Abortion rights roundup: July 21, 2023

This series is a weekly roundup of abortion news, covering various statewide laws and bans, those who stand up to them, and the ongoing push by anti-abortion conservatives to restrict abortion care and erase bodily autonomy.

Pennsylvania Democrats are preparing a bill that would ensure abortion care is safe and legal for residents and those traveling to the state.

Democratic Pennsylvania state Sens. Amanda Cappelletti and Judith Schwank are set to introduce a package of bills that would protect abortion providers and patients in the state, including those who travel to Pennsylvania to seek abortion care. It would prohibit Pennsylvania courts from “cooperating with out-of-state civil and criminal cases.” It would also ensure that officials from abortion-restrictive states cannot arrest patients for obtaining abortion care while they’re in Pennsylvania.

Abortion in Pennsylvania is legal up to 23 weeks and six days into a pregnancy.

In a memo Cappelletti and Schwank sent to their fellow state senators, the Abortions Protections Package is described as “a package of bills to ensure the Commonwealth is not complicit in other states’ efforts to attack bodily autonomy.”

Schwank said in a statement:

This legislation would bolster Pennsylvania’s commitment to legal abortion while sending a clear message to neighboring states that we will not be bullied. … We’ve watched states all over the country race to implement archaic abortion bans since the Dobbs decision. In Pennsylvania, abortion remains safe and legal. Our providers should not be looking over their shoulder or fearful of potential out-of-state prosecution for rendering health care to their patients.

Comprising six bills, the package is designed to “ensure that everybody within our borders is protected in their right to access an abortion and the doctors and nurses who provide it are freely able to provide health care,” according to the lawmakers’ memo.

Amal Bass, the interim co-executive director of the Women’s Law Project, was quoted in a post to the website PA Senate Democrats saying:

Healthcare is not a crime. We are grateful to Senators Cappelletti and Schwank for introducing legislation to proactively fight anti-abortion efforts to restrict our travel, punish our family members for helping us find medical care in a crisis, prosecute doctors for honoring their oath, and access our private medical records. We will not allow anti-abortion extremists to strip Pennsylvanians of our freedom, safety, and privacy.

Maine’s Democratic governor signs historic legislation to expand abortion rights.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed a law on Wednesday that expands the period a pregnant person can legally obtain an abortion.

Maine’s current abortion law allows a pregnant person to “terminate a pregnancy before viability in consultation with a provider.” Viability is generally set at roughly 24 weeks. The law offers an exception if the patient’s life is at risk. The new law, L.D. 161, called An Act to Improve Maine’s Reproductive Privacy Laws, allows the procedure at any time before birth if a doctor believes it is in the best interest of the pregnant person’s health.

“Maine law should, must recognize that every pregnancy, like every woman, is different, and that politicians cannot effectively legislate this very personal and very difficult decision and the difficult nuances of abortion care by trying to create exception after exception for when abortions are or are not allowed,” Mills said before signing the bill into law.

Along with the District of Columbia, only six states — Alaska, Colorado, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont — allow for abortions without gestational limits, depending on the advice of a pregnant person’s physician.

Three Texas women who are suing the state over abortion testify in a lawsuit.

On Wednesday, four of 15 plaintiffs suing the state of Texas over its abortion laws offered emotional testimony at a hearing in Austin.

The suit was brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights Texas in March. Lawyers are asking the state to clarify emergency medical exceptions in the state’s restrictive abortion laws.

The lawsuit says that, due to restrictive abortion bans in the state, the plaintiffs were “denied necessary and potentially life-saving obstetrical care because medical professionals throughout the state fear liability.”

According to reporting from CNN, Amanda Zurawski, a plaintiff in the case, said she “was forced to wait until she was septic to receive abortion care, causing one of her fallopian tubes to become permanently closed.”

Not long after learning the gender of her baby, Zurawski was told by her doctors that she had cervical insufficiency, meaning that her cervix could not “retain the fetus,” she would dilate prematurely, and her daughter would not survive.

“I went from feeling physically OK to shaking uncontrollably. I was freezing cold even though it was 110 degrees out. My teeth were chattering violently. I couldn’t get a sentence out. My husband Josh asked me how I was feeling on a scale from 1 to 10. I didn’t know the difference between 1 and 10 — which one was higher,” Zurawski said in her testimony.

“[I was] completely devastated. I’d just been given the worst news of my life, and I was terrified because I didn’t know what was going to happen. Again, this was my first pregnancy. I didn’t know what labor would be like, I didn’t know if I would go into labor. I didn’t know if I’d get sick. It was terrifying,” Zurawski said.

In her opening statements, Center for Reproductive Rights attorney Molly Duane said her plaintiffs “suffered unimaginable tragedy,” according to the Independent.

Attorneys in the case are seeking an injunction against the abortion law. Abortions in Texas are completely banned, except in cases in which the pregnant person’s life is in danger.

Temporary reprieve from Iowa’s restrictive six-week abortion law. 

On July 14, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law limiting abortions at six weeks or when embryonic cardiac activity is detected. By Monday, Polk County District Judge Joseph Seidlin issued a temporary injunction blocking the newly signed law.

In a recent statement, Reynolds vowed to fight the injunction.

“The abortion industry’s attempt to thwart the will of Iowans and the voices of their elected representatives continues today, but I will fight this all the way to the Iowa Supreme Court, where we expect a decision that will finally provide justice for the unborn,” Reynolds said.

After the injunction was issued on Monday, Ruth Richardson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States, said in a statement:

Today’s ruling means patients across Iowa will be able to access abortion care and retain control over their bodies and futures. We are proud to continue providing the care our patients need and deserve. … The fight to preserve Iowans’ fundamental right to reproductive freedom is far from over. We will continue to oppose this egregious, unconstitutional ban as it works its way through the courts.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.