U.S. Repro Watch, October 24

U.S. Repro Watch provides periodic updates on news of interest on U.S. reproductive rights. Here are a few recent items you won’t want to miss:

1. Georgia Supreme Court allows six-week abortion ban to remain in effect.

• On October 24, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled to allow the state’s law banning abortion after approximately six weeks of pregnancy to remain in effect, reversing a lower court decision that struck down the law.
• The lower court had ruled that since the Georgia Constitution prohibits the legislature from passing laws that violate either the state or federal constitution, the abortion ban was void since it violated Roe v. Wade when it was enacted in 2019.
• The case, SisterSong v. Georgia, will return to the trial court for ruling on the remaining claims brought by the plaintiffs that the ban violates Georgians’ rights to privacy and equal protection under the state Constitution.

2. Three hospitals in Alabama plan to close their maternity units, putting patients at risk.

• Some pregnant patients will now have to travel through at least three counties to find a hospital with an OB-GYN. More than a third of the counties in Alabama are maternity care deserts—meaning they have no hospitals with obstetrics care, birth centers, OB-GYNs or certified nurse midwives.
• Alabama has one of the country’s highest maternal mortality rates and is one of 14 states that has criminalized abortion.

3. A federal judicial panel agreed to examine the issue of “judge shopping.”

• The U.S. Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Civil Rules discussed whether it should create a national rule ensuring cases are randomly assigned to a judge, preventing “judge shopping”—a process where “state attorneys general and activists. . . file lawsuits challenging government policies in courthouses where a single, sympathetic judge hears most cases.”
• One example of a single-judge district is in Amarillo, Texas, where the only presiding judge granted a request from an anti-abortion group to rescind FDA approval of the abortion pill mifepristone in the case Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA. (The order was temporarily blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court.)

New data from the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) shows that reports of abuse involving reproductive coercion—actions that prevent someone from making crucial decisions about their body and reproductive health—nearly doubled in the year after Roe v. Wade was overturned. “If you cannot make these decisions, it could mean unfortunately that you have to stay in an abusive situation longer than you want to,” said Marium Durrani, the vice president of public policy at the NDVH.

Homicide is the leading cause of death among people who are pregnant or have given birth within a year in the U.S., surpassing dangerous pregnancy complications such as eclampsia and hemorrhage.

A new study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that states with abortion restrictions had a 16% higher rate of infant mortality, even before Roe was overturned. 

The study, which analyzed infant mortality rates from 2014 to 2018, found that state-level abortion restrictions made even more of an impact on infant mortality rates than socioeconomic factors, such as poverty and median income.

The study also found that the mortality rate for Black infants was more than twice that of white infants. Infant mortality rates in states that have banned abortion post-Roe are expected to rise, in part due to the exodus of OB-GYNs from those states.

The United States has the highest infant and maternal mortality rates of any high-income country.

November 6–10: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) 188th Period of Sessions

• The IACHR will hold five days of public hearings in Washington, D.C. on human rights issues throughout the Americas, including one examining the U.S.’s human rights record regarding its post-Roe abortion bans and restrictions. The Center will participate in that November 8 session, titled “United States: Abortion Access” (2 p.m. ET), as well the “Region: Impacts of Agrochemicals on Reproductive Rights” session (4 p.m. ET) on the same day. All hearings at the IACHR event will be held both in person and streamed online in multiple languages.  

November 7: Abortion on the Ballot in Ohio

• Voters in Ohio will weigh in on a ballot measure that would establish a state constitutional right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” including decisions about abortion, contraception, fertility treatment, miscarriage care and continuing pregnancy.
• Last month, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled to leave “intentionally misleading” language on the ballot initiative.

November 28: Texas Supreme Court Oral Arguments in Zurawski v. State of Texas

• The state appealed an August 4 ruling by a Texas district court judge blocking the state’s abortion bans as they apply to dangerous pregnancy complications. The case was brought by the Center on behalf of Texas women denied abortion care and Texas physicians.