June 24 marked the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s extremist majority’s vote to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established federal protections for women’s reproductive rights that stood for nearly 50 years. As pro-choice and anti-abortion activists gathered in Washington, D.C. on the last weekend in June to celebrate and protest the decision, 25 million women in the U.S. now live in states with total abortion bans or tighter restrictions. Over the past year, some Republican-controlled states have passed new laws criminalizing abortion, with some specifically targeting anyone who assists pregnant people in obtaining an abortion in other states.
A recent survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 68 percent of OB-GYN physicians said the Supreme Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade has made the management of pregnancy-related medical emergencies worse, 64 percent said the ruling has increased pregnancy-related mortality, and 70 percent believed the ruling exacerbated racial and ethnic inequities in maternal health. At the same time, a new national poll on abortion conducted by NBC News found that 61 percent of all registered voters disapprove of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, that includes nearly 8 in 10 female voters ages 18-49, two-thirds of suburban women, 60 percent of independents and one-third of Republican voters.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Amy Littlefield, The Nation magazine’s abortion access correspondent, who talks about the consequences of the high court’s ruling one year ago, that ended women’s constitutional right to obtain safe, legal abortions.
AMY LITTLEFIELD: So it’s important to note today that 13 states currently have bans in place on abortion. And 14, if you count Wisconsin, where there’s a pre-Roe ban that abortion providers have been forced to abide by because it’s the ambiguity of the landscape there. Most of those states, 10 of them, are all clustered together in a row across the Deep South, starting in Texas and moving eastward.
And we’re seeing an increasing number of states. Of course, you know, Ron DeSantis famously assigned a six-week ban that’s looming potentially in Florida. States like North Carolina, states that were considered safe and that were a haven for for people in the South that are now really under threat.
And then, you know, on the flip side, of course, we see that states like New York, California, Connecticut are enacting historic protections on abortion access. Abortion is more accessible, more funded, more supported in some of these blue progressive states than it ever has been before. And in fact, the National Institute for Reproductive Health put out a report more than $200 million has been spent to support abortion, contraception and reproductive health care access in the year since Dobbs at the state and municipal level.
So it is really hard to characterize the landscape in any way other than to say it depends on where you live, who you are, how much money you have to travel.
SCOTT HARRIS: Amy, I did want to talk about the doctors. The hesitance of many of these doctors to take any risks. We have heard stories about miscarriages where women are led to believe that they must bleed out before they can get an abortion for a fetus that is either compromised or even has passed away, leaving the pregnant woman to be exposed to possible infection through sepsis or even death.
Tell us about the consequences of these anti-abortion laws that are not only affecting those women who seek abortions, but for women who are yearning for a successful pregnancy, but run into problems.
AMY LITTLEFIELD: Absolutely. I mean, Scott, it feels like almost every day now we’re seeing a new news story about a heart-breaking experience of someone with a wanted pregnancy who has suffered a miscarriage or a devastating fetal anomaly and has needed to end that pregnancy either to save her own life or because it is the most humane thing to do for her family and where that person is denied care when they go to a hospital or see their doctor.
Stories that stick with me include some of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed out of Texas by the Center for Reproductive Rights. Amanda Zurawski, who got so sick as a result of being denied care when she was going through a pregnancy loss, that she was in the ICU and her family had to gather around by her side because they thought she was going to die.
I mean, these are the stories that we’re hearing. We’re not hearing the stories of people who perhaps have died or people who do not have the same access to speak with the media or lawyers as some of these plaintiffs. You know, I do think doctors are being placed in incredibly challenging position here in many of these states, like Texas.
The anti-abortion laws are being layered on top of, you know, abortion stigma. They’re being layered on top of existing religious restrictions if it’s a Catholic or Christian hospital. So there’s an enormous amount of confusion and no one has really been able to lay out clearly for them exactly how they’re supposed to interpret that law. I think, unfortunately, what’s happening in a lot of these states like Texas is that OB-GYNs are finding that they are in an impossible position where they can’t provide the standard of care to their patients because of these bans. And a lot of them are leaving. And that’s going to leave care deserts in places that already have high rates of maternal mortality, especially for poor black women and people of color.
SCOTT HARRIS: Pro-choice activists have been very successful at statewide referendums just this past November in the midterm elections. Tell us a little bit about the success they had. It was surprising to many that deeply red or conservative states, by substantial numbers, passed these referendums that blocked making abortions illegal in those states. What’s the hope for the future on the route of referendums?
AMY LITTLEFIELD: I think that abortion rights groups really see ballot initiatives as their most promising tactic to restore abortion access in some of these red states, with the huge caveat that the process is different everywhere and that in a lot of these Republican gerrymandered states, the state legislatures have tried to make it more difficult for these measures to actually pass.
And we’re seeing that in Ohio right now. Republicans are just trying to make it more difficult to pass a ballot initiative in response to the fact that activists there are trying to put abortion on the ballot — and doctors, I should say — not all of them are activists. This is a place where a lot of doctors have gotten involved as well in trying to change the law in their favor.
So I think we’re going to see a lot more ballot initiatives on abortion rights. I mean, I was there in Kansas last summer right after the Dobbs decision in August when they had a special election where this anti-abortion measure was expected to pass in deep ruby red Kansas and it was defeated. And the momentum there was enormous. The energy was huge.
I felt like I was really seeing what happens when the pro-choice majority finds its voice and gets mobilized. And then, of course, we saw the same thing happen in Kentucky, in California and Vermont. And so with six ballot initiatives all going towards the pro-choice side, I think there’s enormous momentum and Democrats are finally catching on to the fact that abortion is a winning issue.
And so I think we’re going to see, you know, Ohio’s working on it, South Dakota, Missouri, Florida and beyond, states where we’re going to see abortion on the ballot. And that being sort of the place where a lot of state organizing and momentum and energy is building.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Amy Littlefield (26:45) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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