Tabitha Crowe’s first child was due in February 2025, but she had a miscarriage in August. (Courtesy of Tabitha Crowe) 

Editor’s Note: This is the sixth installment of an occasional States Newsroom series called When and Where: Abortion Access in America, profiling individuals who have needed abortion care in the U.S. before and after Dobbs. The first installment can be found here, the second installment is here, the third is here, the fourth is here, and the fifth is here.

By Sofia Resnick

Tabitha Crowe said she woke up around 4 a.m. one Thursday in August covered in blood. She was visiting her parents in southern Louisiana when she started miscarrying her first pregnancy. She said her mom and dad drove her to a nearby hospital while she fought dizziness from the blood loss in their back seat.
“I didn’t even know I could bleed that much,” Crowe told States Newsroom.

Over the course of the next few days, Crowe said she passed baseball-sized blood clots and experienced extreme pain and dizziness in two different hospitals, while never being offered a common miscarriage procedure, even after she requested it.

An estimated 10 to 20% of known pregnancies in the U.S. end in miscarriage. In about 80% of miscarriages, women are able to expel the pregnancy tissue naturally over a period of one to eight weeks, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. When intervention is necessary in the first trimester, ACOG recommends abortion medications or procedures such as vacuum aspiration or dilation and curettage (D&C). Later in pregnancy, recommended termination procedures include dilation and evacuation (D&E), which has a high safety record but is condemned by anti-abortion groups and banned in some states.

But increasingly, women say they are being denied routine miscarriage care in states like Louisiana, where doctors face imprisonment if they perform an abortion unless a woman is at risk of dying, and where common miscarriage drugs are now more difficult to access. Doctors in Louisiana and Texas have also reported a rise in patients whose pregnancies are no longer viable receiving more risky and invasive terminations, such as Cesarean sections and inductions, in lieu of abortion procedures. It’s a change in practice some doctors involved in the anti-abortion movement endorse.

And in cases like Crowe’s — where death might not be imminent but failing to intervene could increase the risk for infection or other issues — some doctors are telling patients to finish their miscarriages at home.

“I think they were waiting for me to get in bad enough health,” said Crowe, who attributes her experience to Louisiana’s abortion ban, though she said no medical staff mentioned the law or responded to her requests for a D&C.

But waiting for patients’ conditions to worsen can sometimes be fatal, according to an ongoing investigation by ProPublica, which has reported on five deaths linked to abortion bans, most recently a young mom in Texas who spent hours in the ER but was never offered a D&C that could have saved her life.

As stories emerge linking abortion bans to adverse health effects, some state health departments are working to make these stories harder to learn about.

In Georgia, officials recently dismissed all 32 members of the state’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee following ProPublica’s reporting that the committee linked two women’s deaths to Georgia’s six-week abortion ban. The state said it would reset the committee through a new application process and is considering measures to ensure patient confidentiality.

In Texas, ProPublica reported that at least three women have died because of delays in care caused by the state’s abortion bans. Despite these reported deaths, Texas’ Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee said it wouldn’t examine any pregnancy-related deaths from 2022 and 2023, the first two years after the state’s near-total abortion ban took effect, according to the Washington Post.

Idaho, shortly after banning abortion, disbanded its Maternal Mortality Review Committee in 2023 after members recommended expanding Medicaid. The recently re-established committee is now backlogged and focused on publishing 2023 data in January before tackling 2022 data. The committee’s last report, based on 2021 data, showed the state’s maternal mortality rate had doubled in recent years and most of the deaths were preventable.

Crowe said her experience has moved her to speak out for better reproductive health care.

“For me to have a miscarriage for the first time, it’s already a very scary process,” said Crowe, who said she eventually got the care she needed outside of Louisiana. “You go to a hospital, you expect care, you expect some type of answers on what’s going on. And I didn’t get that.”

‘I had a sense it was because of the abortion laws’

Crowe and her husband, Noah Holesha, live on the Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle. Crowe said her husband is in the Army and she was medically discharged from the military in 2023 and now works as a caretaker. The two married in 2022 and were expecting their first baby in February.

But on the way to LSU Health Lallie Kemp Medical Center in Independence, Louisiana, on Aug. 8, Crowe said she felt she would never get to meet this baby. Two weeks earlier, her 10-week-old fetus only measured 6 weeks. Now in the emergency room, Crowe said medical staff gave her pain medicine, cleared her blood clots, and discharged her to finish miscarrying naturally.

