We’re excited to bring you U.S. Repro Watch, your go-to source for the latest updates on reproductive health and rights in the U.S. This week, we’re sharing a recently released study illuminating the chilling effect abortion bans have had in Oklahoma, watching Amanda Zurawski testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and monitoring proactive and restrictive bills moving through the states.

Repro News This Week: April 28

A new study by the Center for Reproductive Rights and others found that most Oklahoma hospitals are unable to provide clear and accurate information on their emergency obstetric care policies.

Jointly published by the Center, Physicians for Human Rights, and Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice, the study found that most Oklahoma hospital staff provided opaque, contradictory, or incorrect information about their policies on when abortion care is available. They also provided little reassurance that clinicians’ medical judgment and pregnant patients’ needs would be prioritized.
Oklahoma currently has three overlapping and inconsistent state abortion bans in effect, fueling confusion about clinicians’ ability to provide care during obstetric emergencies—even when the lives, health, and safety of pregnant people are at stake.
Read the full report, No One Could Say: Accessing Emergency Obstetrics Information as a Prospective Prenatal Patient in Post-Roe Oklahoma, here.

Amanda Zurawski, lead plaintiff in Zurawski v. State of Texas, testified on April 27 about her experience with Texas abortion bans before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

Zurawski, from Austin, was denied abortion care after she experienced preterm pre-labor rupture of membranes at 18 weeks of pregnancy. Only after she was diagnosed with sepsis would doctors perform an emergency abortion, and Zurawski spent the next three days in the ICU fighting for her life.
At the Committee hearing, Zurawski appealed to lawmakers to put a stop to abortion bans like Texas’s—“barbaric restrictions that are being passed across the country” and are “having real life implications on real people.”
This is the first hearing focused on reproductive rights in the House or Senate this Congress.
Watch the replay of the livestream of the Committee hearing here and learn more about the case, Zurawski v. State of Texas, here.

More efforts to restrict and protect abortion access are advancing at the state level.

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum signed into law a bill banning abortion, making North Dakota the 13th state in the U.S. to criminalize abortion care.
A city in New Mexico is challenging a state law prohibiting local governments from restricting access to abortion.
The Nevada Senate approved legislation protecting abortion providers and patients from out-of-state investigations and prosecutions and a measure to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed a package of bills into law to protect access to abortion and gender-affirming care. One of the bills protects providers and patients from legal actions by other states.

Did You Know?

In light of an increasingly hostile landscape for abortion access, the Abortion Defense Network was recently launched to connect people with legal assistance, specifically people working to provide or support abortion care. Under the program, people will be matched with trusted attorneys who can provide legal advice, information, and resources.

“These devastating findings from Oklahoma are consistent with accounts we are hearing from patients and health care professionals in other abortion ban states. These bans undermine the ability and freedom of patients and their providers to make safe, evidence-based health care decisions.”

- Risa Kaufman, Director of U.S. Human Rights at the Center for Reproductive Rights

reproductiverights.org

The Center for Reproductive Rights uses the power of law to advance
reproductive rights as fundamental human rights around the world.

Center for Reproductive Rights
199 Water St.
New York, NY 10038
United States
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