Abortion – Abortion Clinics, Abortion Pill, Abortion Information

In The Turnaway Study, Diana Greene Foster shares research conducted over 10 years with about 1,000 women who had or were denied abortions, tracking impacts on mental, physical and economic health.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. When Mike Pence was running for vice president, he said, if we appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Court, as Donald Trump intends to do, I believe we will see Roe v. Wade consigned to the ash heap of history where it belongs. Since then, Trump has appointed two conservative justices. The arguments used against abortion often refer to the medical risks of the procedure and the guilt and loss of self-esteem suffered by women who have abortions.

In order to explore what the impact of abortion is on women’s health and women’s lives, my guest, Diana Greene Foster, became the principal investigator of a 10-year study comparing women who had abortions at the end of the deadline allowed by the clinic and those who just missed the deadline and were turned away. The study focuses on the emotional health and socioeconomic outcomes for women who received a wanted abortion and those who were denied one.

Her goal is for judges and policymakers to understand what banning abortion would mean for women and children. The results of the study are published in Foster’s new book “The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, A Thousand Women, And The Consequences Of Having – Or Being Denied – An Abortion.” Turnaway refers to the women who were turned away from having an abortion. Foster is a professor at the University of California, San Francisco in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences.

Diana Greene Foster, welcome to FRESH AIR. Before we get to the results of the study, what impact do you think the pandemic is having on access to abortion?

DIANA GREENE FOSTER: Thank you for having me. The pandemic has definitely made abortion a lot harder for women to access in certain states. There were a handful of states that tried to declare that abortion wasn’t an essential service. And that shut down clinics. And then a judge would put a hold on that. And they would open. But then they would have too many people waiting. And they couldn’t see everyone. It was, I think, particularly a nightmare in Texas, with a lot of people unable to be seen and people traveling hundreds of miles at a time when they should’ve been able to shelter in place.

GROSS: So why did you want to do this study comparing women who had abortions at the end of the deadline allowed by the clinic and women who just missed the deadline and were turned away?

FOSTER: The idea that abortion hurts women has been put forth by people who are opposed to abortion. And it really has resonated. So state governments have imposed restrictions in response to the idea that abortion hurts women, so telling clinics that they have to counsel women on the harms of abortion. And that idea made it all the way up to the Supreme Court so that Justice Kennedy, in 2007, used the idea that abortion hurts women as an excuse – or as a reason – for banning one procedure.

And what he said in 2007 was that while we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude that some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained. Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow. And critics of this statement have said this is patronizing that women would need to be protected from their own decisions.

But the one thing I like about this quote is that he admits that there aren’t reliable data. And so my goal with the Turnaway Study was to create reliable data, so have a scientific study where the two groups of women are similar. But their outcomes are different because one group received an abortion and one was denied.

GROSS: You write that anti-abortion activists have shifted the debate from the rights of women versus the rights of fetuses to abortion being a woman’s health issue. How are people who are using women’s health to frame the issue, how are they using it? What is the argument they’re making?

FOSTER: I think, from both sides, there’s an emphasis on the danger of abortion. So if you ask most people, they would say abortion is dangerous. And anti-abortion people think that the complications are much greater than they are. And even pro-abortion rights people talk about how dangerous it was before it was legal. And so there, I think, people have an idea that it’s extremely dangerous.

But the truth is, in terms of complication rates, that abortion is safer than very common procedures like tonsillectomy and wisdom tooth removal. And it’s certainly much safer than having childbirth. So – and the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has just come out with a report summarizing the complication data for abortion that concludes with this, that abortion is not a dangerous procedure.

GROSS: Give us a sense of how you conducted this 10-year study, how you chose the women, how you got information from them about the consequences of having or not having an abortion.

FOSTER: So what we did to do this study was we went to 30 abortion facilities across the country who had the latest gestational age within 150 miles. So if you are too late – if you showed up at a clinic too late for that clinic, there was no one – no other facility within 150 miles who would do an abortion for you. And from each of these clinics we recruited, for every one woman they turned away, two women who were just under the gestational limit.

And because most of these sites had limits in the second trimester but 90% of American women who have abortions have them in the first trimester, we also recruited one woman from the first trimester. And another point is that these facilities had varying limits, all the way from 10 weeks up through the end of the second trimester. And so you could be denied an abortion in Fargo and receive an abortion at that very same gestation if you went to Dallas or New York.

GROSS: And then you – someone from your team interviewed each of the women how often over the course of the 10 years?

FOSTER: So we interviewed them one week after they either received or were denied an abortion, and then every six months for five years. And these interviews were not mostly about the abortion or even unwanted pregnancy. We were interested in their mental health, their physical health, their family’s economic well-being, how they were caring for the children they already have and whether they were having more children over the course of the five years.

GROSS: Your study found that women denied abortion had worse mental health problems – for instance, high levels of anxiety, lower self-esteem – than women who received abortions. Judging from what the women told you in this study, what accounts for that?

FOSTER: So we did find that there – an association between abortion and mental health. But it was exactly opposite to what has been said in the popular media. It’s not that receiving an abortion was associated with worse mental health, but in the short run, being denied the abortion was – so higher anxiety, lower self-esteem, lower life satisfaction. For up until the first six months, the women who were denied fared worse.

And, in part, it’s because they were still looking for another facility that could do their abortion. Or they were coming to terms with the fact that they were about to have a baby that they had previously felt that they weren’t able to take care of. So the anxiety and depression actually are, surprisingly, the same between women who receive and who are denied abortions after six months. The big differences that we find in this study over time are not about mental health.

GROSS: What are they about, the big differences?

FOSTER: So when you ask women, why do you want to have an abortion? – they give reasons. The most common is that they can’t afford to have a child, or they can’t afford to have another child. And we see very large differences in economic well-being over time. Another surprising fact is that most women who have abortions – 60% of women who have abortions in the United States are already mothers. And so a common reason is that they want to take care of the children they already have.

And we find that, in fact, there are differences in women’s ability to take care of their existing kids based on whether they received or were denied an abortion. Another reason is that they feel like their relationship with the man involved in the pregnancy isn’t strong enough to support having a child together.

GROSS: So let me ask you about the financial question because a lot of people would say, well, if you can’t afford to have a baby, that’s not a good reason not to have the baby. You know, people have babies all the time. You’ll find a way to make it work. So when you say that there are financial consequences about being denied an abortion, what are some of those financial consequences, short term and long term?

FOSTER: There are immediate differences in women’s ability to hold a full time job. And they’re reporting that they have enough money to meet basic living needs, like food, housing and transportation. And I completely understand people who who would like there not to be economic costs to having kids. And we could have a society with much more generous policies towards low-income moms. And that would be a good thing regardless of whether women have abortions or not.

