LEXINGTON, Ky. – A grassroots storytelling production focused on women's experiences with abortion performs its final show of the season Thursday night in Lexington.
A few years ago, when Kentucky was left with only one abortion provider after a Lexington clinic closed, Stacie Sexton started "The Abortion Monologues," a theater-based storytelling project that aims to lessen the stigma for women who wanted to share stories related to choosing – or not choosing – to terminate a pregnancy.
"You know, this is a storytelling project, but it became even more important to tell these stories and talk about the fact that access had been reduced to one clinic – one clinic serving the entire state – because the Planned Parenthoods in Kentucky don't perform abortions," she relates.
In the early 1990s, Kentucky had nine abortion clinics. It is now one of seven states with only one provider.
That facility, located in Louisville, has recently been at the forefront of a legal battle involving a law, passed in 2017 and signed by Gov. Matt Bevin, mandating that doctors in Kentucky show patients an ultrasound and describe it in detail before performing an abortion.
The American Civil Liberties Union argues the legislation violates doctors' free speech rights.
With "The Abortion Monologues," Sexton says anyone, regardless of her or his views on the procedure, is welcome to work with the production to share individual stories.
"We did have a story of regret this year,” Sexton states. “She was an international student that studied here in Kentucky, and she became pregnant. She actually wanted to have her baby 100%, but her family basically forced her into having an abortion.
“She mentioned in her story that she's still pro-choice. Even though she didn't want to have an abortion, she supports other people's rights to have it, because abortion is illegal in her country."
Because the rhetoric surrounding abortion has become increasingly fierce and contentious, Sexton says people often forget that women who have chosen to have an abortion are women they know – their daughters, mothers and aunts and even grandmothers.
She says one of this season's most powerful stories comes from a granddaughter who wanted to tell the story of her grandmother, who died from a botched self-abortion more than half a century ago.
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Nevada health-care providers, patients and advocates are responding to the U.S. Supreme Court case that'll determine the future of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.
The federal law mandates Medicare-funded hospitals provide patients with stabilizing care in emergency situations, which include abortions.
Dr. Christine Miyake is an emergency physician with the Valley Health System in Las Vegas, and said abortions are sometimes a necessary part of health care.
"I saw a patient who ruptured her membranes early and developed a severe uterine infection," said Miyake. "She was dying from that infection. If they were not able to provide the abortion, she surely would have died - as no amount of antibiotics would've helped her."
Miyake said abortion bans around the country have driven physicians out of their respective states - causing hospitals to shut down their labor-maternity wards, making it harder for women to access what she called "basic pregnancy care."
In Nevada the right to an abortion is protected though state law, but an initiative petition is working to enshrine abortion rights in the state's constitution.
Laura Campbell is the director of the National Organization for Women's Nevada Chapter, and said she received lifesaving care while she was pregnant - and contended that EMTALA is key to protecting the very care that saved her life.
But anti-abortion proponents argue that state laws that ban abortion access can coexist with the federal law. Campbell disagreed.
"With total bans on abortions in neighboring states like Arizona, Utah, and Idaho," said Campbell, "there is no question that Nevadans deserve to have their abortion rights protected in the state constitution to ensure that no judge or politician can strip away the right to make their own health-care choices."
Eighty-six percent of the public supports protecting access to abortion for patients experiencing pregnancy-related emergencies, according to a recent KFF poll.
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The Missouri Legislature has approved a law to stop its Medicaid program, known as MO HealthNet, from paying Planned Parenthood for medical services for Medicaid patients.
The decision follows a court ruling which found not reimbursing Planned Parenthood through Medicaid goes against Missouri's constitution.
Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said they have joined forces with Planned Parenthood St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri and stand behind providing health care to those who need it. She argued the Legislature is causing confusion despite a clear decision from the highest court.
"Despite the court's repeatedly ruling that 'defunding' Planned Parenthood health centers is unconstitutional, lawmakers continue to deny critical care like birth control, cancer screenings, wellness exams and STI testing and treatment from the patients who need it," Wales stressed.
According to the Missouri Family Health Council, Planned Parenthood health centers serve nearly half of patients who rely on family planning safety net providers in the state. Planned Parenthood Great Plains and St. Louis Region Southwest Missouri will continue serving patients and is looking for alternative solutions for funding.
The new law also blocks Planned Parenthood from being a recognized provider in the state's Medicaid program. Wales pointed out it could hurt health care for people who rely on the safety net.
"There are not enough other providers in the health care safety-net system to absorb Planned Parenthood's patients," Wales pointed out. "At Planned Parenthood, we'll continue to do everything we can to serve our patients, no matter what."
