Most pregnancy-related criminalizations start in a simple way: with a report from a health care provider. Texas AbortionBan RoeVWade WomensRights WomensHealth AbortionRIghts AbortionIsHealthcare AbortionRightsAreHumanRights
An examination room in Alamo Women’s Reproductive Services in San Antonio on June 14.
“But I think the reality is, the vast majority of these criminal cases are going to begin in kind of more mundane and common ways,” said Emma Roth, staff attorney at National Advocates for Pregnant Women. Reproductive justice lawyers say they are focused not on preparing for a potential dystopian future like the one presented in the commercial, but on educating health care providers, lawyers and pregnant people about what they can do to protect themselves right now — with the rights they still have available to them.In January, a 26-year-old woman in rural South Texas went to Starr County Memorial Hospital for complications related to a self-managed abortion.
Getting an illegal abortion looks very different in 2022 than it did in 1972: Many people who would have turned to surgical abortions can now have pills discreetly mailed to their homes. There are that have publicly flouted state and federal regulations for years to provide these medications to people in states that restrict abortion access.
Although Texas’ abortion law specifically exempts pregnant patients, the Starr County case exemplifies the ways they can still get caught up in the system.