I think one important point to note about financial reasons for abortion is that they were rarely the only reason. So 40% said they had financial reasons for having an abortion. But for only 6% was it their only reason. So people are just are weighing a whole host of life considerations when they’re deciding whether to have a baby or not. What’s important, I think, about the financial issues is that that it has long-term effects on people’s well-being.

And when we compare women who are denied an abortion and have a baby – their economic well-being to women who receive an abortion but have another child later within the study period, those later children, the subsequent to an abortion – they are raised in better economic circumstances. So when a woman says that she can’t afford to have a child, she actually does better if she’s able to wait to have a child. Even just a few years. Her child is less likely to be raised in poverty and less likely to be raised in a house without enough money.

GROSS: Are you looking at women in the study of a social – of a certain financial status?

FOSTER: Yeah, so women who seek abortions nationally are disproportionately low-income And that’s – particularly they’re low-income if they are seeking abortion later in pregnancy. And why is because it’s all of the costs associated with getting an abortion are much harder to overcome quickly or to gather the money quickly if you’re already trying to raise a family of four on $11,000 a year. So there are already – women who seek abortions are disproportionately poor. And when they’re denied an abortion, there’s a large economic cost.

GROSS: And talk a little bit about the economic cost. Why is there an economic cost to being denied an abortion if you’re already financially challenged?

FOSTER: So women who are denied an abortion are less likely to be able to continue working at the same rate. And in addition to not being able to work, they do often get some kind of public assistance, but it’s not enough to meet the massive costs of having a baby. So it’s diapers and child care if you are able to work and a place to live. It’s not a surprise to anyone that having a child is expensive.

But when you’re wanting to have a child, it’s often because you feel like you have the resources to do that and that you have the social support to help you support that child. And when women are turned away from abortion we don’t find the same kind of family support that women would need in order to feel economically secure. So when we look at women who receive abortions and women who are denied, over five years, the women who are denied are much more likely to be living alone, raising kids without other adult family members and without a partner, compared to women who receive an abortion.

GROSS: One of the reasons you found many women want to have an abortion is that they don’t want to remain tied to the man they got pregnant with. This might be because the man is abusive. It might be that the woman just doesn’t want to stay with him. It might be the marriage is already dissolving. Can you talk about that a little bit and why that’s such an important issue for the women?

FOSTER: Yeah. The – about a third of women seeking abortions have a reason that’s associated with the man involved in the pregnancy. And when we have a woman who tells her story and she’s in a violent relationship and she explains how it’s very difficult to find a job when you’re pregnant, to keep a job when you’re pregnant or find and maintain a job with a baby – and she attributes – says that the incidents of domestic violence skyrockets ’cause you’re financially dependent on your partner because you have to be home with the kid. And we actually find that women who receive abortions – their exposure to domestic violence goes down dramatically after receiving an abortion and that there is no decrease for years among women who are turned away. So being denied an abortion increases the chance that you’re tethered to a violent partner.

GROSS: Let me reintroduce you here. If you’re just joining us, my guest is Diana Foster. Her new book is called “The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, A Thousand Women, And The Consequences Of Having – Or Being Denied – An Abortion.” We’ll talk more after we take a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let’s get back to my interview with Diana Foster. Her new book, “The Turnaway Study,” is about her 10-year study comparing women who had an abortion just before the clinic’s deadline and women who arrived just a few days too late and were denied an abortion. The study compares the physical health, mental health, financial circumstances and family life of these two sets of women.

I think it’s fair to say your biggest finding in your study is – correct me if I’m wrong here – that there’s no major consequences that you could find that most women have as a result of an abortion.

FOSTER: No negative consequences. We find that 95% of women who receive an abortion later report that it was the right decision for them. So I think it’s a surprising fact people assume that women feel regret. And I think it’s not that they don’t realize that there are moral questions involved, but they’re weighing their whole life responsibilities and plans and decide this is the right decision for them. And interestingly, I think people have been told so many times that abortion is wrong. But they know that they’ve been responsible in their own decision-making and that they haven’t done something wrong.

And so they assume it’s other women. But, you know, everyone is doing that. Everyone is assuming, well, if abortion is wrong but my abortion isn’t wrong, I’m just an exception. But, I think, if we talked more to people who had abortions, we would hear that everyone is doing the best they can and trying to make responsible choices that take care of themselves and their children.

GROSS: Well, a lot of people ask, well, if you didn’t want to have a baby, why didn’t you use contraception and prevent yourself from getting pregnant? So for people who ask that question, what are the answers you found in your study?

FOSTER: Yeah. Many women who have abortions are using contraception. Two-thirds of the women in our study were using a contraceptive method in the month that they became pregnant. And note that not using a contraceptive method is not guaranteed to result in a pregnancy. Lots of people take risks. And not everyone becomes pregnant. So you know, there are very few people who’ve never had sex at a time that they weren’t seeking to have a baby. And contraceptives are expensive. They – many have side effects. We make them as difficult to access as possible. And then we’re horrified when people don’t use them consistently.

So there was a woman named Chiara (ph) who was from Kentucky. And she had lapsed in her birth control by just a few days because the resupply hadn’t come in time. And her hope was everything would be OK, and then it wasn’t. You know, it’s surprisingly difficult to constantly be vigilant on contraception, especially if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like the available methods.

GROSS: So what about women who were turned away from having an abortion and carried the child to term and kept the child? Did they end up, in the long run, being glad they had the child? And was there a difference between the short-term and long-term reaction to having that child?

FOSTER: Women who were denied an abortion – at the first interview, just one week later, two-thirds of them were still wishing that they could have an abortion. It goes down to about 12% at six months, down to 4% after they’ve had the child. And who is particularly at risk for wishing they had not had the child are people who place the child for adoption because I think there’s something about having a kid on your knee. You’re much less likely to say that you wish you hadn’t had that child. So people do report that they are glad that they had the child.

But we have another way of measuring how people feel about their child and it’s through a maternal bonding scale. So we asked women a series of questions about how they feel about their infant. And we asked women who were denied the abortion about the child they had because they were denied. And we asked women who had a subsequent pregnancy later that they carried to term. So it’s a series of questions like, I feel happy when my child laughs, or, I feel trapped as a mother.

And women who were denied the abortion are less likely to say, I feel happy when my child laughs and more likely to say, I feel trapped as a mother compared to women who were able to get their abortion and had another child later. And when you use this kind of objective measure of maternal bonding, you see that women who are denied an abortion are more likely to have poor bonding with that child than women who get an abortion and have another child later. It doesn’t say that these children are all unwanted at all. People are very resilient. And people do the absolute best they can with their children.

