Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / LIVES ARE IN DANGER - Mika on abortion access and womens healthcare 4 years after Dobbs

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LIVES ARE IN DANGER - Mika on abortion access and womens healthcare 4 years after Dobbs · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: Today marks four years since the Dobbs decision, the Supreme
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  Speaker 1: Court case that effectively overturned Roe v. Wade and repealed
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  Speaker 1: the constitutional right to an abortion. Since that decision, states
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  Speaker 1: across the country have enacted their own laws, with thirteen
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  Speaker 1: outright banning the procedure. Despite this, the number of abortions
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  Speaker 1: since the decision has actually risen. There were nearly twice
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  Speaker 1: as many abortions in the United States in twenty twenty
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  Speaker 1: five and in twenty twenty one. That is due in
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  Speaker 1: large part to the rise in telehealth and the widespread
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  Speaker 1: practice of mailing abortion pills across the country. Access to
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  Speaker 1: the pill is the target of several huge legal battles
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  Speaker 1: in the States, with abortion bans going on right now.
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  Speaker 1: Joining US now Abortion Access Correspondent for the Nation, Amy Litkefield.
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  Speaker 1: She's the author of the book Pillars of Roe, My
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  Speaker 1: investigation into the mysterious death of a border Rights. It's
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  Speaker 1: good to have you on the show. I want to
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  Speaker 1: ask you about the book, but also the state of
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  Speaker 1: Let's start off with the state of women's health care
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  Speaker 1: as a whole, because it's not just the fall of
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  Speaker 1: row and access to life saving healthcare that is abortion
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  Speaker 1: and the numbers of cases that we've covered here in
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  Speaker 1: this show of women who have had their lives threatened,
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  Speaker 1: have been forced to give birth to dying or dead babies,
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  Speaker 1: and then, by the way, denied the access to ever
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  Speaker 1: create life again because they became sterilized in the process.
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  Speaker 1: That sick sick process has been playing out in this
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  Speaker 1: country ever since the fall of Row, but also now
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  Speaker 1: the access to healthcare itself and the cost of it.
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  Speaker 1: Can you talk about the overall state of health care
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  Speaker 1: for women in America today?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, thank you so much, Mika. It's great to be
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  Speaker 2: with you. I think this is a somber day when
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  Speaker 2: we have to hold two realities in our minds at
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  Speaker 2: the same time. Four years after the Supreme Court overturned
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  Speaker 2: Roe v. Wade, the number of abortions has increased, but
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  Speaker 2: so has the number of pregnancy associated deaths in states
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  Speaker 2: that ban abortion. One of those outcomes was entirely tragically predictable.
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  Speaker 2: The other one is surprising. So let's start with a
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  Speaker 2: surprising part. Right. The number of abortions has gone up,
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  Speaker 2: and that's because of abortion pills by mail, because of
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  Speaker 2: brave clinicians in democratic states mailing abortion pills into states
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  Speaker 2: where abortion is banned. No one thought that every year
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  Speaker 2: after the Supreme Court overturned Roby Wade, we were going
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  Speaker 2: to see an increase in the number of abortions. So
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  Speaker 2: that's really astounding. But we cannot lose sight of the
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  Speaker 2: fact that tens of thousands of people have been forced
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  Speaker 2: into pregnancy against their will because not everyone has been
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  Speaker 2: able to find out about or to access these options.
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  Speaker 2: And so what that means is that the latest data
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  Speaker 2: tells us there has been sixty eight additional pregnancy associated
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  Speaker 2: deaths by the end of twenty twenty three alone. There's
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  Speaker 2: always a lag in the data in states that have
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  Speaker 2: banned abortion. Now, sixty eight might sound like a small number,
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  Speaker 2: but I would argue that when we measure that in
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  Speaker 2: terms of mothers leaving behind grieving children, in terms of
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  Speaker 2: parents being forced to cope with the loss of daughters,
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  Speaker 2: in terms of partners leaving children, when when partners losing
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  Speaker 2: their wives, When we start to look at this in
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  Speaker 2: terms of the scale of the human tragedy and the
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  Speaker 2: fact that these desks were foreseeable and preventable, I think
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  Speaker 2: it's a number that should stop us in our tracks. Well.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, your latest pace for the nation is titled
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  Speaker 1: four years after Dobbs, how do we count the dad?
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  Speaker 1: You write? Quote four years after the Supreme Court overturned
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  Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade with its ruling in Doubs. There's an
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  Speaker 1: image I can't get out of my head. Porscha Gamezzi
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  Speaker 1: was living in Texas when she suffered a miscarriage in
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Texas punishes medical providers who violate the
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  Speaker 1: state's abortion was up to ninety nine years in prison
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  Speaker 1: after Gomezi showed up to the hospital bleeding and miscarrying
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  Speaker 1: at eleven weeks pregnant. Pro Publica reported doctor's delayed providing
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  Speaker 1: a simple procedure to remove fetal tissue, and so she
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  Speaker 1: bled to death. For months afterward, Porsha's three year old
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  Speaker 1: son would chase after women who looked like her on
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  Speaker 1: the street, shouting, that's mommy. That's the detail I can't forget.
