What Reproductive Justice Looks Like in 2024

ABC's IMPACT x Nightline: On the Brink

Last month, ABC News aired a special on the harrowing experiences of women in states with abortion bans and how the complicated legal landscape is contributing to human suffering. 

In the segment, available exclusively on Hulu, several women gathered to tell their stories and connect with their trauma. Some of these women had struggled with infertility for years and were more than joyful to become mothers. However, with each story of joy came an ending in grief and heartache. All of the women present experienced some form of congenital disability in their pregnancy, a pregnancy that would not result in a live birth or a birth that would be followed quickly by the death of their baby. These women could not obtain the care they needed in their home states or went through burdensome steps to pursue that healthcare. Some of them were quite literally at death's door before hospital staff felt it legally acceptable to provide them with a procedure.  

This is what the reality of a post-Roe America looks like in 2024. We live in a country where, as one woman phrased it, people are "medical refugees." 

Clarifying Exceptions

In states with less-than-clear exceptions and medical exemptions, the stories of women are becoming louder. As of yesterday's news on yet even more distressing policy choices and interpretations out of Texas, women and pregnant people across states with bans are more at risk than ever. 

Per the New York Times: "Emergency room doctors in Texas are not required to perform emergency abortions despite federal guidance...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a ruling that sided with the State of Texas, which had sued the Biden administration, arguing that the federal guidance issued in 2022 was an overstep that would "force abortions." 

Lawmakers in these states are also fighting against clarifications to the laws and exemptions for medical emergencies, citing fears of things becoming too "broad." In Louisiana (as covered in On the Brink), House Bill 461 and House Bill 598 sought to make circumstances like ectopic pregnancies and premature fetal death legal under the state's abortion ban. The Louisiana House, however, rejected both measures and, like other states, has created a legal and moral limbo for patients and doctors.

SCOTUS on Mifepristone

In anticipation of what could be the next phase of broad abortion bans dependent solely on a SCOTUS ruling, more women nationwide who aren't pregnant are buying abortion medication, according to a new study. 

From an analysis by the New York Times: "The biggest spikes in demand followed events that raised doubts about the future availability of abortion. 

Requests peaked in the weeks between the leak and the Supreme Court's decision in June 2022, and in April 2023 after a flurry of court rulings in a lawsuit by abortion opponents seeking to curtail mifepristone, a key abortion pill, a case now before the Supreme Court.

Rates of requests were highest in states where abortion bans were expected — even higher than in states that already had bans." 

The Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on the mifepristone case, including a lower court ruling, by the summer's end. Until then, more challenges to different avenues of abortion access are more than likely to play out in courts across the country.

Radical Republicans continue to leave our healthcare and our choices in jeopardy as they create aggressive and cruel anti-choice laws. Help us elect lawmakers and leaders who will challenge the GOP and their backward ideologies by chipping in today:

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In this together,

Anna Scudder
Reproductive Health & Justice Correspondent
No Dem Left Behind

The Roe Report

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