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reproductive healthcare
Lawmakers Ruin Lives When They Restrict Reproductive Care
They aren’t “pro-life.” They aren’t saving lives. All too often, when women can’t get miscarriage treatments or other emergency care, they’re ending lives.
May 23, 2024
We all deserve the right to make informed decisions about our own health. That right has been in danger for years—and since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it’s under siege.
I grew up in the South with an abstinence-only education—if you can call that an “education.”
This approach, which teaches nothing about sex except not to have it, is an utter failure. It’s been proven to have no effect on reducing adolescent pregnancies. And couples who’ve received abstinence-only messaging use less birth control and STD protection than couples who’ve been taught about them.
In states like mine where care has now been prohibited, it’s not the pregnant person, their family, and doctors who determine their care.
When I went to college and became aware of the harmful effects of abstinence-only “education,” I joined a peer-based sex-ed group on campus. We were health and sex positive. But abortion was still only discussed in the shadows, in hushed tones, if at all.
But now, like sex ed, these discussions need to be out in the open.
When my birth control failed, I became pregnant. My now-husband and I were in a long-distance relationship while he finished a paramedic program. We were considering marriage, but we weren’t there yet and didn’t have enough money to raise a child. We made what was, for us, the responsible decision.
The truth is, all kinds of people get abortions. More than half are already parents. People who identify as “pro-life” get abortions, and people who are married get abortions. And the vast majority of Americans support the right to choose an abortion.
After my legal abortion, I began volunteering at an abortion clinic in Florida. Years later, I was offered a job at the Yellowhammer Fund, which provides support to pregnant people seeking reproductive care and family planning in Alabama and across the South.
Reproductive healthcare wasn’t easy even before the Supreme Court reversed Roe, especially in the South.
For instance, in Alabama, we had only three healthcare providers willing to provide abortion care. The state imposed stricter than national average gestational limits, a two-visit prerequisite, and a 48-hour waiting period. If the situation was an emergency, the documentation for a medical exception was extremely difficult to obtain.
Now it’s even worse. Not only can we not provide care, we can’t help patients cross state lines to get it elsewhere. We can’t even help patients understand where and how they can receive the abortion care they need. Our speech has been criminalized.
In states like mine where care has now been prohibited, it’s not the pregnant person, their family, and doctors who determine their care. It’s ideologically extreme lawmakers with no medical background or knowledge of individual circumstances who dictate those deeply personal decisions.
We’re doing what we can. For now, we can direct people seeking abortion care to published articles where they can find information. We can still help families with legal challenges and provide safe sex kits.
Importantly, we’re also training community members across the rural South to be advocates and supportive resources for those seeking reproductive justice. And the Yellowhammer Fund has launched a lawsuit to restore our right to help clients find abortion care, and there is some hopeful movement.
But we also need lawmakers to know that every decision they make restricting reproductive care is life-ruining. They aren’t “pro-life.” They aren’t saving lives. All too often, when women can’t get miscarriage treatments or other emergency care, they’re ending lives.
Midwives and birthing centers need to be free to care for their patients in ways that maximize that patient’s health and family, free of state control and threats of prison. This is a message that the majority of Americans support. We need to make sure lawmakers listen.
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With 50,000 Pregnant People in Gaza, Child Advocates and Birth Workers Call for Cease-Fire
One doctor who received dozens of calls from pregnant women unable to reach health centers warned that "the lack of access to healthcare and treatment puts their lives in danger and may lead to death."
Oct 25, 2023
As health officials in Gaza said Wednesday that the healthcare system in the blockaded enclave is now "completely out of service," human rights advocates including birth workers demanded a cease-fire to protect the estimated 50,000 pregnant people living under siege in the open-air prison, where Israel has been bombing civilian targets for nearly three weeks while claiming to be attacking Hamas.
The Palestinian Family Planning and Protection Association (PFPPA) warned days after the airstrikes began that 37,000 women would likely be forced to give birth without electricity or medical supplies, because Israel promptly cut off access to fuel and other essentials after Hamas launched a surprise attack on October 7.
That fear is already being realized in hospitals across the enclave, which is home to about 2 million people, half of whom are children.
