Abortion Ban States Now Free To Just Let Pregnant Women Die

In perhaps one of the least surprising (and yet still horrifying) moves of the Trump administration, hospitals in states like Idaho that don’t have any kind of “life of the mother” exceptions to their abortion bans will now have to (get to) just let women die rather than let them obtain an abortion. Isn’t that fun and nice?

As you may recall, the Biden administration held that, under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), hospitals that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding are required to provide stabilizing treatment for any pregnant person, including an abortion if necessary. Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, pregnant women have found themselves in horrific situations in which they have been forced to wait until they were actually septic before states like Texas or Georgia would allow them to have an abortion. Some have actually died.

“The Trump Administration would rather women die in emergency rooms than receive life-saving abortions,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. “In pulling back guidance, this administration is feeding the fear and confusion that already exists at hospitals in every state where abortion is banned. Hospitals need more guidance, not less, to stop them from turning away patients experiencing pregnancy crises.”

Naturally, anti-abortion groups are enthralled by this. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, claims that the only reason those women have died or have been close to death is because Democrats “created confusion” about the abortion bans so we could abort all of the babies.

“Democrats have created confusion on this fact to justify their extremely unpopular agenda for all-trimester abortion,” she said. “In situations where every minute counts, their lies lead to delayed care and put women in needless, unacceptable danger.”

This, of course, is absolute fucking bullshit. The reason care was delayed in these cases is because doctors are terrified of losing their licenses or going to prison — two consequences that are entirely likely if the state they are practicing in decides that an abortion was not strictly necessary to save the life of the mother. Additionally, the state where it was the biggest issue was Idaho, which has no such exception.

Doctors (for the most part) are not idiots. They don’t need us to tell them that the laws are bad and unclear. In fact, it’s usually the hospital lawyers who are looking at the laws and making these determinations. They’re probably not confused about what the laws say.

This is not going to end well.

This week, Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney Tom Truman announced that many of his fellow prosecutors throughout the state are very excited to start charging women who have miscarriages with crimes related to the disposal of a body. Isn’t that nice?

“The kind of criminal jeopardy you face is going to depend on a lot of factors,” Truman told WBOY news. “What was your intent? What did you do? How late were you in your pregnancy? Were you trying to hide something, were you just so emotionally distraught you couldn’t do anything else?”

“If you were relieved, and you had been telling people, ‘I’d rather get ran over by a bus than have this baby,’ that may play into law enforcement’s thinking, too,” he added, being rather casual about someone so desperate to not be forced to have a child that they’re contemplating suicide.

So they want to force people who don’t want babies to have babies, and they also want to prosecute them if they miscarry. I guess the assumption here, on their part, would be that the women either willed their fetus dead (not a crime, because people don’t have magic powers) or had an illegal abortion. However, there is no way to tell the difference between an involuntary miscarriage and a medical abortion and no test that can prove that one took mifepristone — so prosecutors would be charging people with crimes based on something they can’t prove.

Although Truman says he wouldn’t personally file charges in such a situation, the state code would allow charges to be filed against a woman who miscarries as early as nine weeks and then “flushes fetal remains, buries them, or otherwise disposes of remains.”

Should women not wish to go to prison for the crime of having an involuntary miscarriage, Truman suggests they call 911 to report themselves.

“Call your doctor. Call law enforcement, or 911, and just say, ‘I miscarried. I want you to know,’” advised Truman.

Oh, okay. Because that’s the first thing that someone who has a miscarriage is going to want to do.

Bear in mind here that a miscarriage, especially one that happens later in a wanted pregnancy, can be an extremely traumatic thing for people to go through. We’re not only talking about bad, evil women who didn’t want to give birth to begin with, we’re also talking about those who very much do want children and have just had an absolutely devastating thing happen to them. No matter to West Virginia prosecutors!

It’s not entirely clear what prosecutors think should happen in these cases. Do they want cremations or burials for every miscarriage? Full-on funerals? Because that is pretty expensive.

This really does just prove what we’ve all been saying all along. They don’t care about babies, they just want to punish women. And if they can’t do that by proving they had an abortion, they’ll do it by sending them to prison for failing at being a baby incubator. Nice.

(Abortion, Every Day)

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary — the genius who just a couple of weeks ago said that adult diabetics should get cooking classes instead of insulin — vowed in a recent letter to Josh Hawley that he will “investigate” the safety of Mifepristone, a drug that we already know is safe.

“As with all drugs, FDA continues to closely monitor the postmarketing safety data on mifepristone for the medical termination of early pregnancy,” Makary wrote, adding, “As the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, I am committed to conducting a review of mifepristone and working with the professional career scientists at the Agency who review this data.”

This was in response to Hawley’s attempt to use an entirely dubious study on abortion medication to get it banned.

Josh Hawley Hopes Terribly Conducted Study Will Help Him Ban Abortion Meds

The fact that Makary does not realize this does not bode well for the next few years of FDA leadership.

It may surprise you to know that not only is abortion legal (well, up to 13 weeks and after that to save the life of the mother or in the event of a fatal fetal anomaly) in super-Catholic Italy, it’s also free of charge. It’s not perfect, especially because there’s also a mandatory seven day “period of reflection” required between requesting the abortion and having it, but it’s something.

However! Because it is super-Catholic, the biggest barrier is actually finding a doctor who will perform an abortion, particularly in more rural areas.

Recognizing this, the island of Sicily will now require hospitals to employ at least one doctor who will perform abortions, in order to ensure that people have not only the legal right to have an abortion, but the ability to access it as well.

This is what many of us (Robin Marty in particular) were talking about years before Roe was overturned — the fact that legality means nothing if there is no access. In many of the states where abortion is now banned, it hadn’t actually been accessible for most people for years. Many states only had one clinic and many clinics didn’t actually provide surgical abortions (just medical). Ironically, the fact that people can now — for now — get abortion medication through telehealth has meant that a lot of those who wouldn’t have had access before Dobbs have it now.

This is still the case in several of the states where it remains legal. For example, it’s still legal in Wyoming (their ban has been blocked by the courts) but there are only two clinics in the whole state, meaning that many of those who need an abortion have to travel far to get one. It’s still legal in North Dakota as well, and they have exactly zero clinics.

As much as we fight for legalized abortion, we have to fight for it to actually be accessible as well.

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Étienne-Émile Baulieu, the French biochemist who developed the abortion pill, passed away last week at the age of 98. We all remain very grateful for his work.

As of last week, abortion is once again banned in the state of Missouri, albeit temporarily. Because, incredibly enough, when you vote for left-wing policies and right-wing politicians, you still get the right-wing policies.

In Maine, prescribers’ names no longer need to be written on abortion medication — a clever way to shield providers from lawsuits coming from abortion ban states.

PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!

Brain-Dead Georgia Woman’s Body Now A Fetus Incubator. This Is GRIM.

Republicans Already Cracking Down On Abortion, In Big Surprise To ‘Pro-Choice’ Trump Voters