There has been a rise in high-risk patients going to Illinois hospitals
State Senator Bryan Hughes and the Legislature: “What do we have to do about abortion” in Texas, and why do we still have to deal with it?
State Senator Bryan Hughes is a Republican who represents northeast Texas. He is the author of SB 8, the nationally known law that allows private citizens to sue people for “aiding and abetting” a Texas abortion.
Texas doctors have to choose between treating pregnant patients with serious complications that aren’t what the definition says and giving them appropriate medical care or risk violating the abortion ban and being sued by the patient.
In the legislature, Johnson says Hughes was a big help in lining up key supporters. “I’m glad that we were able to have honest conversations,” she says. This wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t gotten this through the Senate.
The final bill is not as broad as Johnson’s original text. It outlines two conditions where doctors can provide abortions: preterm premature rupture of membranes (the medical term for when someone’s water breaks too early) and ectopic pregnancy (which happens when a fertilized egg implants somewhere besides the uterine lining).
The bill passed in both the Senate and the House, and was approved by the governor in the last few days of the session. That’s a “minor miracle” according to a blog post by George Christian, senior counsel at the Texas Civil Justice League, who wrote about helping to draft the legislation.
The way the bill’s authors handled things in their respective chambers was a reason for it to happen.
Rep. Ann Johnson said she was proud of the bill. She says there were no other pieces of legislation that dealt with abortion. The legislation didn’t have the term “abortion” in it and it didn’t become a political football.
Texas’s abortion laws are back in effect after the state appealed a district court judge’s ruling that it had to stop enforcement when doctors treat patients with serious pregnancies-ending problems.
Johnson is aware of that criticism. “Yes, there are absolutely other pregnancy complications,” she says. This is what we can do at this time. We could get bipartisan agreement of the recognition of ectopic pregnancies at this time.
A Reply to Johnson’s Critique of Texas [Abortion] Laws and the Implications for Medical Practice and Pregnancy
After the Texas legislature started at the beginning of this year, she introduced a bill. Doctors were allowed to provide “medically necessary” services.
Rep. Ann Johnson does not agree that state agencies or organized medical groups could solve these problems with guidance. “You read the black letter of the law,” she says. “When I open the book and it says, ‘Abortion means,’ you don’t get to come later and say, ‘Oh, I really thought abortion meant something else.'”
In her blog post, she added that the Texas health department, the Texas Medical Board, the Texas Medical Association, and the Texas Hospital Association could all ward off these dangerous situations by educating and providing guidance to doctors and hospitals. She wrote that the silence of the organizations that could help end the confusion is unconscionable.
There’s also research on what happens if care is delayed. There were 28 patients in Texas who died because water broke too early for their fetus to survive. They were not offered abortions when first diagnosed – instead their doctors waited for the fetal heart to stop or their condition to worsen. One of these patients had to have a hysterectomy, and ten others developed serious infections, five of which required blood transfusions.
If a doctor prescribes medication that makes a woman pregnant six months later when she doesn’t plan on having a child, then that doctor could be charged with a felony, according to Johnson.
The laws don’t just affect OB-GYNs, Johnson says, pointing to a recent law with criminal penalties for prescribers of certain medications that cause abortions. She gives the example of methotrexate, a drug used to treat cancer and autoimmune disorders. It can be used to treat birth defects, such as cleft lip and cleft palate.
“The doctors and the hospitals and their lawyers were reading all of the Texas [abortion] statutes, some of them from the early 1900s, and saying, ‘Look, we can’t tell you what to do here – the language is confusing, the terminology and the definitions are confusing,'” Johnson says.
All 14 states that ban abortions do allow exceptions to save the life of the pregnant person, according to tracking from the health policy non-profit KFF. But exactly when the person’s life is considered at risk is open to interpretation.
Ann Johnson is the Representative for District 134, which includes the Texas Medical Center. She says after Texas’s abortion ban took effect, people stopped her for walking in the district.
Texas’s Republican Governor Greg Abbott addressed a rally earlier this year, celebrating the abortion bans that took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Abortion bans are fueling a rise in high-risk patients heading to Illinois hospitals: A woman in Missouri says she can’t stop crying
She said she didn’t stop crying for an entire two weeks. The world felt heavy. It is not something anyone should have to go through. It’s difficult to lose someone you love.
NPR isn’t releasing the name of the woman because she doesn’t want anyone in her community to find out. One of the strictest abortion bans in the nation can be found in Missouri. NPR confirmed details of her experience.
In 2020, when Roe was still the law of the land, only 3% of abortions typically occurred in hospitals. In Chicago and other places protected by abortion rights, out-of-State patients are showing up to get abortion care.
