Texas patients whose water broke too early for the fetus to survive. They were not offered abortions when first diagnosed – instead their doctors waited for the fetal heart to stop or their condition to worsen. Nearly half of these patients developed a serious condition, including 10 who developed infections, five who needed blood transfusions, and one who required a hysterectomy.
“If you have a general practitioner or a dermatologist treating psoriasis or rheumatoid arthritis of a 34-year-old woman who has no intentions of getting pregnant, and then she gets pregnant six months later and that pregnancy terminates because of that medication,” that doctor could get charged with a felony, Johnson says.
A recent law that imposes criminal penalties on prescribers of certain medications that can cause abortions is not the only law that affects OB-GYNs. She gives an example of a drug used to treat diseases. It can also be used to treat ectopic pregnancy and for very early medication abortions.
“The doctors and the hospitals and their lawyers were reading all of the Texas [abortion] statutes, some of them from the early 1900s, and saying, ‘Look, we can’t tell you what to do here – the language is confusing, the terminology and the definitions are confusing,’” Johnson says.
Texas doesn’t allow abortion. The medical exception to the abortion bans is very narrow. Doctors can legally provide abortions in the state only if a patient is “in danger of death or a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”
Texas State Representative Ann Johnson represents District 134, which includes the Texas Medical Center. She says after Texas’s abortion bans took effect, her constituents would stop her when she took walks around the district.
Texas’s Republican Governor Greg Abbott addressed a rally earlier this year, celebrating the abortion bans that took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
A State Program to Detect Abortion in Illinois: The Case of a Woman in Missouri with One of the Strictest Roe v. Wade
“I don’t think I stopped crying for an entire two weeks,” she said. The whole world was feeling heavy. It’s not something that any of them should have to go through. It’s not easy losing somebody you love.”
NPR is not disclosing the woman’s name or the community where she lives, because she fears harm or repercussions if anyone found out. She lives in Missouri, which has one of the strictest abortion bans in the nation. Her experience was confirmed by NPR.
In May, a woman from Missouri visited Dr. Laura Laursen at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. The number of out-of-state abortions at Rush has quadrupled since Roe was overturned, Laursen says.
Since the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, who can get an abortion and where has been complicated by medically ambiguous language in new state laws that ban or restrict abortion. Doctors in some states do not want their medical licenses to be taken away.
Logistically it has been difficult to connect patients to a doctor and a hospital. In response to the growing demand, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker recently launched a state program to help. The goal is to get patients who show up at clinics, yet need a higher level of abortion care, connected more quickly with Illinois hospitals. Providers will call a hotline to get nurses on the scene.
WeCount, widely considered a reliable tracker of shifts in abortion care over the past year, doesn’t break out hospital data separately. The data would have gaps, said Ushia Upadhyay. It’s hard to get providers to report what happens in banned states.
When it comes to accessing abortion care, patients often have to wait until they are in a hospital before they can have the procedure, so they are pushed further into their pregnancies. That costs a lot more.
The patient said that there are a lot of good people who go through unfortunate situations like him when they need abortion care. “To have that taken away by the government, it just doesn’t feel right.”
The higher the procedure and hospital stay, the higher the medical bills. More patients need help paying for procedures that can be expensiveaccording to medical providers and abortion funds.
Source: Abortion bans are fueling a rise in high-risk patients heading to Illinois hospitals
The UI Health System is Treating More Patients From Out of State for Abortion: A Case Study with Wisconsin’s Life-of-the-Matrix Exception
Laursen said the biggest thing was making space for her to express her emotions. She wanted to make sure that she was comfortable with the decisions she was making. Trying to make her feel as strong as possible.
“I’m constantly hearing stories from my partners across the country of trying to figure out what counts as imminent danger,” Laursen said. “We are attempting to prevent danger.” We’re not trying to get to the point where someone’s an emergency.”
Dr. McIntosh is a OB-GYN in the city of Milwaukee. Because of Wisconsin’s abortion ban, she’s referring more patients out of state.
She said that it was reasonable to get an abortion. But oh, by the way, it’s illegal in your own state. I’m going to tell you that it is very difficult to get an abortion in the state.
In some cases, McIntosh can provide the abortion if the medical risk is significant enough to satisfy Wisconsin’s life-of-the-mother exception. It feels like it’s legally risky.
Dr. Jonah Fleisher’s phone is often ringing and buzzing with texts. When Fleisher is an OB- GYN with the UI Health, he is frequently asked how quickly he can get another patient from a different state.
Fleisher says the University of Iowa’s health system is treating more patients from out of state for abortion care.
“I know that some number of those women are not going to make it through birth and postpartum,” Fleisher said. “More than the stress of somebody who’s actually making it to see me, that’s the thing that causes me more stress.”
Source: Abortion bans are fueling a rise in high-risk patients heading to Illinois hospitals
The Chicago Abortion Fund: A Rise in High-Risk Patients Heading to Illinois Hospitals in the Year After Dobbs
The Chicago Abortion Fund will cover nearly $500,000 in hospital bills for 222 patients in the year after Dobbs, according to the organization’s director of services. Those bills were primarily for out-of-state patients. By comparison, the year before Dobbs, the funding helped cover about $11,000 for 27 patients.
“We’re seeing more cases right now (of) people who are later in gestation,” Fowler said. “More adolescents who are later in gestation, who are showing up at hospitals because this is really their last resort. They’ve been referred all over.”
Hospitals that are not for profit could help. In return for getting tax breaks, they have financial assistance policies for people who are uninsured or can’t afford their medical bills. But the policy at UI Health in Chicago, for example, only covers Illinois residents. A spokeswoman said that for other patients, including those who live in other states, the hospital offers discounts if they don’t have insurance, or if their insurance won’t pay.
Source: Abortion bans are fueling a rise in high-risk patients heading to Illinois hospitals
A Patient’s Heartbeat Record Recorded in a Special Room – A Case Study in Missouri with a Cross-Section between Kansas and Illinois
Back in Missouri, the patient has a special room dedicated to her son. She put his remains in a heart shaped casket and kept a recording of his heartbeat. She talks to her son and tells him how much she loves him.
She is working on healing emotionally and physically. She was angry about the experience in her home state, even though she was able to travel to Illinois for care.