Louisiana’s abortion ban endangers Black women’s lives
9th January 2023 · 0 Comments
Nancy Davis, an expectant mom, suffered the pain and anguish of knowing her baby would die within the first week of life.
During her tenth week of pregnancy, Davis’ fetus was diagnosed with acrania, a fatal condition where the skull doesn’t develop in utero, according to the Fetal Medicine Foundation. The condition results in miscarriage, stillbirth, or a very short lifespan for an infant born after the prognosis, WWNO/Louisiana Illuminator reported last October.
As a Louisiana resident, Davis couldn’t get the “therapeutic abortion” needed for her well-being and the needless suffering of a baby without a skull. Davis would remain pregnant six weeks after the diagnosis. She claims that a hospital in Baton Rouge refused to do the procedure.
Two months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortions, Davis and her baby’s father stood next to Civil Rights Lawyer Benjamin Crump, still pregnant but looking for a state where abortion is legal.
Crump called the state’s abortion ban a public catastrophe caused by the state’s vague and confusing abortion laws. He also asked the governor to call a special session to address the flawed legislation.
Kaitlyn Joshua almost lost her life after being denied a therapeutic abortion. She and her husband were overjoyed at having a second child, a sibling for their 4-year-old daughter. The Louisiana resident was 12 weeks pregnant when she sought treatment for bleeding and excruciating pain. Joshua was having a miscarriage.
Still, two Louisiana hospital emergency rooms refused to do an emergency dilation and curettage procedure, also called a D&C, to remove the pregnancy tissue and save Joshua’s life. Both techniques are used in abortions. Neither doctor explained her treatment options or gave her an accurate diagnosis. Joshua was sent home twice.
It’s unfortunate but understandable why doctors don’t want to provide therapeutic abortions. They face up to 10 to 15 years in jail, $100,000 to $200,000 in fines, and the loss of their medical licenses if they perform abortions.
Joshua was told that the hospital didn’t want to diagnose her condition as a miscarriage or provide any procedure to stop her hemorrhaging because the doctor would have to certify the diagnosis. Those actions would trigger an investigation.
We can thank state Senator Katrina Jackson, a Democrat, who authored the so-called “heartbeat bill,” and democratic Governor John Bel Edwards for signing the abortion ban into law.
Their well-meaning concern for the life of fetuses is understandable on a spiritual level. But by criminalizing abortion, the state has made Louisiana doctors afraid to treat ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, ruptured membranes, hemorrhages, and even cases that threaten the lives of women whose pregnancies are not viable.
World Health Organization (WHO) researchers released “The Giving Voice to Mothers study: inequity and mistreatment during pregnancy and childbirth in the United States in 2019.” After surveying 2,700 women, researchers concluded that mistreatment is experienced more frequently by women of color when birth occurs in hospitals and among those with social, economic, or health challenges. Mistreatment is exacerbated by unexpected obstetric interventions and by patient-provider disagreements.
Unsurprisingly, Louisiana has the highest maternal mortality rates in the nation. World Population Review puts Louisiana’s maternal mortality rate at 58.1 deaths per 100,000 women. Louisiana also led the nation in infant mortality rates in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The infant mortality rate was 7.59 per 100,000, and 435 infants died.
Statistics show that Black women and babies have the highest maternal and infant mortality risk in Louisiana. It’s disgraceful and negligible that in a state with a comprehensive health care system, four pregnant Black mothers die for every white mother, and two Black babies die for each white baby’s death.
With Louisiana being ranked #1 in maternal mortality, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a doctor, in an apparent attempt to mitigate the rating, quantified that Black women account primarily for the state’s ranking. He suggested that everyone just ignore their deaths.
In an interview with POLITICO for the Harvard Chan School of Public Health series “Public Health on the Brink,” Cassidy said, “About a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality. So, if you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear.”
Realizing he said that out loud, he did attempt to quickly do damage control by adding, “Now, I say that not to minimize the issue but to focus the issue as to where it would be. For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality.”
Cassidy knows full well the reason Black women and people, writ large, are subject to racism perpetrated by health providers, consciously or subconsciously. Why else would Cassidy co-sponsor the bipartisan John Lewis National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) Research Endowment Revitalization Act signed into law last March to study racial health disparities?
“This law will expand our research efforts at institutions like Xavier University to help close the health gap among minorities,” Cassidy commented on his website.
On February 10, 2022, Cassidy discussed the bill and the lack of diversity in the medical field with Xavier President Dr. Reynold Verret at a U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing.
So, for Dr. Cassidy to engage in willful ignorance rather than boldly admit the truth about the part racism plays in so-called “minority” health disparities is disingenuous and shameful.
Sen. Jackson’s effort to protect all lives, even those of the unborn, is a moral act. She deserves credit for attempting to save human life. But rather than banning abortions, Jackson and her fellow officials should appropriate more money for adequate prenatal and postnatal care, counseling for mothers, and funding for quality infant and child care.
Poverty and the fear of poverty, childcare expenses, lack of education opportunities, low-wage jobs, and a lack of family support may lead women to consider abortions, in addition to medically futile reasons.
State legislators should increase the pittance awarded to families under the state’s TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) Program. Although the state raised the cash assistance in 2022 to meet federal allotments, even $484 for a three-person household is ludicrous. Tying the aid to career development to reduce long-term welfare dependency sounds good. But in Louisiana, where state legislators refuse to set a living wage but rely on the federal minimum wage of $7.25, the prospect of actual career development (for what – tourism?) and decent wages are pipe dreams.
Davis ended up carrying her non-viable fetus for an extra six weeks before she got the abortion she needed in New York.
After Davis’ case garnered media attention, state Sen. Jackson and several other abortion ban-supportive legislators released a statement saying Woman’s Hospital “grossly misinterpreted” Louisiana’s abortion policies. The Louisiana Department of Health also added acrania to its “medically futile pregnancy conditions” list.
When asked about Ms. Davis, Jackson told the press that the Louisiana Department of Health’s 25 medically futile pregnancy exceptions to the abortion ban don’t prohibit abortions for women in Davis’ and Joshua’s situation.
Still, it appears to be standard practice by some hospitals not to offer any life-saving procedures or acknowledge the need for therapeutic abortions when a woman’s life is in peril.
The Louisiana Weekly agrees with Attorney Ben Crump that the abortion ban law needs to be revised. However, the newspaper supports going a step further. During Louisiana’s 2023 Regular Legislative Session, which convenes at noon on Monday, April 10, 2023, Jackson should author an amendment that abolishes the so-called “heartbeat bill.”
Given the near-death and tragic events the law has already birthed, legislators will do well to abort the legislation and leave medical decisions between women and their doctors. Government shouldn’t legislate morals or pass religious edicts. We say ban the ban on women’s body autonomy.
This article originally published in the January 9, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