GROSS: Let’s take another break here and then talk some more. If you’re just joining us, my guest is Diana Greene Foster. Her new book is called “The Turnaway Study: Ten years, A Thousand Women, And The Consequences Of Having – Or Being Denied – An Abortion.” We’ll talk more after a break. I’m Terry Gross. And this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOMINIC MILLER’S “URBAN WALTZ”)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. Let’s get back to my interview with Diana Greene Foster. Her new book, “The Turnaway Study,” is about her 10-year study comparing women who had an abortion just before the clinic’s deadline and women who arrived just a few days too late and were denied an abortion. The study compares the physical health, mental health, financial circumstances and family life of these two sets of women. Foster is a professor at the University of California, San Francisco in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences.

How would you like to see your research used for policy relating to abortion?

FOSTER: I would love, first, to have its policy more broadly, which is much more generous assistance and less punitive assistance for low-income women who have kids regardless of whether their pregnancy was planned or not. We have welfare caps, where if you have an additional child, you don’t get any more assistance, which is draconian and cruel. So we need much more generous policies and child care so that nobody is making the decision just for economic reasons.

In terms of abortion, if we want abortions to happen earlier in pregnancy, then many restrictions should be taken off the books because they don’t improve women’s health. And they cause abortions to happen later. For example, the one that would have the biggest effect in making abortions happen sooner would be to drop the Hyde Amendment, which is a ban on the federal government paying for any abortions.

The people who rely on the federal government for their health insurance – that’s people on Medicaid, people in the military and people who are in the Peace Corps – all of those people are subject to this Hyde Amendment. And it means their public insurance program won’t cover their abortion. And so they have to raise the whole cost of it themselves. We even have some states that ban private insurance from covering abortion. So it’s not just a matter of not wanting your tax money paying for the abortion, it’s really, those laws seem to make it clear that it’s about making women pay the price themselves.

GROSS: A lot of people who oppose abortion oppose it because they equate abortion with murder. And in that respect, no amount of research that you can offer about the consequences of being denied an abortion on a woman’s life and even on her child’s life or the rest of her family’s lives, no amount of that research is going to convince somebody that abortion isn’t murder.

And in that sense, no amount of research is going to sway those people. Do you feel, in that respect, that your research is kind of futile because a lot of opponents of abortion oppose it because they think of it as murder?

FOSTER: Yeah. I’m under no illusions that this study will change somebody’s mind if they think that the embryo or fetus is a person. This study can’t resolve the question of when, in pregnancy, the embryo or fetus becomes a person or when the rights of the fetus would outweigh the person who carries it. That’s not what this study is about. What this study is is about what the consequences of either receiving or being denied an abortion are on women’s lives.

And Roe v. Wade talked about the tension between women’s bodily autonomy and the state’s interest in a developing fetus. And the law tried to strike a balance there. And what this study adds to that difficult set of issues is that there is more at stake than just women’s bodily autonomy and the well-being of a fetus who will become a baby.

It’s not just her body, but her whole life trajectory, her chance of having a wanted baby later, her chance of having a good, positive romantic relationship and her chance of supporting herself and her family. It affects their existing children and the well-being of her future children. It can’t resolve personhood. But it points out that if we make laws that make assumptions or make decisions about when personhood begins, it has huge ramifications for many other people.

GROSS: Let’s get to the Supreme Court. There are now two conservative Trump appointees on the bench. The Supreme Court is expected to hand down a pretty major abortion decision this month. And it pertains to Louisiana and whether doctors performing abortions need to have admitting rights in a nearby hospital. There was a similar case in Texas a few years ago. So tell us about this case and what kind of precedent it would set and what it might tell us about the new Supreme Court and abortion.

FOSTER: So June Medical Services v. Russo is the case that is about Louisiana’s admitting privileges law. It’s the same type of restriction that was ruled unconstitutional in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt by the Supreme Court in 2016. But since then, we’ve gained two conservative justices. And what they decide here will send very large signals to abortion rights advocates and abortion rights opponents.

At issue is the same law about admitting privileges. But what the Supreme Court said in the earlier case, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, is that states need to weigh the scientific evidence about the burdens and benefits of restrictions. And they can’t pass laws that will have no benefit, but only burden. And so if the Supreme Court decides differently here, it’s another nod of our current government to saying that science will not be taken seriously and that it’s political ideology that gets to decide laws.

GROSS: What do you think are the odds that the Supreme Court will just overturn Roe v. Wade at some point?

FOSTER: Right now, the Supreme Court doesn’t have to overturn Roe v. Wade to make it nearly impossible for women to access abortions. Simply by allowing more and more restrictions to be implemented, they can make abortion nearly impossible to access. I think it’s a kind of a political question whether they would want to take such a stand on a law that actually is politically popular. So I don’t know, politically, whether they would do that. Apparently, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were selected from a list of potential justices that had at least voiced that they were opposed to abortion rights. So they may have the desire. But I don’t know if they would take that political risk.

GROSS: What are the most significant findings for you from your study that we haven’t already discussed?

FOSTER: I think the most important idea that I would like to convey is to correct the idea that abortion is always a hard decision and that women need more time to think about it and that they can’t be trusted to make a decision that’s best for themselves. So in this study, about half the women say that the decision to have an abortion was easy or straightforward. And half say it was somewhat or very difficult. But having a decision be easy doesn’t mean that they weren’t thoughtful about it, that they were weighing all of the considerations, all of their responsibilities and deciding what was best for them. And I think it’s safe to say they were making good decisions in that when they say why they want to have an abortion, all of their concerns are borne out in the experiences of women who are denied abortions. So they’re worried they’re not financially prepared. And there are economic costs if you’re denied. They say it’s not the right time for a baby. And if they’re able to delay having a child, that child does better.

So I would love to impart first how common it is to have an abortion. About between 1 in 3 and 1 in 4 American women will have an abortion in her lifetime. You know, it’s people like the people you know. And they’re making decisions based on their life and what they think the consequences would be of having a baby when they weren’t ready.

GROSS: Let’s take a short break here. And then we’ll talk some more. If you’re just joining us, my guest is Diana Foster. Her new book is called “The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, A Thousand Women, And The Consequences Of Having – Or Being Denied – An Abortion.” After we take a break, we’ll talk about abortions in her family. We’ll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF RED HEART THE TICKER SONG, “SLIGHTLY UNDER WATER”)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let’s get back to my interview with Diana Greene Foster. Her new book, “The Turnaway Study,” is about her 10-year study comparing women who had an abortion just before the clinic’s deadline and women who arrived just a few days too late and were therefore denied an abortion. The study compares the physical health, mental health, financial circumstances and family life of these two sets of women.