Walid Abu Hatab, an obstetrics and gynecology medical consultant at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, told Al Jazeera Wednesday that among other dangers, pregnant women face an increased risk of contracting illnesses as a growing number of people from northern Gaza are crowded into shelters in southern areas—a "health and environment disaster," Abu Hatab said.
"There are women who have been displaced from their places of residence to other areas, which means changing the health centers which had previously monitored their condition," he told Al Jazeera. "This makes access to them very difficult for them as they need primary care and follow-up sessions during the various periods of pregnancy."
"I received dozens of calls from pregnant women telling me that they were unable to reach health centers to provide them with treatment such as insulin and treatment for blood thinning for those with heart disease," Abu Hatab added. "The lack of access to healthcare and treatment puts their lives in danger and may lead to death, and this is what we are mainly concerned about."
"The bombs don't stop, and no human, tree, or stone has been spared. We don't know whose house will be destroyed or who will die. I just hope me and my child are safe."
Niveen al-Barbari, a pregnant woman who before October 7 was regularly seeing a specialist to monitor her high blood pressure and gestational diabetes, told the outlet she wonders daily where she will give birth and how she'll be able to do so safely as Israel's airstrikes show no sign of stopping and the country prepares for a likely ground invasion of Gaza.
"The bombs don't stop, and no human, tree, or stone has been spared," al-Barbari said. "We don't know whose house will be destroyed or who will die. I just hope me and my child are safe."
Al-Barbari is one victim of what Human Rights Watch called a "women's rights crisis" which is unfolding alongside the broader humanitarian catastrophe, with women and girls affected "in specific and devastating ways."
The group said the onslaught will "likely result in increased maternal and infant mortality and morbidity, undermining heath gains previously made in Palestine," as women are forced to go without prenatal treatment and in some cases, give birth without the help of medical professionals.
About 5,500 of the pregnant people in Gaza are expected to give birth in the next month, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which has resorted to deploying emergency delivery kits to at least half of those women due to Israel's refusal to allow humanitarian aid convoys into the enclave.
The kits include a bar of soap, a 40-square-inch plastic sheet, scissors to cut an umbilical cord, latex gloves, and an instruction pamphlet to guide women delivering on their own.
"Pregnancies do not stop during emergencies," said the UNFPA, warning that "devastating consequences" can arise when reproductive health is overlooked in violent conflicts.
Doctors in Gaza warned Wednesday that for women who do manage to give birth face harrowing prospects for their babies if they are born prematurely.
With fuel running out in the enclave's hospitals, premature babies in incubators "will die once the power goes," the BBC reported.
"The babies in these incubators are the same as my son who was in an incubator after birth," said Melanie Ward, CEO of Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). "But he was born in London and these babies are Palestinian. Every life is of equal value. Fuel must reach them."
MAP, which on Tuesday held a vigil in London for the 2,360 children who have been killed in Gaza so far, warned Wednesday that hospitals across Gaza have only hours to go until "total collapse."
Patients in critical condition will die without fuel, including 130 newborns in neonatal intensive care units. Cancer patients and people with kidney failure are also being placed at risk as they miss multiple rounds of chemotherapy and dialysis due to shortages of medical supplies.
"Harrowing scenes are unfolding in hospitals across Gaza," said Fikr Shalltoot, Gaza director for MAP. "Doctors have reported that patients who would otherwise live are dying. Hundreds of patients with horrific injuries from Israel's bombardment sit untreated and in agony in corridors. Surgeons operate without anesthetics and by torchlight."
"World leaders must act now to prevent the total collapse of Gaza's healthcare system," said Shalltoot. "The trickle of aid getting through is nowhere near enough to reverse this humanitarian catastrophe. People will die if fuel does not reach Gaza's hospitals today."
In the U.S. on Wednesday, birth workers called on the American College of Nurse-Midwives, the largest organization representing midwives in North America, to join international calls for a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza in order to ensure the safety of pregnant people, unborn babies, newborns, and medical providers tasked with providing reproductive care.