Planned Parenthood Great Plains provides health care to more than 30,000 people in 13 health centers across Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma. The St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri chapter has been serving for more than 90 years.
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By Mary Anne Franks for Ms. Magazine.
Broadcast version by Alex Gonzalez for Northern Rockies News Service reporting for the Ms. Magazine-Public News Service Collaboration
People end up in emergency rooms for a variety of reasons. They’re having trouble breathing. They’ve suddenly developed chest pains. They’re bleeding uncontrollably. They’ve fallen off a roof, they’ve crashed their car, they’ve overdosed, they’re suicidal, they got stabbed in a fight, they got shot by police.
Some people who need emergency services are poor, or have no insurance, or are in the country illegally, or have committed a crime. Under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), they are all entitled to receive emergency care. This law is based on a simple principle: Hospitals shouldn’t be allowed to let people die based on who they are, how much they can pay, or what they have done.
On April 24, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Moyle v. U.S., a case that will determine whether individual states are allowed to exclude a single group from this basic protection: pregnant women. The state of Idaho claims that it has the right to forbid pregnant women and girls—and only pregnant women and girls—from receiving emergency care that could save their lives.
How, and why, would a state want to do this?
First, the how: In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs that forced childbirth does not violate the Constitution. This allowed Idaho’s 2020 “Defense of Life Act,” a draconian anti-abortion law, to go into effect. According to the law, anyone who performs an abortion faces imprisonment of up to five years in prison. Healthcare professionals who perform abortions will also have their professional licenses suspended or revoked permanently.
This puts the state law directly in conflict with federal emergency care law. EMTALA requires Medicare-funded hospitals (which most hospitals are) to provide medically necessary stabilizing treatment to any patient with an “emergency medical condition.” An emergency medical condition is one that, in the absence of immediate medical attention, is likely to cause “serious impairment to bodily functions,” “serious dysfunction of any bodily organ,” or otherwise puts the health of the patient “in serious jeopardy.”
Pregnancy complications are a common reason for emergency care visits, and the medically necessary stabilizing treatment necessary to prevent serious injury or death to women and girls experiencing those complications sometimes includes the termination of the pregnancy.
Given that an abortion is sometimes the only medical treatment that will prevent death or serious bodily injury to women, a more accurate title for Idaho’s abortion law would be the “Let Women Die Act.” But as seen in the majority decision in Dobbs and the arguments propounded recently by the Alliance Defending Freedom in the mifepristone access case, forced birth proponents are rarely candid about their necropolitical agenda. Defenders of Idaho’s law instead feign outrage at the suggestion that the law will kill women, pointing to the law’s exception for abortions performed by a physician who “determined, in his good faith medical judgment and based on the facts known to the physician at the time, that the abortion was necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman.”
Idaho insists that the law’s exception for abortions necessary to save the life of the mother means that there is no conflict between it and federal law. But as the Department of Justice pointed out when it sued to stop the Idaho law from being enforced with regard to EMTALA’s requirements, federal law requires emergency medical care necessary to prevent serious injury, not just death. The federal law does not authorize the withholding of essential medical treatment to patients who are only close to, but have not yet arrived, at death’s door.
What is more, as countless medical professionals have attested, the line between serious bodily injury or death is rarely precise. It is often difficult, if not impossible, to predict the exact moment that a serious medical condition becomes a life-threatening one.
As the National Women’s Law Center detailed in its amicus brief in the case, “No clinical bright line defines when a patient’s condition crosses the lines of this continuum. At what point does the condition of a pregnant woman with a uterine hemorrhage deteriorate from health-threatening to the point that an abortion is ‘necessary’ to prevent death? When is it certain she will die but for medical intervention? How many blood units does she have to lose? One? Two? Five? How fast does she have to be bleeding?”
The recognition that serious bodily injury and death are so closely related as to be nearly indistinguishable has long been reflected in U.S. law. At common law, a person could be convicted of murder not only if he intended to kill but also if he intended to inflict “grievous bodily injury.” The law of self-defense generally allows a person to use deadly force when facing an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm, not only to herself but to others.
Significantly, Idaho’s self-defense law specifies that a person is not required to wait for the danger to become fully apparent before acting: “The defense of self or of another does not require a person to wait until he or she ascertains whether the danger is apparent or real. A person confronted with such danger has a clear right to act upon appearances such as would influence the action of a reasonable person.”
Unless, of course, the person in danger is a pregnant woman.
Mary Anne Franks wrote this article for Ms. Magazine.
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