Diana, you had grandmothers on each side of your family that had unwanted pregnancies. One grandmother carried to term. That baby became your mother. The other grandmother had an abortion. So let’s talk about that. Let’s start with the grandmother on your father’s side of the family. Let’s start with how she became pregnant and why she didn’t want to carry to term.

FOSTER: The sad thing is that she died while I was in high school, so I never got to ask her these questions. I know that she became pregnant while she was living with my grandfather early in their marriage in New York City during the Depression. And she felt that they couldn’t afford to have a baby. And she – at the time, abortion was illegal. And she had to go to Puerto Rico to get an abortion. And I never got to ask her about her experiences.

I do know that when she died, you know – no mention was made of abortion over my childhood that I can remember. But when she died, my grandfather asked that all donations be made to Planned Parenthood. So I think that though it wasn’t talked about, it had a large impact on her life. And she went on to have three kids and was a loving, happy mother.

GROSS: Did anyone in your family actually come out and tell you that she had an abortion?

FOSTER: I heard it both from my mother and my father. So she must have had a quiet conversation with my mother at some point – is my guess. I doubt – I would be surprised if she directly told my father. It’s the kind of thing women might talk about with each other. And it’s really too bad that we don’t talk about our unwanted pregnancies because it gives the impression that it rarely happens when, in fact, many people have unwanted pregnancies. And we could have a little more empathy if we understood how common it was.

GROSS: Well, let’s look at your mother’s side. Your maternal grandmother, Dorothy (ph), got pregnant at the age of 19 from her golf instructor. The implication in the way you tell the story is that she did not want to have sex with him.

FOSTER: It was her funny way of talking. I don’t – what she says is that he taught her more than she needed to know. So I don’t know how coerced that was. He was married at the time and supposedly in the process of separating – is what he had told her. But when she told him she was pregnant, he said that he would get all his friends to say it could be theirs if she told anyone that it was his. So he was clearly a total jerk.

And she told her parents, who were very conservative Christians. And they were appalled, you know, horrified at the unwanted, out-of-wedlock pregnancy. And they begged her to get an abortion. And she – for reasons that she never fully explained to me, she refused. So she went to the Salvation Army home for unwed moms – mothers. And she gave birth to my mom and placed my mom for adoption.

And the kind of saddest part of her story comes next, which is her parents hadn’t visited her while she was at the Salvation Army home for unwed moms. And so she didn’t know if she had a home to go home to. And so after delivery, which was, like the women in my study, very complicated with a period of – a long period of disability after, she went home with another woman she’d met there.

And that brother, the brother of the one she went home with raped Dorothy. What he told her was she was already no good. So the idea that she was spoiled or tainted and so had lost all claims over her body – and that, I think, was even worse than the rejection by her parents and the placing a child for adoption, which can be very difficult. This idea that she was forever tainted was deeply harmful. And it’s an idea you hear still that somehow, if you become pregnant when you aren’t intending to, you lose say over what happens to your body.

GROSS: And your mother was able to track down her birth mother when your mother was in her mid-40s, and her birth mother, your grandmother, was in her mid-60s. Did you get to meet her?

FOSTER: I sure did. A friend of my mom’s did the geneology investigation, found Dorothy’s birth certificate, which had a note from Dorothy’s mom changing the spelling of Dorothy’s father’s name. And that note had a date, which put Dorothy in high school. And the friend of my mom called the high school alumni association and said she was looking for Dorothy. And the man said – oh, Dorothy, I had a drink with her last week.

GROSS: Oh (laughter).

FOSTER: So it was the first news we had that she was alive and well. And you know, tentatively – oh, well, could we have that phone number, please? (Laughter). And we called.

I grew up in Maryland. And when I went to college, I went to UC Berkeley in California. And Dorothy, who was living in Santa Cruz, was my closest relative. So she picked me up from the airport with all my stuff and dropped me at my dorms and was, you know, a close – just the greatest relationship through my college years of getting to visit her in Santa Cruz.

GROSS: Oh, what a great story.

FOSTER: Yeah, she never actually went on to have other children after my mom, and that’s something we also find in “The Turnaway Study” is that if you carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, it creates a detour in your life. And you’re actually less likely to have wanted children later. So she tried to have other children, and it just didn’t work out.

GROSS: Well, in your grandmother’s case, the pregnancy and the birth were so traumatic, especially being raped afterwards, while she was having a very difficult recovery from childbirth. That’s horrible to think about. But she had a decent life. Her life worked out for her, right?

FOSTER: Yeah, she was adventurous and ahead of her time in many ways of, you know, owning businesses and traveling. And she, you know, wasn’t a feminist in the way that we would say now. She really viewed that success was finding a man who would take care of you. And I think it’s ’cause that was the road she got off of, and she never got on it again. So she had – you know, she never had someone to just take care of her. So I might have gotten a Ph.D. from Princeton, but she was most happy that I was married and that the – my two children were my husband’s children. Those were, from her perspective, my biggest accomplishments.

GROSS: I suspect a lot of our listeners are thinking that if your maternal grandmother had aborted her unwanted pregnancy that your mother wouldn’t have been born and, therefore, you wouldn’t have been born. So why do you support the right to abortion?

FOSTER: Dorothy refused an abortion and gave birth to my mother. If she’d had an abortion, I clearly wouldn’t exist. And my dad’s mother overcame great obstacles to get a wanted abortion and later gave birth to my father. So if she hadn’t – if she had not had an abortion, I wouldn’t exist.

Given how – the long history of abortion in our country, many of us are alive today ’cause our mothers and grandmothers were able to avoid carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. And this study shows that abortion may end the possibility of one life, but it enables women to take care of the children she already has and, if she chooses, makes it possible for her to have a baby under more favorable circumstances later.

GROSS: Well, Diana Foster, thank you so much for talking with us.

FOSTER: Thank you so much for having me and discussing “The Turnaway Study.”

GROSS: Diana Greene Foster is the author of the new book “The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, A Thousand Women, And The Consequences Of Having – Or Being Denied – An Abortion.” She’s a professor at the University of California, San Francisco in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences.

This month, Turner Classic Movies is presenting a jazz and film series. Our jazz critic Kevin Whitehead has written a new book about jazz and film. After a break, he’ll defend the much maligned genre of jazz biopics. This is FRESH AIR.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/16/877846258/study-examines-the-lasting-effects-of-having-or-being-denied-an-abortion

It wasn’t  much past 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning in late April, and anti-choice protesters outside the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, were already cantankerous: There were three men with bullhorns, including one on top of a ladder; a 1,200-watt speaker pointing toward the clinic’s front door; and another protester blowing a shofar. “Welcome to the circus,” said Kim Gibson, a clinic escort who works to keep the mayhem away from patients.

