Women who say they were denied abortions in medical emergencies have taken legal action in Idaho, Oklahoma and Tennessee, in the latest attempt to challenge abortion bans that, abortion patients and doctors say, prevent people from getting care even when their health is in danger.
The lawsuits in Idaho and Tennessee, along with a federal complaint against a hospital in Oklahoma, were filed on Tuesday by the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of women in Texas earlier this year. Tuesday’s filings were first reported by the Washington Post.
“I can’t stop bad things from happening to people’s pregnancies,” Jennifer Adkins, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit filed in Idaho, told the Post. “But I want other Idahoans to feel safe and cared for.”
After the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year, states across the south and midwest enacted near-total abortion bans, many of which only allow abortions in cases of medical emergencies. However, doctors have repeatedly said that these bans, which contain non-medical language drafted by politicians, are too vague for medical providers to interpret. Instead, they are forced to wait until their patients get sick enough for them to intervene.
Earlier this summer, women gave emotional testimony for multiple days in a Texas courthouse about being denied abortions – a hearing that was believed to mark the first time since Roe that women denied abortions talked about their experiences in court. One woman spoke of slipping into sepsis and landing in the ICU, while others fled the state for abortions. One woman gave birth to an infant who lived only a few hours; during her testimony, she was so overcome that she threw up on the stand.
A Texas judge in August froze the portions of the Texas ban that, the women and their lawyers said, forced doctors to deny or delay care. But Texas soon appealed the ruling and put the original law back into place. Arguments in the case are now scheduled to take place in the state’s supreme court in late November.
The Idaho and Tennessee lawsuits were filed against the states. The Oklahoma case is a federal complaint, filed with the Department of Health and Human Services, against a hospital in Oklahoma on behalf of a woman with a partial molar pregnancy – which cannot develop into a viable fetus – who was reportedly told by medical providers to wait in a hospital parking lot until she got sicker, because they could not provide care until she was “crashing”.
Rather than trying to overturn the abortion bans entirely, the Center for Reproductive Rights is asking for states to clarify when abortions can be performed under their bans.
“What’s happening in Texas is the tip of the iceberg,” Marc Hearron, senior counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the Post.