Two days later at her parents’ house, Crowe said she woke up with 10 out of 10 pain.

“I was in excruciating pain again, like screaming and crying pain,” she said.

She said her parents took her back to Lallie Kemp, where they transferred her to St. Tammany Parish Hospital Emergency Department in Covington, about a 45-minute drive, because it was the nearest hospital with a dedicated OB-GYN unit.

“Lallie Kemp Medical Center complies with federal patient privacy laws and therefore cannot discuss specific patients’ care,”  Dr. Matloob Rehman, the hospital’s medical director, said in an email. “Lallie Kemp is a small, rural hospital without a full complement of specialists, including obstetrical surgery. If a patient is in need of such care, it is Lallie Kemp’s practice to refer or transfer the patient to a hospital that can provide such services.”

At St. Tammany, Crowe said she spent the day receiving pain medicine and transvaginal ultrasounds and having her vaginal canal cleared of clots. Medical records Crowe shared with States Newsroom indicate she was given misoprostol to evacuate her uterus, which Crowe said she was not aware of. She said the ultrasounds were still showing she had not completed the miscarriage. Crowe’s cousin had recently miscarried, so she and her family knew to ask for a D&C.

“They did ultrasounds and all that, but they didn’t help make sure that the miscarriage was completing,” Crowe said. “We kept telling them, ‘Hey, can y’all just do this D&C, so like we can be done with this pain?’ They wouldn’t answer.”

Crowe’s sister, a nurse in Texas, where abortion is also banned, suggested in a text that maybe it was because of Louisiana’s abortion ban that she wasn’t being offered a D&C.

“I had a sense it was because of the abortion laws, because by the time they did the canal sweep of blood clots, they didn’t even want to listen that I was in pain anymore. They were like, brushing it off, like, you’ll be fine,” Crowe said. “Even if them not doing it was wasn’t because of the abortion laws, I still didn’t get the treatment that I needed.”

Crowe said she was still dizzy and in pain when St. Tammany released her late on Aug. 10. Her St. Tammany hospital medical records say her miscarriage was completed at St. Tammany, which Crowe disputes. Medical records from the hospital in Florida, where she received the D&C, say the patient had an “incomplete miscarriage with evidence of retained POC [products of conception] on TVUS [transvaginal ultrasound], continued bleeding and anemia.”

The St. Tammany Health System Communications Department declined to comment on Crowe’s account, citing patient confidentiality, and said in a statement: “At St. Tammany Health System, we place our patients and their families’ wellbeing first. Patient privacy rights are established by the Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). In compliance with this act, we are not at liberty to provide information or comment.”

Crowe decided to drive the four hours back to Florida. She said her pain had ebbed, but soon after she got home, her husband rushed her to Eglin Air Force Base emergency department, where she said she received a D&C the following day.

The Eglin hospital did not respond to requests for comment.

Crowe said she was still dizzy in the weeks following, and she was confused and angry, believing — without confirmation — that she was denied health care she needed because of a new abortion law. She said she started reaching out to malpractice attorneys, reproductive rights groups, even President-elect Donald Trump.

“I sent everybody emails.” Crowe said. “I reached out to Congress. I reached out to the office of Trump. I reached out to lawyers. It wasn’t anger that I’ve lost the child — because I had a feeling I was going to lose the child — but it was the anger of they didn’t give their 100% care. I was getting in bad shape, health-wise, because of it.”

Louisiana abortion laws affect miscarriage care

Louisiana was one of the first states to ban abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. And it’s the first, followed by Texas, to reclassify two abortion and miscarriage medications — mifepristone and misoprostol — as controlled substances, even though they haven’t been shown to cause addiction or dependence. In late October, health care workers sued the state, arguing that the new law is unconstitutional and has added barriers to emergency care.

One of the legal advocacy groups representing plaintiffs in that case, Lift Louisiana, co-published a report with Physicians for Human Rights with detailed interviews from patients, doctors and clinicians of how the state’s abortion ban has changed reproductive health care in Louisiana. The report found that some OB-GYN practices are now deferring prenatal care until beyond the first trimester, when miscarriage care is more common. Some clinicians reported an increase in patient referrals from rural hospitals for routine care.

“To avoid the risk of criminal penalties under the bans, nearly every clinician relayed an account

in which they and/or their colleagues delayed abortion care until complications worsened to

the point where the patient’s life was irrefutably at risk,” the report reads.