A anti-abortion activist and a clinic escort wait for patients to arrive at the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, on April 5, 2018. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

“The governor and attorney general’s ban put Texas patients in heart-breaking situations — it was politics at its worst.”

“All the plans I had to get back to work, my hopes for my kids’ lives, I felt like it was all about to go down the drain.”

Julie Burkhart, president and CEO of Trust Women, is pictured during an interview at the Oklahoma state Capitol on April 10, 2017. Photo: Sue Ogrocki/AP

“We’re being lumped in with, like, plastic surgery.”

Kathaleen Pittman, administrator of the Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, La., poses for a portrait in the clinic’s recovery room on Feb. 20, 2020. Photo: Rebecca Santana/AP

“We are constantly, constantly bombarded with calls from women who are trying desperately to get in.”

“He watched them gather 50 strong, no masks, no nothing. He watched them put up a ladder to look through the front door.”

With abortion rights advocates on the defensive at the federal and state levels over the last four years, Planned Parenthood’s advocacy arm is endorsing former Vice President Joe Biden in his race to defeat President Trump.

Activists are putting their hope in Biden, whom some see as having a mixed record on abortion, as they watch a U.S. Supreme Court reshaped by Trump appointees for key decisions that could scale back access to abortion and birth control. They’re also reeling from a series of policy reversals related to reproductive health during the Trump administration.

“This is literally a life and death election,” Alexis McGill Johnson, acting president of Planned Parenthood, told NPR ahead of the announcement. “We felt like we can’t endure another four years of Trump; we have to do everything we can to get him out of office.”

In a video statement announcing the endorsement, Biden pledges his support for reproductive rights and highlights his work on the Affordable Care Act during his time as President Barack Obama’s vice president. The law required participating insurers to cover reproductive health screenings and contraception without a co-pay.

“We will protect women’s constitutional right to choose, and I am proud to stand with you in this fight,” the presumptive Democratic nominee says in the video released Monday by the group’s advocacy and political arm, Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

Planned Parenthood is contrasting Biden’s record with that of Trump, who has won praise from abortion rights opponents for appointing conservative judges, and for blocking domestic and international organizations that provide abortions from receiving federal funds to cover other reproductive health care such as birth control and sexually transmitted infection screenings.

McGill Johnson told NPR that it’s urgent to reverse Trump’s policies.

“I think that’s where most Americans are,” she said. “We need to be able to kind of move past this very challenging, divisive, polarized era and move into a place where we can actually rebuild our lives after this disaster.”

In response, Jeanne Mancini, president of the anti-abortion rights group March For Life, said in a statement, “It is offensive to hear our nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, an organization that claims the lives of 345,672 American babies annually (a third of all of the abortions in this country each year), call the 2020 cycle a ‘life and death’ election. Those who really care about protecting life realize that the election of Planned Parenthood-endorsed candidate, Joe Biden, will result in a major increase of tax dollars going to the billion-dollar organization, including direct payment for abortions, among other deadly consequences.”

Planned Parenthood has endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate in every election cycle since 2004 when former U.S. Sen. John Kerry was the nominee. After endorsing Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary four years ago, Planned Parenthood did not make a primary endorsement this year.

While Biden has long supported abortion rights, he’s been seen as less progressive on the issue than many other Democrats, including his former rivals for the nomination. For decades he supported the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funds for most abortions, before reversing that position last year as he was starting his presidential campaign.

At a presidential primary forum hosted by Planned Parenthood Action Fund last year in South Carolina – which did not result in an endorsement for any candidate – Planned Parenthood Action Fund Executive Director Kelley Robinson noted that Biden had “evolved” on some issues, including the Hyde Amendment, and asked him how he’d ensure access to abortion for low-income women.

Biden responded by suggesting that he’d supported the policy in the past in an effort to compromise and achieve larger goals. He said he wants to expand access to health care for low-income people, including abortion.

“It became really clear to me that, although the Hyde Amendment was designed to try to split the difference here to make sure women still had access, you can’t have access if, in fact, everyone’s covered by a federal policy,” Biden said during the forum in June 2019.

Asked by NPR if Biden’s record on the issue could dampen enthusiasm for him this fall among the Democratic base, a broader concern for many in the party, McGill Johnson said he’s shown a willingness to “listen” and adjust his views.

“What we know is that he’s somebody that folks can work with. We know that he will deliver on basic — I mean birth control, access to abortion — these are actually bread-and-butter issues, and I think that’s what we really need right now,” McGill Johnson said.

In the midst of a coronavirus pandemic, nationwide protests for racial justice and what abortion rights advocates see as relentless incursions from the Trump administration, McGill Johnson said now seemed like the right moment to announce the endorsement.

In a sign of the urgency advocates are feeling around the issue, groups on both sides of the abortion debate said they’re spending tens of millions of dollars this year; the anti-abortion rights group Susan B. Anthony List, which supports Trump, has announced plans to spend more than $50 million during the 2020 campaign cycle. Planned Parenthood officials said they’re spending $45 million this election cycle, 50% more than four years ago.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/15/876893948/planned-parenthood-backs-biden-seeing-a-life-or-death-election-ahead?fbclid=IwAR1wWDyfC19N0HRrezv5ioIDxQJX5koHDI6D_s692rQqOg9ZkTXosMkgqmw

Former Maltese Prime Minister and current MEP Alfred Sant confirmed he is “leaning towards pro-choice” on the issue of abortion, saying its legalisation is “inevitable”.

Malta’s blanket ban on abortion made international news with anonymous testimonies of Maltese women who had abortions; interviews with local pro-choice NGOs and a surprising revelation from Maltese MEP Alfred Sant.

Whilst he told the Guardian that he leans towards being pro-choice, he also said the issue is “not a cut and dried one”.

Sant was the only Maltese MEP of six to vote in favour of an EU resolution in March to protect reproductive health services in the pandemic.

“In private, people admit that there’s a hypocrisy to our stance. Politicians, too,” Sant told the English newspaper.

“They know that Maltese are going abroad to get abortions and that there are local doctors who recommend abortions. They admit that there are scenarios when abortion is justified. But they won’t say so publicly.”

There were at least 58 women in Malta who got an abortion in 2019, the UK’s figures on the medical procedure shows. Meanwhile, others in Malta travel to other countries around Europe to terminate their pregnancies, with Italy, France, Spain, and Germany providing women with access to the medical procedure.

Sant says local dialogue on the taboo topic is shifting and it is “inevitable” that abortion will eventually be legalised.