"Hospitals have lost power and healthcare providers are having to decide whether to evacuate and abandon their patients or stay and perish in the onslaught of Israeli bombs, which have been indiscriminately aimed at homes, mosques, schools, and hospitals," wrote the birth workers. "We say the answer to grief is not more war and destruction. We say no to continued occupation, apartheid and genocide. We ask the American College of Nurse-Midwives to stand on the right side of history with Doctors Without Borders in calling for the bombing to stop."
The International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) called for "peace, understanding, and the resolution of conflicts through dialogue and diplomacy" a week into Israel's siege, warning that "violence and war bear a heavy toll on vulnerable civilians, especially women, babies, and families with young children."
"The absence of proper maternal health services further exacerbates an already dangerous situation, jeopardizing the lives of women and newborns," said the ICM. "During conflicts, sexual violence, war's oldest, most silenced, and least condemned crime, becomes widespread. Everyday situations, like ensuring cleanliness and dignity during a regular menstrual cycle, become difficult or impossible. This is all in addition to the stress, loss, and trauma that communities are subjected to."
Israel's blocking of humanitarian aid and its continued bombardment pose "additional risks to health and life for women and girls," said Human Rights Watch. "Their suffering is one more reason that Israel's allies, especially the United States, should press it restore the flow of electricity and water, allow fuel into Gaza, and open its crossings for humanitarian aid."
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It's Finally Official: Limiting Abortion in the Guise of Helping Women is a Sham
The supreme court ruled Monday against abortion restrictions that effectively prevent women from being able to secure the procedure
Jun 27, 2016
In a major victory for American women, the US Supreme Court sent a powerful message on Monday in its Whole Woman's Health v Hellerstedt decision: that laws purporting to protect women's health while limiting access to abortion are an unconstitutional sham.
In a 5-3 decision, the court struck down a Texas law, called House Bill 2, responsible for shuttering more than half of the state's clinics. The restrictions mandated that clinics become ambulatory surgical centers, adhering to wholly unnecessary hospital-like standards, and that doctors have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital even though hospitalization is almost never necessary after ending a pregnancy. The goal wasn't to make abortion safer, of course, just impossible to obtain.
Ending a pregnancy is such a safe procedure that doctors would never be able to admit enough patients to a hospital in order to keep admitting privileges, and because abortions are so safe and common, maintaining the standards for a surgical center simply drained clinics of their resources. And anti-choice legislators know as much.
The court's decision made clear the justices were not fooled, noting in the majority decision that "when directly asked at oral argument whether Texas knew of a single instance in which the new requirement would have helped even one woman obtain better treatment, Texas admitted that there was no evidence in the record of such a case."
And in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's concurring opinion, she wrote it was "beyond rational belief that HB 2 could genuinely protect the health of women, and certain that the law 'would simply make it more difficult for them to obtain abortions.'"
The lead plaintiff in the case, Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman's Health, released a statement saying that her clinics "treat our patients with compassion, respect and dignity—and today the Supreme Court did the same."
She continued, "I want everyone to understand: you don't mess with Texas, you don't mess with Whole Woman's Health and you don't mess with this beautiful, powerful movement of people dedicated to reproductive health, rights, and justice."
The ruling represents a significant loss for anti-abortion groups, who have been pushing Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (Trap laws) over the last decade: as of this year, 24 states have some sort of law or policy that restricts abortion access through targeting the way providers work.
But the Whole Woman's Health decision - which laid bare the way that these mandates constitute an undue burden on women seeking abortion - stands to put that years-long strategy in jeopardy. It will be that much harder for anti-choice legislators to shroud their policies in rhetoric about protecting women when the highest court in the country has essentially called the tactic nonsense.
For pro-choicers, the decision isn't just a win, but a sticking point in the upcoming presidential election. Pro-choice organizations wasted no time releasing statements that tied the decision to how a Donald Trump presidency would be disastrous for women. Ilyse Hogue, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, says that Trump "is committed to appointing justices who will once again make abortion illegal across the country". Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily's List, noted that "extremist Republicans like Donald Trump should take note... women are paying attention and you'll be hearing our voices loud and clear come November."
Before November comes, though, American women can do some much-deserved celebrating in the wake of Monday's decision. A strategy that aimed to limit our rights while invoking our protection has been proven impotent. A law that put tens of thousands of us in danger has been overturned. It is, finally, a good day.
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