Crowe said she was grateful she was able to get treated, not a given in Florida, which has a six-week abortion ban and where patients have also reported being denied miscarriage treatment. But she lives on a military base, under federal jurisdiction. With a soon-to-be GOP majority in Washington, D.C., anti-abortion activists are pushing Trump to restrict pregnancy termination at military hospitals.

Though she personally disagrees with abortion after the first trimester, Crowe said she now believes in abortion rights.

“Growing up, I was always pro-life, because I always wanted to have a kid and all that,” Crowe said. “I was also the type that’s like, I’m not going to judge you if you do. Now I’m like … the choice to have an abortion is important because some women … we need this procedure done to save our lives, too. My child was already lost; it lost its life. Because of the abortion laws, you’re keeping me from having my life. … I couldn’t grieve because I was in so much pain.”

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Packages of Mifepristone tablets are displayed at a family planning clinic on April 13, 2023 in Rockville, Maryland. (Photo illustration by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has several choices to make in the coming months about whether his second administration will keep access to contraception and abortion as it is now or implement changes.

While Trump cannot on his own enact nationwide laws or abortion bans without Congress, he and the people he picks for key posts throughout the federal government will have significant influence on reproductive rights nationwide.

During Trump’s first term in office he barred health care organizations that perform or refer patients for abortions from receiving Title X family planning grants, even though there’s a moratorium on using federal funds for abortions unless it’s the result of rape or incest, or the life of the woman is at risk.

Alina Salganicoff, senior vice president and director for women’s health policy at the nonpartisan health research organization KFF, said on a call with reporters Friday that about a quarter of providers withdrew or were disqualified from receiving federal family planning grants as a result of that policy.

“The Title X program basically funds family planning services for low-income people,” Salganicoff explained. “It’s basically a small program, it’s around under $300 million — but it is a critical program to people who don’t otherwise have insurance.”

Abortions as stabilizing care

Trump will also have to decide whether to leave in place guidance from the Biden administration that says a federal law from the 1980s protects health care providers who perform abortions as stabilizing care during an emergency that would affect a woman’s health or life.

That law, known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, became one point of disagreement between the Biden administration and Republican states that implemented abortion bans or strict restrictions after the Supreme Court ended the nationwide right to an abortion.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra wrote in a letter released in July 2022 that under the federal “law, no matter where you live, women have the right to emergency care — including abortion care.”

EMTALA is at the center of an ongoing lawsuit between the Biden administration and Idaho over that state’s abortion law. Oral arguments in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals are set for early December.

Abortion pill

The future of medication abortion, a two-drug regimen approved for up to 10 weeks gestation that’s used in about 63% of abortions nationwide, will be another area the Trump administration could alter without congressional approval.

Salganicoff said there’s no way to know just yet if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will seek to change prescribing guidelines for medication abortion or revoke the 2000 approval of mifepristone altogether.

“We don’t know whether they’re going to actually review the approval, but I will tell you that it is likely that they will revisit the conditions in which medication abortions, which now account for nearly two-thirds of all abortions in this country, can be provided,” Salganicoff said.

The Trump administration, she said, is likely to focus on revisions made during the Biden administration that allow doctors or other qualified health care providers to prescribe the two-drug medication abortion regimen via telehealth and then have mifepristone and misoprostol mailed to the patient.

Salganicoff anticipates anti-abortion organizations will also encourage the Trump administration to address recent findings from the We Count Project, showing 1 in 10 abortions take place after medication abortion is mailed to people in states with bans or significant restrictions from states that have shield laws.

“This FDA protocol is legal to do that, but clearly this is going to be a target,” she said.

Mailing of abortion medication

The Comstock Act, an anti-obscenity law from the late 19th century that once banned the mailing of boxing photographs, pornography and contraception, will also be front and center after Trump takes the oath of office on Jan. 20.

The law, which is still on the books despite not being enforced in decades, could potentially allow the U.S. Postal Service to prevent the mailing of abortion medications or any other instrument or tool used in abortions.

“The Biden administration’s Department of Justice did a review and said that they are not going to enforce Comstock,” Salganicoff said. “Project 2025 sees it very differently, and even though President-elect Trump has said that he is not going to enforce Comstock, it’s not clear, and there will likely be a lot of pressure to do that.”

Project 2025 is a policy map for a Trump presidency published by the Heritage Foundation. Trump has disavowed any connection with it, although former members of his first administration helped develop it.

Salganicoff said enforcing the Comstock Act would affect access to medication abortion throughout the country, even in states that have reinforced reproductive rights during the last two years.