Source: https://lovinmalta.com/news/maltese-mep-comes-out-as-leaning-pro-choice-and-says-legalising-abortion-is-inevitable/?fbclid=IwAR1TxQXhfGD23c7_0XMRdh_uHPP_JH7ZVFraQc0EVCFFmhM8JQX0laozNv0

Donald Trump‘s administration has rolled back nondiscrimination healthcare protections for women and transgender people by reversing a rule that would prevent healthcare workers and insurance companies that receive federal funds from refusing to provide services like abortion or gender-affirming care.

The rule changes could allow health providers to deny coverage and care to women and transgender people, as the nation is in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic.

They also arrive in the middle of Pride month on the anniversary of the Pulse massacre, when 49 people were gunned down inside a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Invoking “religious freedom”, the Department of Health and Human Services had revised a rule under the Affordable Care Act to revert to “the government’s interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word ‘sex’ as male or female and as determined by biology”.

The changes revoke discrimination protections on the basis of ”gender identity” and sex, including patients seeking an abortion.

They are likely to be challenged in court: the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign and other groups have already announced plans to sue the administration.

“In the middle of a global pandemic, with our nation in uproar over a systemic devaluing of Black lives, this administration chose to prioritise a rule change attempting to roll back anti-discrimination protections in health care,” said LGBT+ legal advocacy organisation Lambda Legal. “Despicable doesn’t begin to describe it.”

Human Rights Campaign president Alphonso David, said: ”LGBTQ people should not live in fear that they cannot get the care they need simply because of who they are. It is clear that this administration does not believe that LGBTQ people, or other marginalised communities, deserve equality under the law.”

Initial rules under former president Barack Obama‘s administration established civil rights protections in healthcare, barring discrimination on the basis of race, colour, national origin, age, disability or sex as well as gender identity. Health providers and insurers, under those anti-discrimination rules, would have to cover costs associated with gender-affirming care

Sought by Christian conservative groups that the president has courted for his campaign, the rule changes have been widely condemned by health advocates who fear that the administration is endangering already-vulnerable patients amid the Covid-19 crisis.

The rule changes also end Obama-era requirements that health providers offer non-English signage, alarming health organisations that serve immigrant communities.

“Neither a global pandemic, nor national uprisings over racist violence, nor Pride month will stop the Trump administration from doing everything in its power to discriminate, divide, and reduce access to healthcare,” Planned Parenthood said in a statement.

“This cruel and discriminatory rule will only make it harder for transgender people, immigrants, and people seeking sexual and reproductive services to get care, and could even prevent people from getting the care they need entirely.”

The move is part of the administration’s sweeping attempts to rewrite sex discrimination across housing, education and employment policy.

A number of transgender health and advocacy groups are also joining legal challenges to the rule changes, which “contradict federal law and two decades of court rulings and put up more unnecessary barriers between 2 million trans people in the US and the healthcare and insurance coverage they need,” according to the Transgender Law Centre.

“Trans people should be able to seek medical care when we need help without being turned away or denied treatment because of who we are,” executive director Kris Hayashi said in a statement. “This appalling move by the Trump administration puts the lives of trans people in jeopardy – especially trans people living with HIV, Black trans people and trans people of colour, trans people with disabilities, and trans people living in rural areas and in Southern states.”

Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-lgbt-healthcare-hhs-aca-section-1557-a9564131.html?fbclid=IwAR3iMljtQ4m8NKlS33T87btcBxgjHvCAqaHsmHehV7_QDiIdVTSTigH-EGM

Abortion rights demonstrators along with Anti-abortion demonstrators rally outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Wednesday, March 4, 2020. The Supreme Court is taking up the first major abortion case of the Trump era Wednesday, an election-year look at a Louisiana dispute that could reveal how willing the more conservative court is to roll back abortion rights. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Anti-abortion lawmakers have made concerted efforts thus far in 2020 to implement more bans and restrictions on the medical procedure. But those efforts may have been in vain when it comes to changing people’s minds. According to a new CBS poll published Monday, a large majority of people in the country still support abortion rights.

As the country awaits a Supreme Court decision in a case that could radically reshape the availability of abortion, the poll found that 63% of Americans support keeping Roe v. Wade intact. Almost half — 49% — of self-identified Republicans agree with that view as well.

The poll was taken in advance of the Supreme Court decision in June Medical Services LLC v. Russo, a major case looking at abortion restrictions. As the current Supreme Court term ends June 30, a decision is expected before then.

But some states haven’t been waiting on the Supreme Court to help them ban abortion. The beginning of the year saw a spate of so-called “born-alive” abortion bills, which conservatives have argued are necessary to protect children who may be born during an abortion. Experts have said these bills serve no medical purpose, but instead rely on inflammatory language and unrealistic hypotheticals to stigmatize both doctors and patients.

In February, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) conducted a hearing on such a bill, allowing anti-abortion activists to repeat long-debunked talking points about how abortion providers have a financial stake in providing abortions later in pregnancy.

West Virginia passed a “born-alive” bill that some GOP backers outright admitted was only about sending a political message — not solving an actual problem. Kentucky tried to pass a similar bill but ran out of time to overrule a veto by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.

In Wyoming, the legislature passed a “born-alive” bill that was so unnecessary even the state’s hard-line anti-abortion governor, Republican Mark Gordon, vetoed the bill. In his veto statement, he pointed out that laws in Wyoming already prevent people from denying care to a child.

The coronavirus pandemic also provided many states with a convenient excuse to ban abortion for a time by declaring that the procedure was “nonessential.” As a result, for several weeks in March and April, the status of abortion access was unclear for anyone seeking care in those states.

Arkansas initially banned it entirely but then said people could have an abortion if they had a COVID-19 test within 48 hours prior to the procedure, even though the tests weren’t widely available. Lengthy litigation in Texas during April meant the availability of abortion there changed nearly daily. And Alabama, Iowa, Kentucky, Ohio, and Oklahoma all tried to use the pandemic as an excuse to ban abortion, with varying degrees of success.

However, these recent GOP attempts to restrict and ban abortions have done little to change the fact that most Americans believe abortion should be legal and available.

But they have succeeded in making abortions harder to get. A recent study in Ohio found that as the state placed greater restrictions on abortions, patients were getting the procedure later. Another study showed that abortion regulations can dramatically increase the cost of the procedure without providing any added safety.

Research has shown that when costs increase, access decreases. A report released by Ibis Reproductive Health found that searching for financial resources to cover the costs of an abortion can delay people from receiving abortion care, “forcing some women to have later abortions and increasing the costs and potential health risks of an unintended pregnancy.”

The country is waiting to learn whether the Supreme Court will give the green light to further restrictions. But for now, the American public stands firmly behind the right to get an abortion.

