U.S. Repro Watch, July 27

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. A two-day hearing was held in a Texas state court last week in Zurawski v. State of Texas, with riveting testimony by some of the women denied abortion care despite facing severe pregnancy complications that risked their health, fertility and lives. 

• The court in Austin heard arguments July 19–20 on the plaintiffs’ request to temporarily block Texas’s abortion bans as they apply to pregnancy complications, as well as on the state’s request to dismiss the case.
• Five of the plaintiffs—four women denied abortions and an OB-GYN—testified at the hearing, and three others spoke at the press briefings after after the hearing. Learn more about the hearing and view photos and video replays of the briefings here.

2. In positive state news:

• Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced that petitioners submitted enough signatures to put an amendment on the November ballot that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution.
• The Missouri Supreme Court ordered the state Attorney General to sign off on a cost estimate of a ballot measure seeking to restore abortion rights in the state. AG Andrew Bailey’s “unjustified refusal” to approve the estimate has delayed the process for getting the constitutional amendment on the ballot.
• In Maine, Gov. Janet Mills signed a bill into law that will allow abortion access later in pregnancy if deemed necessary by a physician.

Infant mortality is on the rise in Texas, according to new data obtained from the Texas Department of State Health Services. “Some 2,200 infants died in Texas in 2022—an increase of 227 deaths, or 11.5%,” reports CNN. Infant deaths caused by severe genetic and birth anomalies grew by 21.6% in 2022, reversing a decades-long decline. Texas’s “vigilante” law banning abortion at approximately six weeks of pregnancy took effect in September 2021.

Aug. 1: Indiana’s total abortion ban expected to take effect.

• The Indiana Supreme Court recently ruled that the ban does not violate the state constitution. The ban could take effect as soon as August 1.
• A narrow block is in place in another challenge to the law, which argues that the total ban violates plaintiffs’ religious beliefs.
• Indiana is one of the 14 states where abortion is illegal.

Aug. 8: Vote on Ohio’s ballot measure.

• Voters will weigh in on a controversial measure that would make it harder to pass constitutional amendments. The ballot initiative would require constitutional amendments to pass with 60% of votes instead of a simple majority.
• The measure will go to voters in August, a few months before a proposal to protect abortion rights will appear on the ballot.