“Clearly that’s going to tee up a lot of litigation and challenges,” Salganicoff said.

Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, said during the call that the Trump administration’s possible elevation of people who spread misinformation or disinformation could lead to more confusion about research-based health care.

“I think one thing, particularly with the rise in prominence of RFK Jr., you know, is the potential for misinformation,” Levitt said, referring to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a prominent vaccine opponent who endorsed Trump and campaigned extensively with him.

“We turn to the government for reliable data, public health information and scientific information,” Levitt said. “And there’s the potential now, for the government to be not only not an effective source for health information, but in fact, an accelerant for misinformation.” 

Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Eric Hovde in the 2024 Senate campaign debate | Screenshot via Youtube

This year’s race to represent Wisconsin in the U.S. Senate presents  a stark contrast between incumbent U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and challenger Eric Hovde.

Baldwin, a  two-term senator who previously served in Congress for more than a decade and in state and local office before that, faces Hovde, a banker whose only political experience was a failed Republican primary run for the same seat 12 years ago.

Baldwin points to the results of her lifelong work in politics — successful legislation addressing health care coverage, veterans, manufacturing and human rights, and also ambitious measures that have not passed yet.

Hovde is dismissive of Baldwin’s record and depicts his business background as an asset he can use in Washington to benefit Wisconsin. Combative during their only debate on Friday, Oct. 18, as well as in public interviews, he has  taken a leaf from the playbook of former President Donald Trump, both in style and in the subject matter that he highlights.

Whether control of the Senate remains with the Democrats or shifts to the Republicans could turn on the outcome of the Wisconsin race, one of a handful getting close scrutiny in this election.

Negative campaigning has been commonplace for decades, but it’s especially prominent in the Baldwin-Hovde race.

“There’s a lot of mud being slung,” says Lilly Goren, political science professor at Carroll University in Waukesha. “It’s not as if we haven’t had mudslinging in Wisconsin politics before, but it feels like there’s a little bit more going on.”

Heavy attacks

From the moment Hovde entered  the race, Democrats have pounced on the bank owner’s California connections, starting with his Orange County mansion and his high profile in the Southern California community, where a local publication named him among the county’s “most influential people.” In press releases, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin has taken to calling him Eric Hovde (R-Laguna Beach).

Hovde defends himself as a Wisconsin native and still a legal resident who  maintains his voting registration in Madison. At the debate he pulled out a utility bill to prove he has a local address.

Democrats have pushed for Hovde to declare that if elected he would remove himself from SunWest bank, which operates in California but moved its headquarters a few years ago to Utah. In September, the Wisconsin State Journal reported that Hovde said he would “step away” from the bank and was considering whether to put his assets in a blind trust if he goes to Washington.

Hovde, meanwhile, has pushed back with accusations that Baldwin’s partner, Maria Brisbane, an investment and wealth management adviser, puts the senator in a conflict of interest in connection with Baldwin’s Senate oversight roles.

The Senate’s ethics rules don’t address such a relationship, however. When Hovde raised the matter during the debate, Baldwin retorted that “Eric Hovde should stay out of my personal life, and I think I speak for most Wisconsin women that he should stay out of all of our personal lives.”

Reproductive rights

That response alluded to an issue that Baldwin has highlighted repeatedly: abortion and reproductive rights. During a rally with vote canvassers earlier in October, Baldwin recalled that Hovde “celebrated when the Dobbs decision came down” in June 2022 overturning the nationwide right to abortion enshrined in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision a half-century ago.

Referring to positions Hovde took in his 2012 GOP primary campaign, she added, “Previously he said he was 100% against abortion, and we have to take him at his word.”

Hovde has endorsed the Dobbs decision outcome for leaving the legality of abortion up to individual states. But he has also appeared to soften somewhat his earlier statements of opposition, saying several times, including in last week’s debate, that “women should have a right to decide early on in their pregnancy,” but not defining what period of time that would involve. 

Under Roe, abortion could not be regulated by the state during the first trimester. Later in pregnancy, abortion restrictions were permitted.

During the debate, Hovde accused Baldwin of supporting abortion  late in pregnancy, “where a baby can be born healthy and alive,” calling such abortions “unconscionable.” Baldwin quickly shot back, “Eric Hovde, that does not happen in America and it’s very clear that he has never read Roe v. Wade.”

Baldwin has authored legislation to codify the Roe decision. “I’m pushing to have that be the law of the land. Your rights and freedom should not depend on your ZIP code or the state in which you live,” she said.