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  Speaker 1: I can't stop imagining that little boy chasing after strangers
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  Speaker 1: on the street, and that story repeats itself, and I
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  Speaker 1: just wonder where this is going in terms of numbers,
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  Speaker 1: and in terms of perhaps the dwindling numbers of doctors
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  Speaker 1: who will be brave enough to help women like this
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  Speaker 1: at their time of need. We're talking about basic healthcare
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  Speaker 1: to save.
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  Speaker 2: A life, yes, yeah, exactly. We are talking about people
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  Speaker 2: dying when they're miscarrying because doctors are too afraid to
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  Speaker 2: intervene and save their lives. And I just want to
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  Speaker 2: mention a couple of other stories, right, because it is
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  Speaker 2: these human stories, not just the numbers. We can become
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  Speaker 2: inured to numbers, right, but these human stories. Right. Tiara
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  Speaker 2: Walker in Texas, she's suffering from high blood pressure and
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  Speaker 2: seizures from pregnancy. She doesn't want to leave behind her son, JJ,
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  Speaker 2: who's fourteen, so she tries to get an abortion, but
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  Speaker 2: she's not considered to be sick enough and so instead
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  Speaker 2: of getting that abortion, Tiera ends up dying. Her son
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  Speaker 2: finds her draped over her bed on his birthday. Okay,
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  Speaker 2: these are the stories that we're talking about. Nevah Crane
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  Speaker 2: eighteen years old. Her mother has to watch her organs
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  Speaker 2: fail as she dies because she was sent down twice,
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  Speaker 2: sent home twice from emergency rooms in Texas. So we
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  Speaker 2: have to sit with these real human stories. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: there's a long time saying in the pro choice movement
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  Speaker 2: that abortion bands don't stop abortions. They only stop safe abortions.
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  Speaker 2: I think in twenty twenty six, with the widespread availability
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  Speaker 2: of medication, abortion that's saying needs an upgrade. What we know,
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  Speaker 2: what we have known for decades, is that abortion bands
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  Speaker 2: do not stop abortions. What they do is they kill women.
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  Speaker 1: Abortion Access Correspondent for the Nation, Amy Littlefield, Thank you
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  Speaker 1: very much. Amy's book Kaillers of Rome, my investigation into
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  Speaker 1: the Mysterious Death of abortion rights, is available now. And
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  Speaker 1: Adrian L. Rod, I'd like to turn to you on
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  Speaker 1: this issue and how democrats position themselves. It's my belief
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  Speaker 1: that this should be brought into the affordability issue because
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  Speaker 1: we have the closing of rural hospitals across the country,
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  Speaker 1: the skyrocketing cost of healthcare. That's a universal, non debatable
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  Speaker 1: issue that's impacting all Americans. The issue of abortion, of course,
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  Speaker 1: there's a huge debate in this country. It's often infused
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  Speaker 1: with false religious pretenses and it becomes a side At
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  Speaker 1: the same time, women's lives are in danger and they
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  Speaker 1: can't afford their health care. Is there a way democrats
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  Speaker 1: can put that into words in a way that has
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  Speaker 1: an impact at the ballot box.
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  Speaker 3: Well, Mika, I think it just answered your own question
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  Speaker 3: and you put it beautifully. We have to talk about
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  Speaker 3: regardless of where you see on abortion right, which by
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  Speaker 3: the way, a significant majority of Americans support women being
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  Speaker 3: able to access abortions, even if they themselves don't believe
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  Speaker 3: in abortions for themselves personally. But we have to talk
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  Speaker 3: about it in the affordability lens, because I think the
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  Speaker 3: author of this book just laid it out some of
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  Speaker 3: these stories that we are reading about and that are
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  Speaker 3: still happening every day, that are not making headlines, where
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  Speaker 3: women are dying because they can't get life saving care
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  Speaker 3: when they have an issue with their pregnancy, and even
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  Speaker 3: if they don't want to have an abortion, sometimes things
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  Speaker 3: happen and they have to, and you have fewer and
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  Speaker 3: fewer doctors who will perform them. And then you layer
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  Speaker 3: on top of that the fact that rural hospitals are
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  Speaker 3: closing down because of the affordability issue and because Trump
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  Speaker 3: is taking away funding from those rural hospitals. So I
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  Speaker 3: personally think we get Democrats can do a slightly better
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  Speaker 3: job of sort of correlating these two. You know, we
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  Speaker 3: talk about affordability across the country. Candidates are talking about
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  Speaker 3: it left and right. They're meeting the moment in their
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  Speaker 3: own community is about how affordability issues are affecting their constituents.
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  Speaker 3: But in order to correlate the abortion access lack thereof
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  Speaker 3: to affordability is something that I think we could do, frankly,
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  Speaker 3: a better job of doing