rePROs Fight Back Jennie Wetter

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, is a statute passed by Congress in 1986 to ensure that nobody who is experiencing a medical emergency is turned away from receiving health care. But this week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments challenging EMTALA as it relates to emergency abortion care. Katie O’Connor, Director of Federal Abortion Policy at the National Women’s Law Center sits down to talk with us about the potential impacts of this ruling. 
Under EMTALA, an emergency medical condition is defined “as a condition in which, without immediate medical attention, a patient's health or life is in serious jeopardy.” The statute does not make exceptions for state law, the personal beliefs of providers, or hospitals of religious affiliation. For pregnant people, abortion care can be a very necessary, time-sensitive, and sometimes life-saving health service. State-level abortion bans are already forcing patients to travel hours and long distances to receive care, and providers to leave the hostile states they are practicing in. EMTALA’s ruling may narrow, even more, the already constricted landscape that patients and providers find themselves navigating in the United States—especially for those who are experiencing an emergency.
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Florida—a state with the third largest population in the U.S. and the second largest abortion provider in the U.S.—has recently allowed a state Supreme Court decision that will ban abortion after six weeks gestation. Lauren Brenzel, Campaign Director with Floridians Protecting Freedom sits down to talk with us about the inner workings of this case and how it will further impact abortion access for those in the state and across the country. 
After this policy goes into effect on May 1st, 2024, patients in Florida (who can) will likely have to travel as far as New York and Illinois to receive abortion care. Florida’s Supreme Court decision follows up years of challenging legislative sessions that have dismantled public education, banned sex education, and prevented the expansion of Medicaid. A ballot initiative has been introduced that may remove the Supreme Court ruling in November. If you’d like to learn more about reproductive justice and voting rights, check out our past podcast episode here.
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April 11-17, 2024, marks Black Maternal Health week. Dr. Monica McLemore, Professor of Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing at the University of Washington and Director of the Manning Price Spratlen Center for Anti-Racism and Equity in Nursing sits down to talk with us about the state of maternal morbidity and mortality in the U.S., the upcoming Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) Supreme Court case, and achieving comprehensive reproductive justice. 
Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy related case than white women, with the CDC noting that 80% of pregnancy related deaths are preventable. As the Supreme Court gets ready to hear the EMTALA case, which could allow medical professionals to turn those in urgent or emergency need of an abortion away due to “conscience” concerns, maternal mortality and morbidity may increase as abortion becomes increasingly more difficult to access. As the wealthiest nation with the worst maternal health outcomes, the United States has the capacity to recognize the human right to choose if, when, and how to have children, access resources to plan one’s family, parent children in safe and sustainable communities, experience bodily autonomy and sexual pleasure, and provide holistic health care through a reproductive justice lens. 
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Pregnancy criminalization—often rooted in fetal personhood laws and anti-drug sentiment—has a long history and applies criminal suspicions to those who have pregnancies resulting in miscarriages or stillbirths. Lourdes Rivera, President of Pregnancy Justice and Dr. Dorothy Roberts, professor of Africana Studies, Law, and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World, sit down to talk with us about pregnancy criminalization, the child welfare system, and how Roe’s overturning further impacts rates of criminalization.   
Themes of compelling people to give birth, the separation of families, and the criminalization of pregnancy reaches back to the United States’ slavery era. Pregnancy criminalization heavily unfolded during the U.S.’ crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980s, disproportionately targeting Black women and turning a public health matter into a criminal one. These reproductive liberties, which have been consistently attacked throughout U.S. history, are further constrained with the repeal of Roe. Mandatory reporters within the current child welfare system are much more likely to report Black women to child protection authorities, as well as impoverished patients. 
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The Comstock Act, a 150-year-old law named after “anti-vice” crusader Anthony Comstock, passed in 1873. It allowed enforcement power to investigate the U.S. mail for items of an “illicit,” “lewd,” or “immoral” purpose, including items related to abortion. Greer Donley, Associate Professor and Reproductive Justice Scholar at University of Pittsburgh Law School, sits down to talk with us about the Comstock Act—what is it, what it means, and how anti-abortion activists are working to revive it. 
Today, the courts are packed with extreme conservative judges and Trump-appointees who maintain a vested interest in maintaining the act as a strategy to ban abortion pills and procedural items sent through the mail. To combat the Comstock Act and its ability to further decimate reproductive health and rights, Comstock must be completely repealed, and a presidential administration that doesn’t enforce Comstock is necessary. The president, who also has the power of pardoning, can pre-pardon anyone later convicted within the 5-year statutory period of a Comstock-related crime before leaving office. 
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California, a self-dubbed “reproductive freedom state,” scored an A+ on rePROs Fight Back’s forthcoming 50-state report card on reproductive health and rights. However, numerous barriers to abortion– a form of basic healthcare– persist in every state, California included. Jessica Pinckney Gil, Executive Director at ACCESS REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE, California's statewide abortion fund, sits down to talk with us about the fragmentary landscape of abortion access in the state through a reproductive justice lens and progress made in bridging gaps to care.
Abortion is not accessible for many Californians, particularly low-income individuals and those living in rural areas, and fewer than two-thirds of counties in California have abortion clinics, leaving some residents hundreds of miles away from care. Transportation, childcare, unreliable internet access, and taking time off work can present insurmountable obstacles for many. Still, grassroots efforts and legislative initiatives are making strides toward improving abortion access in the state. The California Future of Abortion Council, a group of reproductive justice activists, researchers, providers, and patients, produced two reports featuring recommendations to improve and safeguard abortion access in the state. These recommendations have led to the introduction of 28 pro-abortion bills in the 2022 and 2023 legislative sessions and secured over $200 million in funding to expand abortion access in California. 
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