Notwithstanding the wide range of other subjects that have surfaced in the race, Goren, the Carroll University professor, said in an interview that she’ll be watching how abortion and reproductive rights in the post-Dobbs era continue to play out at the ballot box.

“This is an issue area that both campaigns are focusing on in different ways,” she said. Wisconsin’s 1849 feticide ban — interpreted as an abortion ban for the first year and a half after Roe was rolled back until a Dane County circuit judge ruled that it did not apply to elective abortions — has given the topic new urgency  for many women in the state.

Farm bill clash

When asked whether he would support passing the 2023 farm bill during the debate, Hovde answered, “Well, I’m not an expert on the farm bill because I’m not in the U.S. Senate at this point.” Then he launched  into a call for farm bills “to get back to farmers” and to address the “regulations that Senator Baldwin and her allies continue to push on them.”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Dan Bice called Hovde’s answer “the worst moment” of the debate.

For Baldwin, it offered a target that allowed her to promote her recent endorsement by the Wisconsin Farm Bureau — the GOP-leaning group’s first endorsement of a Democrat in nearly two decades.

Wisconsin farmers have told her “they’re very eager to have Congress pass a new farm bill,” she said. The hold-up, she added, was that the Republican-controlled U.S. House has “basically eviscerated nutrition programs. Farmers support nutrition programs because it means purchasing their goods.”

Citing one of Hovde’s key talking points — calling for a cutback in federal spending to 2019 levels — she added that it would “cut the U.S. Department of Agriculture by 30% — that is not standing up for our farmers.”

Incumbent’s resume

Challengers typically deploy “career politician” as an epithet, but for Baldwin the term is both accurate and a point of pride. She readily traces some of her key legislative victories through that history.

Earlier this year, marking the passage in 2022 of the PACT Act, giving veterans exposed to toxic chemicals in conflicts  going back to the Vietnam War greater access to federal benefits, Baldwin recalled her introduction to the issue through a staffer when she was still in the U.S. House.

Likewise, she frequently points to the key role she played in shaping the  Affordable Care Act (ACA).

“It was my provision that allowed young people to stay on their parents’ health insurance till they turned 26,” Baldwin said during the  debate, repeating a campaign talking point.

Among her most recent trophies is language in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that for the first time empowers Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs. The act also imposes caps on the out-of-pocket expenses Medicare recipients must bear and limits their cost of insulin to $35.

“We need to build upon the Affordable Care Act, and we need to build upon our efforts to negotiate lower prescription drug prices,” Baldwin said during Friday’s debate.

While health care has been among her top concerns, she also directs attention to other parts of her lawmaker’s resume.

Economy and rebuilding U.S. industry

When President Joe Biden’s administration and allies in Congress drew up the CHIPS and Science Act to support the return of technical manufacturing from overseas to the U.S., particularly in the computer chips that gave the legislation its nickname, Baldwin turned to a 2019 Brookings Institution industrial policy report.

Drawing on that document she pitched the inclusion of a “technology hub” program that would direct federal funds to support the development of specialized advanced domestic production projects.

After the bill was enacted, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. worked with Bio-Forward, a consortium of industries and institutions in the state, to propose a tech hub focused on the emerging science of tailoring medical diagnosis and treatment to the individual genetic profiles of patients. Baldwin championed the Wisconsin entry for a competitive tech hub grant, then joined an event in August to show off one of the participating businesses.

Those and other major initiatives that emerged from Congress and the White House in the first two years of the Biden administration exemplified a vision that government has a role to play working with the private sector for economic development.

The CHIPS and Science Act’s objective to revitalize domestic tech manufacturing was in the service of national and economic security in the U.S. “That takes a government investment to be able to do that,” said Lisa Johnson, Bio-Forward’s executive director at the August event.

She also has introduced her share of bills that haven’t made it out of even one house of Congress, but in some of those she’s found a measure of victory. In 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission finalized a rule aimed at curbing stealth investors who try to grab control of struggling companies out from under the owners and management in order to make a quick buck.

The rule had its origins in legislation that Baldwin sponsored in 2017 after the shutdown of a paper mill in Wisconsin’s Marathon County led the village where it was located to dissolve. While the bill didn’t advance, some of its language made it into the new SEC rule.

Baldwin’s office enlisted the support of the mill’s displaced executive, who praised the persistence and patience of the senator and her staff in seeing what became the new rule through to enactment.

