Reversed Roe v Wade, This Time with Conviction!

 

Reversed Roe v Wade, This Time with Conviction!

Death by Statute and Hesitation

"Every single day I have a conversation with a patient in which I say, 'Abortion would be a really safe and valid option for you and I'm so sorry that I can't do it here.'" 

Dr. Stephanie Mischell, a family physician in Dallas

A 2021 Texas abortion ban underscores what abortion rights activists fears most: an increase in maternal mortality, a rising level of abortion-related prosecutions and the effective that fear and hesitancy based on the new laws now instilled in the minds of Texas women and their doctors. Zinhle Essamuah, an NBC News reporter who joined in an interview by Patrick Davis of the Texas Standard (September 24th) on some seriously disturbing data from post-Roe anti-abortion legislation. “We’re talking about maternal mortality rate, which is the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births each year. So this data was exclusive to NBC News from the Gender Equity Policy Institute, and their numbers were pulled for the Centers for Disease Control.

“And what it found was a 56% rise in maternal mortality in the state of Texas from the year 2019 to 2022. That’s notable because it’s compared to just an 11% rise in maternal mortality nationwide in the same time period. And the time period is important because 2019 is our last glimpse of life before the pandemic. We know that the entire country saw a maternal mortality spike during the pandemic.

“But the thing that was really different here: Texas stood out in that it had SB 8 [Senate Bill 8 -Texas Heartbeat Act]. And we know SB 8 passed an entire year before Dobbs. That was the biggest difference between Texas and the other states that did not see such a major rise in maternal mortality.” SB8 was passed in anticipation of a reversal or limitation in Roe v Wade and only kicked in when the court reversed its 1973 precedent. In short, the Texas law took effect without further legislative action required, unlike many other red states that had waited to pass new laws pending a possible Supreme Court reversal.

Essamuah continues: “[It] was striking that of that 56% rise in the state of Texas, there was a 38% rise among Black women in the state. There was a 30% rise in maternal deaths among Hispanic women in Texas. Regarding Asian-American women, the numbers were too small and were not included. But what was so striking was a 95% rise among white women in Texas.

“And that’s notable because it’s communities of color – Black women, Native women – who have these horrible outcomes with maternal deaths. But the fact that we’re seeing it with white women in Texas is alarming because it could signal rates that are to come in other communities. And so that’s what’s really staggering about this report… [C]hildbirth is hard enough as it is. Kaitlyn Kash is a 37-year-old mother from Austin, Texas. She has always been excited about having kids. And her first birth was textbook. But, her second was the opposite. She gave birth to a healthy child, but her placenta was not delivering; any mom knows that’s a standard part of pregnancy. So she needed a D&C to remove that placenta tissue.

“But she says doctors delayed and she ultimately waited more than an hour. In this context, time really matters because she was bleeding and ultimately lost consciousness and later needed a blood transfusion. It was supposed to be a standard procedure, but it’s worth noting D&C’s are also often part of an abortion… In this case, she was not getting an abortion. She had just given birth. This should have been routine. The doctor told her she might need a D&C. When she ultimately asked the hospital what happened, a social worker told her, ‘we don’t do D&C’s anymore.’

“Now, it’s important to note here the overarching sentiment, she says, was hesitancy. She and others fear this hesitancy is becoming systemic among doctors and providers. They’re not sure if or what they should be doing regarding these abortion laws. And as such, they say mothers’ lives are increasingly at risk.” But if you are a doctor or a pregnant woman, dealing with medical emergencies and the potential of an abortion in a Big Red One “abortion is a crime” state, stand back and stand by.

As this September 26th Associated Press report, from Geoff Mulvihill, explains, the gendarmes may jes’ be out to git ya! “It became more common for authorities to charge women with crimes related to their pregnancies after the fall of Roe vs. Wade in 2022, a new study found — even if they’re almost never accused of violating abortion bans.

“In the year after the U.S. Supreme Court ended the nationwide right to abortion in its Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, at least 210 women across the country were charged with crimes related to their pregnancies, according to the report released by Pregnancy Justice, an advocacy organization. That’s the highest number the group has identified over any 12-month period in research projects that have looked as far back as 1973.

“Wendy Bach, a professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law and one of the lead researchers on the project, said one of the cases was when a woman delivered a stillborn baby at her home about six or seven months into her pregnancy. Bach said that when the woman went to make funeral arrangements, the funeral home alerted authorities and the woman was charged with homicide… States with abortion bans — including 14 that bar it at all stages of pregnancy and four, such as Georgia, where it’s illegal after about the first six weeks — have exceptions for women who self-manage abortions. But Bach said that people seeking abortion have been charged with other crimes.

‘She did not want to seek help because of her fear that she would be prosecuted,’ Bach said. ‘That is a really realistic fear.’… The majority of the cases in the study came from just two states: Alabama with 104 and Oklahoma with 68. The next state was South Carolina, with 10. [There’s a] common thread of those three states — which were also among the states with the most cases of pregnancy-related charges before the Dobbs ruling — is that their supreme courts have issued opinions recognizing fetuses, embryos or fertilized eggs as having the rights of people.”

Doctors and the very few family planning clinics that remain in red states face criminal charges. Florida’s statute now says any person who performs or "actively participates in" an abortion commits a third-degree felony. Other states open up the possibility of a murder charge against the doctor and the woman involved, and even seek to follow their residents’ seeking abortions by crossing to other states, where abortion is legal, to apply the criminal sanctions of their home state. Rather than take a risk of prosecution, even where an abortion may be necessary to save a woman’s life, too many doctors simply refuse to render aid. So much for their oath as physicians to “do no harm.”

I’m Peter Dekom, and too many states are effectively weaponizing Jesus, resulting in vastly more deaths and permanent physical damage than existed before the reversal of Roe, with a “that’s God’s wrath” smugness to the innocents whose lives they have decimated.