Since the repeal of the abortion law, it has become more difficult to get an abortion due to ambiguous language in new state laws. Doctors in those states fear they could lose their medical licenses or wind up in jail.
Logistically it has been difficult to get a patient connected to a doctor. The state of Illinois recently started a program to help with the growing demand. The goal is to get patients who show up at clinics, yet need a higher level of abortion care, connected more quickly with Illinois hospitals. Providers will call the hotline to find out how to get to the nurses.
It’s not easy for high-risk patients to get abortion care in hospitals due to medical costs. The Missouri patient was in the hospital for a long time. National and local abortion funds paid for her bill. For more complex procedures, hospital bills can reach into the tens of thousands of dollars.
When it comes to abortion care, patients have a hard time getting access because they have to wait for the procedure in a hospital, according to the National Abortion Federation. That costs more.
“There’s a lot of good people out there who go through a lot of unfortunate situations like me who need abortion care,” the patient said. It feels wrong to have that taken away by the government.
Those more complex procedures and hospital stays often bring higher medical bills. Medical providers and abortion funds provide assistance in covering the cost of procedures, which now need to be covered by more patients.
Source: Abortion bans are fueling a rise in high-risk patients heading to Illinois hospitals
Texting a Physician’s Question about Wisconsin’s Abortion Bans Are Fueling A Rise in High-Risk Patients Heading to Illinois Hospitals
“The biggest thing was just making space for her to express those emotions,” Laursen said. “Making sure that she felt comfortable with all the decisions she was making. And trying to make her feel as empowered as possible.”
“I’m hearing from my partners across the country that they are trying to figure out what qualifies as imminent danger,” Laursen said. “We’re trying to prevent danger. We are not trying to get to the point where someone is in an emergency.
Dr. Jennifer McIntosh is an OB-GYN in Milwaukee, Wisconsin who specializes in high-risk patients. She’s referring more patients to other states because of Wisconsin’s abortion ban.
She said it was reasonable to get an abortion. But oh, by the way, it’s illegal in your own state. The news is terrible, and I want to tell you how you have to leave the state in order to get an abortion.
In some cases, McIntosh can provide the abortion if the medical risk is significant enough to satisfy Wisconsin’s life-of-the-mother exception. But it feels legally risky.
Dr. Fleisher’s phone is frequently ringing with text messages. At the U of I Health, where Fleisher is an OB-GYN, he’s frequently asked to see how quickly he can take another patient from another state.
Since Roe fell, Fleisher estimates the UI health system is treating at least three times more patients who are traveling from other states for abortion care.
Fleisher said that some of the women are not going to make it through birth and postpartum. “More than the stress of somebody who’s actually making it to see me, that’s the thing that causes me more stress.”
Source: Abortion bans are fueling a rise in high-risk patients heading to Illinois hospitals
Abortion bans are fueling a rise in high-risk patients heading to Illinois hospitals: A case study of out-of-state patients
The Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF), pledged to cover just over $440,000 in hospital bills for 224 patients in the year following Dobbs, according to Meghan Daniel, CAF’s director of services. For out-of-state patients, those bills were the majority. By comparison, in the year that preceded Dobbs, CAF helped cover just over $11,000 for 27 patients.
“We’re seeing more cases right now (of) people who are later in gestation,” Fowler said. “More adolescents who are later in gestation, who are showing up at hospitals because this is really their last resort. They’ve been referred all over.
Non-profit hospitals could be able to help. In return for getting tax breaks, they have financial assistance policies for people who are uninsured or can’t afford their medical bills. But the policy at UI Health in Chicago, for example, only covers Illinois residents. For patients who don’t have insurance or whose insurance won’t pay, the hospital gives discounts if they live in other states.
Source: Abortion bans are fueling a rise in high-risk patients heading to Illinois hospitals
The Memory of a Born-Infeld Trauma Infered from a Mother’s Heartbeat Observation in a Missouri Hospital
Back in Missouri, the patient has a special room dedicated to her son. She brought home a recording of his heartbeat and keeps his remains in a heart-shaped casket. She talks to her son, tells him how much she loves him.
She’s working on healing emotionally and physically. She was angry with her home state, because she was able to travel to Illinois for care.
Texas Supreme Court has allowed the state’s abortion laws to go back into effect after a district judge’s ruling that the laws were unconstitutional. The judge had ordered the state to stop enforcement of the laws when doctors treat patients with serious pregnancies-ending problems. The state had appealed the judge’s ruling, which was upheld by the US Supreme Court.