The story reflects Baldwin’s success at allying with a wide range of constituents with a wide range of concerns — as well as with lawmakers across the aisle, like Republican Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, with whom she’d cosponsored the original legislative proposal.

“I fight for Wisconsin and only Wisconsin,” Baldwin told the debate moderators, “which means I’ll work with Republicans or Democrats, Republican administrations or Democratic administrations — to get the job done for Wisconsin but also stand up to them.”

Tying Baldwin to Biden

Hovde’s campaign has been largely built on three arguments: that the major federal legislation signed by Biden and championed by Baldwin has been not just ineffective but harmful; that immigration is out of control and hurting the country; and that Baldwin has been an ineffective politician with nothing to show for her 12 years in office.

Along with those critiques, he’s presented himself — the scion of developers in Wisconsin and the owner of a $3 billion bank in California, where he owns a $7 million home in Laguna Beach — as an experienced business operator who can bring a fresh face to Washington.

In his arguments on the economy and on immigration, Hovde has been largely in step with Trump. Hovde, who received Trump’s enthusiastic endorsement, spoke from the stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, even before handily winning his party’s nomination as the designated Senate candidate, and has appeared at numerous other Trump events.

In those public appearances, including last week’s debate, Hovde has attacked the incumbent almost constantly — shaking his head as she answered the questions posted by Wisconsin journalists at the event, then accusing her of lying repeatedly without offering specifics.

Wisconsin Democrats, meanwhile, have run TV ads citing more than a dozen instances in which independent fact-checkers have accused Hovde of lying in ads and public statements.

Hovde has railed against the signature bills Biden helped shape and signed — pandemic relief, the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act.

At the debate Baldwin used Hovde’s opposition to the latter law to charge that Hovde “opposes efforts to negotiate the price of prescription drugs, saving patients and Medicare money.”

Provisions capping the out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare patients and forcing drug companies to negotiate prices were part of the Inflation Reduction Act, she observed.

“My opponent would have voted against that measure. He’s said that many times,” Baldwin said. “We are seeing real reductions in prices that will save both patients money but will also extend the solvency of Medicare.”

Hovde took sharp offense to the assertion that he opposes negotiating drug prices, without addressing his opposition to the law that has made drug price negotiation possible. “I think drug prices are wildly too high and I’ll actually do something about it,” he said, without specifying what his response might be.

Inflation and immigration

Hovde has zeroed in on the 2021-22 inflation spike, blaming it primarily on the Biden legislation. “That’s why inflation got ignited,” he said at Friday’s debate, blaming Baldwin for “reckless spending.”

In addition to attacking Democrats on the economy, Hovde has echoed Trump’s campaign in criticizing Biden for ending a series of Trump executive orders restricting migrants.

At Friday’s debate, Hovde threw out figures for migrants in Biden’s first three years in office that added up to 10 million — a number that far exceeds any official estimates from federal agencies or non-government organizations that track immigration policy. He added, “We don’t know how many come in but it’s flooded our streets with fentanyl. We have criminals that have entered into our country and it’s created a humanitarian crisis.”

Political ads supporting Hovde have attacked Baldwin on the immigration issue.

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, however, cartels mainly seek to move the drug across the border with the help of U.S. citizens. 

Baldwin has endorsed a bipartisan bill that the Biden administration reached with a group of conservative Republican senators but that the U.S. House Republican leaders killed at Trump’s urging.

Hovde has defended killing the bill, calling it a sham. “It wasn’t going to change any of the asylum laws or immigration laws at all,” he said.

Baldwin countered that the defunct legislation was “the toughest border bill that we’ve seen in years,” with provisions to add 1,500 border patrol agents along the Southern U.S. border. It also included technology to scan incoming vehicles for fentanyl.

She charged that Trump, with Hovde’s support, “wanted the political issue” of the immigration controversy. “They wanted the chaos,” she said. “They didn’t want a solution.”

With the attacks and counter-attacks, what started as a 7-point lead for Baldwin in the polls has narrowed considerably, with some polls showing the two neck and neck.

Despite that, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay political scientist Aaron Weinschenk says he believes a Hovde upset is unlikely. Baldwin easily won her last reelection bid in 2018, including in Republican areas like rural Richland and Lafayette counties, which Trump carried in the last two elections but which voted for Baldwin by more than 10 points. 

Baldwin “is pretty popular in Wisconsin,” Weinschenk said. “She’s like threaded the needle in appealing to people and you know different parts of the state that maybe you’d think of as being pretty Republican. It might be narrower than previous races, but I’d be surprised if she lost.”