Source: https://americanindependent.com/abortion-support-poll-roe-v-wade-supreme-court-reproductive-rights-gop-scotus/?fbclid=IwAR29lesuGRb1p9-yMCl4Kuki0Tulu6U2jVq1JTbq4l_TqiI0Vfe7XrLMEic

More than 250 protesters – chased indoors by a spring rain storm — gather Tuesday, May 21, 2019, at the Iowa Capitol as part of the national #StopTheBans Day of Action for Abortion Rights. (Rod Boshart/The Gazette)

Pandemic disease. High unemployment. Business closings. Police violence against African Americans. Mass protests.

The State of Iowa has a lot on its hands. And the Legislature has not been able to meet since March, when it shuttered due to the danger of COVID19.

Yet now that the Legislature is back in session, the Republican majority has decided that among its highest priorities is to pursue its war on abortion.

Their tactic is to try to undo history. In 2018, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution protected the right to abortion. The decision nullified a 2017 law that mandated a 72-hour waiting period before a client could terminate a pregnancy. In 2019, the same decision was cited in nullifying the state’s “fetal heartbeat” law, which – had it gone into effect – would have been the most restrictive in the country.

Like a child who doesn’t like rules that prevent her from winning a game, the Republican majority now wants to change the rules rather than admit defeat. Their proposal: Senate Joint Resolution 2001, which would amend the state constitution to declare that it does not protect the right to abortion.

But this isn’t a child’s game. It’s the constitution. And it’s the health and well-being of Iowans who work hard to make the best decisions for themselves and their families in complex circumstances. In a truly audacious move, the Republicans are proposing a constitutional amendment intended to reduce – rather than protect or expand – Iowans’ liberties.

Throughout this difficult season, Iowans have continued to rely on the services of abortion providers like the Emma Goldman Clinic in Iowa City. Those providers have responded with enormous dedication and self-sacrifice, revamping procedures to ensure the safety of clients and staff. They’ve done so because they are passionately committed to Iowans’ health, safety, and well-being. They know that the fight for reproductive rights is inextricable from the fight for racial and economic justice, as poor people and people of color are especially likely to be denied bodily autonomy – whether that means lack of access to health care or outright violence.

Iowans are mature enough to make their own health decisions. A constitutional amendment eroding their right to do runs counter to the advice of professional medical organizations, which support access to safe abortion care. And it runs counter to public opinion: a large majority of Americans support abortion rights. Members of the Iowa Legislature need to reject this bald attempt to limit our liberties.

Elizabeth Heineman is a member of the board of directors of the Emma Goldman Clinic in Iowa City.

Source: https://www.thegazette.com/subject/opinion/guest-columnist/iowa-republicans-ignore-real-crisis-threaten-abortion-rights-instead-20200609

The Supreme Court is set to radically alter immigration, abortion rights, and employment discrimination law—all in a matter of weeks.

The Supreme Court is set to decide its first abortion rights case since Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the bench, and the stakes are predictably sky high. Doug Mills-Pool / Getty Images

It’s shaping up to be one hell of a summer as the country wrestles with Depression-era unemployment levels, nationwide police brutality protests, and state leaders reopening businesses in the middle of a pandemic that shows no signs of abating.

These wild and unpredictable times are about to become even wilder once the U.S. Supreme Court decides the following cases, potentially altering the landscape of LGBTQ rights, immigration, abortion rights, family planning funding, and government funding for religious schools. 

Workplaces could become a lot less equal 

Can your boss fire you for being gay or transgender? Any day now the Supreme Court will release its opinion in a series of cases that answer that very question. 

At issue in the three cases is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. More specifically, these decisions will determine whether Title VII’s prohibition on discrimination “because of sex” includes discrimination on the basis of a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

When the Roberts Court heard oral arguments in the cases in October, the justices appeared largely split along ideological lines. If civil rights advocates have any hope of succeeding, they are going to need the vote of at least one of the Court’s conservatives, with Justice Neil Gorsuch being the likely candidate. He offered signs that he was possibly sympathetic to arguments that Title VII protects LGBTQ workers.

I remain skeptical, however, that any of the Supreme Court’s conservatives will side with workers in these cases.

The potential impact here is enormous. Workers in 25 states have no laws protecting them from employment discrimination if they are gay or transgender. In addition to facing discrimination in hiring and firing, LGBTQ workers can experience significant wage disparities. A decision from the Supreme Court finding that federal law does not protect LGBTQ workers will exacerbate those disparities and leave workers with a patchwork of job protections that are dependent on what state, and in some instances what city, they happen to live in.

The Title VII cases aren’t the only major employment discrimination cases looming at the Supreme Court. Two California Catholic schools have asked the Court to rule that religious employers don’t have to comply with state or federal laws like Title VII that ban workplace discrimination. 

Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James School v. Biel involve what’s known as the “ministerial exemption” to anti-discrimination laws. The exemption is designed to preserve the distinction between church and state by recognizing that religious groups enjoy some constitutional freedom to select their own leaders and run their own affairs free from government interference.

But who is a minister, and just how far does that exemption reach? That’s what the Court is poised to decide. Both cases involve claims by former teachers that they were unlawfully fired. One teacher claims she was the victim of age discrimination, and the other says the school fired her because she had cancer, in violation of disability rights laws. The schools used the ministerial exemption to defend the firings. 

If the Supreme Court sides with the schools in these cases, it would greatly expand the ability of religious employers—including Catholic hospitals and universities—to fire and hire workers based on religious beliefs, regardless of whether a particular job is religious in nature. 

John Roberts could decide the fate of nearly 700,000 DREAMERs

The deportation status of nearly 700,000 people hangs in the balance, with the Supreme Court poised to decide if the Trump administration properly rescinded Obama-era protections for undocumented people brought to this country as children.

In September 2017, the Trump administration announced it was ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and would begin deportation proceedings for those who had previously been spared under the program. Federal courts blocked those initial plans, ruling the administration did not offer sufficient justification for ending DACA.

Supreme Court conservatives have backed the Trump administration’s most racist policies, including its Muslim Ban, with Roberts providing the critical fifth vote to bless the administration’s actions. The DACA case is set to add another decision with devastating human consequences to Roberts’ tarnished legacy. 

Brett Kavanaugh’s first big abortion rights case could be devastating

The Supreme Court is set to decide its first abortion rights case since Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the bench, and the stakes are predictably sky high.

In 2016, abortion rights advocates celebrated a historic win in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, when the Court declared that that abortion restrictions designed to advance the health and safety of a patient needed to be supported by evidence and couldn’t place a substantial burden on the patient seeking abortion care. That entire ruling, along with the ability of abortion providers to sue on behalf of their patients, now stands at risk in June Medical Services v. Russo, a case out of Louisiana that is a repeat of Whole Woman’s Health. I’m not kidding.

