Criminalizing Reproductive Health Care Kills Women • NC Newsline

At the beginning of the week, ProPublica published shocking stories about two women in Georgia, Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, who both died as a direct result of Georgia’s restrictive abortion laws.

And we recently learned the horrific story of the pregnant 18-year-old Texan who was turned away from multiple emergency rooms and denied much-needed care by doctors who feared criminal prosecution if they intervened with her pregnancy-related sepsis. Her mother was at her side as she died, helplessly begging doctors to save her daughter’s life. We also learned about Josseli Barnica – a young mother who also died after doctors delayed emergency care. She suffered a 40-hour miscarriage and never received help to prevent the infection that ultimately took her life.

These four tragic deaths occurred between 2021 and 2023 and are only now being made public. We can only guess how many there were, and that number will unfortunately rise under a Trump-Vance administration, a Republican-controlled Congress, emboldened Republican-controlled state legislatures, and an anti-right movement that advocates for the The criminalization of abortions will continue to increase. In the near future, access to medication abortion through telemedicine may end, as may federal protection for emergency medical care, including abortion services, for obstetric emergencies. Maternal mortality in states with abortion bans and restrictions will likely increase rapidly in the first year of Trump’s presidency.

That’s why I’m working with a national coalition of reproductive health, rights and justice organizations led by Ipas that is developing a new legal framework to support reproductive health care, based on the reality that abortion is a human right to be entitled to everyone has a claim. Every level of government has a role to play in ensuring this access, especially in North Carolina, where we are seeing an influx of “abortion refugees” seeking safe, legal abortion care as surrounding states have enacted extreme and, in some cases, outright criminalized restrictions Abortion.

In addition to my work on the city council, I also volunteer as a clinic attendant at our local Planned Parenthood. Lately, the parking lot has been regularly filled with out-of-state license plates. We witness families, couples and individuals making great sacrifices to access health care in our community by driving all night, sleeping in their vehicles and using their limited resources that would otherwise go toward rent and groceries would to get to North Carolina to receive basic health care.

It is disgusting and heartbreaking to hear their stories. While we welcome all who need care into our community, clinics and abortion funds are overwhelmed by demand. In some cases it is still not enough. Amber Thurman was able to travel from Georgia to North Carolina for a medication abortion, but Georgia’s criminalization of health care continued to prevent her from receiving necessary treatment for complications, leading to her tragic death.

The UN Human Rights Committee called on all levels of government to take action to ensure that no one is criminalized over pregnancy outcomes. In Chapel Hill, I had the honor of introducing a resolution unanimously supported by my colleagues stating that reproductive rights and abortion are human rights. This is the way forward to ensure that no one is criminalized, that no one is turned away when seeking medical care, and that no one is forced to wait and risk their health and life because of the doctors hands are tied due to the abortion ban and restrictions.

In North Carolina, some election results have been deeply frustrating, but there is reason for hope. While a majority of North Carolina voters supported Trump, we also elected pro-choice Democrats to key leadership positions that can improve access to sexual and reproductive health care in our state – governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and more. The Republican supermajority in the state parliament may also have been broken. Although the next four years will be challenging, I believe there is much we can do in Chapel Hill and other communities across North Carolina. A crucial step is to enshrine abortion in human rights and local work – community by community, city by city. We can and must do better for our communities, for our families, for all of us.

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