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The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which was issued electronically, is seen on June 24, 2022 in Washington, D.C. The court’s decision overturned the landmark Roe v Wade case and erases a federal right to an abortion. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

This is one in a series of States Newsroom reports on the major policy issues in the presidential race.

WASHINGTON — This year’s election marks the first time voters are casting ballots for president since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion and made reproductive rights a pivotal issue for many voters.

Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump have spoken about reproductive rights and abortion access numerous times during the last few months.

Trump’s stance has evolved during his bid for the White House. He now contends he wouldn’t sign legislation implementing nationwide abortion restrictions and wants regulation left up to the states.

Harris has consistently said a nationwide law guaranteeing access would ensure the choice is left up to women, not politicians.

“I pledge to you, when Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade, as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law,” Harris said during the September presidential debate.

Trump patted himself on the back during the same debate for nominating three justices to the Supreme Court who later ruled with their conservative colleagues that the Constitution didn’t provide the privacy rights that two former high court rulings said insulated women’s choices about abortion.

“I did something that nobody thought was possible,” Trump said about nominating the three justices. “The states are now voting. What she says is an absolute lie. And as far as the abortion ban, no, I’m not in favor of (an) abortion ban. But it doesn’t matter because this issue has now been taken over by the states.”

Harris had just said that Trump would sign a nationwide abortion ban if elected and cited Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump administration released by the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation. Trump and his campaign have repeatedly tried to distance themselves from the document and many of its proposals.

Many politicians have misrepresented the Supreme Court’s ruling two years ago as sending abortion regulation back to the states. What the conservative justices wrote was that ending Roe v. Wade meant the “authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

That, of course, includes Congress and the president.

Trump position varies

Trump’s stance on abortion hasn’t always been linear or consistent. He told Republicans earlier this year that they should avoid discussing the topic in order to win elections, while also courting organizations that view him as one avenue to ending abortion outright.

Trump got himself into hot water with several anti-abortion organizations and conservative Republicans in April when he announced he didn’t want Congress to take action on a nationwide law.

Trump had previously said he would support a 16-week nationwide ban. He reiterated in his April announcement that he supported exceptions to state abortion bans in cases of rape, incest and the life of the pregnant patient.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser released a statement following Trump’s April announcement that she was “deeply disappointed.”

“Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy,” Dannenfelser wrote. “If successful, they will wipe out states’ rights.”

About a month later, in May, Trump, Dannenfelser, President of the Family Research Council Tony Perkins and South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham had a “terrific meeting,” according to a statement released afterward.

Then, this summer, Trump muddied the waters on his abortion stance yet more, when he spoke to an organization in June that describes abortion as the “greatest atrocity facing” the United States that should be “eradicated entirely.”

“These are going to be your years because you’re going to make a comeback like just about no other group,” Trump said to The Danbury Institute’s inaugural Life & Liberty Forum. “I know what’s happening. I know where you’re coming from and where you’re going. And I’ll be with you side by side.”

Then, most recently, Trump posted on social media during the vice presidential debate in early October that he would veto any nationwide abortion restrictions.

Trump wrote in all capital letters that he “would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters (the will of the people!).”

Trump added that he didn’t support access to abortion during the seventh, eight or ninth months of pregnancy, nor did he support killing babies, which is already illegal.

During 2021, about 93% of abortions took place within the first 13 weeks of gestation, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by the Pew Research Center.

Another 6% of abortions took place between 14 and 20 weeks with the remaining 1% taking place after 21 weeks gestation, according to the data.

“Almost half of individuals who obtained an abortion after 20 weeks did not suspect they were pregnant until later in pregnancy, and other barriers to care included lack of information about where to access an abortion, transportation difficulties, lack of insurance coverage and inability to pay for the procedure,” according to analysis from KFF Health.

Harris position 

Harris has repeatedly criticized Trump for celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision to end Roe v. Wade and said during the presidential debate that state restrictions have harmed women in innumerable ways.

“Trump abortion bans that make no exception even for rape and incest,” Harris said. “Understand what that means — a survivor of a crime, a violation to their body, does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next. That is immoral.

“And one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government, and Donald Trump certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.”

Harris has called for Democrats to eliminate the Senate’s legislative filibuster to ease the passage of a bill that would restore nationwide abortion protections.

That Senate rule requires at least 60 lawmakers vote to advance legislation before that bill can move on to a simple majority passage vote. It is different than the so-called talking filibuster, when one senator, or a group of like-minded lawmakers, talk on the floor for hours to delay a vote.