The principle difference between the two cases is that Whole Woman’s Health involved a challenge to a Texas abortion restriction, while June Medical Services is a challenge to that same restriction, but in Louisiana. The other difference between the two cases is that conservatives now have a majority on the Court thanks to Kavanaugh’s appointment. That’s left abortion rights advocates looking to Roberts as a potential swing vote in this case. And when it’s up to Roberts to rescue abortion rights, well, that’s never a good spot to be in.

A decision in Louisiana’s favor could not only usher in a whole new wave of bad-faith abortion restrictions, but could make it astronomically more difficult to challenge those restrictions in court. 

Trump’s attack on international family planning organizations 

You know it’s been a bananas year at the Court when a case involving international family planning and abortion barely makes the radar. But that’s just 2020’s vibe, I guess. 

In January 2017, Trump announced he was reinstating and expanding the “Mexico City Policy.” Also known as the “global gag rule,” the Mexico City Policy requires foreign non-governmental organizations to certify they will not “perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning” using non-U.S. funds as a condition for receiving U.S. family planning funds.

Think of it as the Republican effort to defund Planned Parenthood here in the United States. But on steroids. And global. In May, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could determine whether the Trump administration can condition family planning funding on excluding abortion services and information. And given the fight over the Trump administration’s efforts to upend family planning programs here in the United States, a ruling in the global gag rule case could signal how the Court would decide challenges to those domestic defunding efforts as well. 

Yes, Virginia, we’re still fighting about birth control 

Why is it that it’s 2020 and we are still fighting about the birth control benefit in the Affordable Care Act? Is it because Republicans keep trying, and failing, to repeal the ACA altogether?

That’s my running theory, because there is no reason the Supreme Court should be wasting its time on attempts by the Trump administration to roll back the benefit while also sneaking in a massive expansion of employers’ abilities to raise “moral” objections to laws they don’t like. Yet here we are. If the Supreme Court gives the Trump administration’s efforts a thumbs up here, expect to see more regulatory carve-outs from the administration, as employers will test the limits of these new moral exemptions.

Don’t like single moms in the workplace? Believe the government has no authority to set a minimum wage? These are the kinds of arguments we could see in the future if the Trump administration gets its way here.

Religious schools could get a lot more government cash 

Montana is one of 37 states with a constitutional amendment barring taxpayer dollars from directly or indirectly going to religious schools. Known as “baby” Blaine Amendments, these state prohibitions are based on a similar federal ban introduced in Congress in 1875 by former U.S. House Rep. James Blaine (R-ME).

The federal ban failed to pass, but the “baby” Blaines swept across states as part of a wave of anti-Catholic sentiment. Religious conservatives have long sought to upend Blaine Amendments in the states and open up religious schools to taxpayer funding. Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue may finally give them their chance. 

Source: https://rewire.news/article/2020/06/09/while-you-protest-the-supreme-court-is-poised-to-pummel-your-rights/

The pandemic challenges all of my patients, Dr. Kristyn Brandi says. People who might have been excited to be pregnant are now concerned about impacts on their health and that of their potential child. I have had patients lose their jobs and the ability to pay for medical care or a new mouth to feed. I have had patients lose their spouse or parent to COVID-19, making the decision to have a new child seem impossible.

I heard it twice in one day: “I don’t know what to do.”

As a doctor practicing in Newark, I see patients with a broad diversity of lived experiences. Itis unusual to hear the same story back to back. But we are in unusual times. Two people: one, a patient in my obstetrics clinic, the other a close friend. Both were concerned about being pregnant in the time of COVID-19.

The pandemic has been eye-opening to many of us in the health care system. As an OB/GYN providing both prenatal and abortion care, I support my patients through the best and worst times, through exciting and hard decisions. But the pandemic challenges all of my patients.

People who might have been excited to be pregnant are now concerned about impacts on their health and that of their potential child. I have had patients lose their jobs and the ability to pay for medical care or a new mouth to feed. I have had patients lose their spouse or parent to COVID-19, making the decision to have a new child seem impossible.

There is much attention at this time on ensuring access to safe birth care, but much less on ensuring safe abortion care. This political response highlights the critical nature of abortion care and the barriers to accessing it.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has rightly identified abortion as “essential health care.” It is time-sensitive care that, if delayed, can significantly impact the patient’s life. Because of that leadership, I have been fortunate to continue providing abortion care throughout the pandemic. The fact that this is not the case elsewhere has caused mass confusion and distress. Health care should not be determined by your zip code, and states should not treat the same care differently based on politics rather than science.

Moreover, COVID-19 has made typical barriers to abortion care even worse. If you have lost your job – a common reason people cite as to the reason they are accessing abortion in the first place – can you pay for the procedure? If you need to travel by bus to access abortion care, can you do so without the risk of infection? With schools out, who will watch the kids while you are at your appointment? Many of these barriers hit Black, brown, Latinx, Asian and Pacific Islander communities, immigrants, and low-income patients the hardest even during normal times.

So, what do we do now to ensure abortion access during another pandemic or, ideally, a pandemic-free future? Here is a humble suggestion from a health care provider: make abortion care affordable for all.

The first way to do this is to end the Hyde Amendment, an addition to the federal budget that prohibits federal tax dollars from covering abortion care. With the Hyde Amendment in place, patients with federal insurance (like military members and dependents, veterans, federal employees) have holes in their coverage based solely on where they work. Just as I want patients to be able to afford their prenatal care and pap smears, I want my patients to also be able to afford their abortion care regardless of their source of insurance.

The second and most immediate step is for each of us to support our local abortion funds. As a trustee of the New Jersey Abortion Access Fund, I see the impacts of these barriers firsthand. Many patients without coverage for their abortion never make it into my exam room because they cannot overcome the barriers of cost – not just the cost of the procedure but those of transportation, time off from work, or childcare.

The New Jersey Abortion Access Fund is a volunteer-run 501(c)(3) organization providing financial assistance to those seeking safe, legal abortions. We partner with independent abortion providers in New Jersey to help individuals access quality, compassionate care. We help cover some of the costs of the procedure so people have one less barrier to getting the care they need and deserve.

I cannot wait until we’ve put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us. But even during this challenging time, health care doors are still open. I am proud to take care of my patients and show up to work every day. But we need much more to make sure people like my patients can access the care they need, today and tomorrow.

Dr. Kristyn Brandi is an assistant professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Women’s Health at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and the Board Chair of Physicians for Reproductive Health.

Source: https://www.nj.com/opinion/2020/06/abortion-is-essential-especially-during-this-pandemic-opinion.html?fbclid=IwAR2zFSZiGVfUucBWbwUK-kq9l0xLZPf4usTKwxUtnzKWrdmMc-LY89yK3fg