Democrats would have to maintain their majority in the Senate against long odds to actually carve out an exception to the legislative filibuster, in order to pass a bill restoring Roe v. Wade. Democrats would also need to regain control of the House of Representatives.

A divided Congress, or a few Democrats objecting to rule changes in the Senate, would hinder Harris’ efforts to sign nationwide abortion protections.

Democrats tried to pass legislation through the Senate that would have provided nationwide protections for abortion when they had unified control of government in 2022, but were blocked by the filibuster.

Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Arizona independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema later introduced a bipartisan bill that would have had a similar result, but it wasn’t scheduled for a floor vote.

The legislation of two years ago likely would again fail to advance if Democrats sweep in the November elections, unless they carved out an exception in the Senate filibuster.

Swing state voters

Harris’ and Trump’s stance on abortion access will likely play a role in determining which candidate wins the Electoral College in crucial swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Democrats are optimistic that abortion access ballot questions in 10 states will bolster Harris’ chances through increased voter turnout and higher spending by reproductive rights organizations.

While many of the referendums are in solidly blue or red states, the proposals in Arizona and Florida could affect turnout and motivation.

Louis Jacobson, senior columnist at Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, wrote earlier this month that a key question on Election Day will be whether “abortion-rights advocates extend their perfect 7-for-7 record since Roe v. Wade was overturned.”

Voters will decide on numerous other ballot questions as well, including recreational cannabis, increases in the minimum wage and ranked-choice voting.

In an earlier post about the abortion ballot questions, Jacobson and Samantha Putterman wrote that “(e)very post-Roe measure has been on the ballot during a relatively low turnout election—either the November midterm, a primary ballot, or an off-year election.”

“Any measure that makes the ballot in 2024 will face voters in November of a presidential year, when turnout is far higher,” they wrote. “This has the potential to hurt abortion rights backers, because moderate and liberal voters have recently flexed their electoral muscles more when turnout is low.”

Public opinion polls conducted by the Pew Research Center for the past three decades have consistently shown support for keeping abortion legal outpacing support for making the procedure illegal in most or all cases.

The 2024 survey showed that 63% of people want abortion legal in most or all cases while 36% believe it should be illegal in all or most cases.

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People attend a "Fight4Her" pro-choice rally in front of the White House at Lafayette Square on March 29, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Astrid Riecken/Getty Images)

We knew what would happen when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. 

We knew women would be denied access to abortion in many states, including here in Wisconsin. We knew patients would be forced to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to get care. We knew there would be people who would be forced to stay pregnant against their will. We knew doctors would be put in impossible positions, knowing they had the skill and knowledge to help their patients but fearing incarceration and the loss of their careers due to state laws. 

In Wisconsin, abortion was suspended immediately after Roe was overturned due to an 1849 law that prosecutors threatened to use to ban abortion in the state. This forced 9 in 10 people to travel out of state for care, putting people’s health and lives at risk. Fortunately, 15 months later, after thousands of Wisconsin women were denied care, a Dane County judge ruled that Wisconsin’s pre-Roe statute does not ban abortion. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has resumed providing abortion care, but women’s health has suffered, confusion remains, and the threats to reproductive care and freedom continue in the Legislature, Congress and the courts. 

Today, 21 states have banned abortion, and 29 million women and people across the gender spectrum who are of reproductive age are living under those bans. That number includes 44% of all women of reproductive age, and 55% of Black women. 

And we knew women would die because of these bans. We didn’t know how many, or where, or who they would be. But now we have names. Two women — both Black women, both mothers — in Georgia died in 2022, in the first months without a federal constitutional right to abortion. According to Georgia’s Department of Public Health maternal mortality review committee, Amber Thurman and Candi Miller died preventable deaths, as a direct result of Georgia’s abortion ban. 

Women and families have been telling their stories everywhere anyone will pay attention — on social media, on national television, in local newspapers. They are telling the world that abortion is essential health care, that women, trans and nonbinary people are suffering under these bans. They’re reminding us that access to sexual and reproductive health care is not a luxury to be awarded to the few: it is essential if we call ourselves a free country. 

The stories are piling up, some of them heartbreaking, some of them enraging, some of them achingly familiar to our own experiences or those of people we love. After all, one in four women will have an abortion in their lifetime, which means we all know someone who has had an abortion, whether they’ve shared that story or not. 

And we know what will happen if politicians against reproductive freedom take power this election. We know because they’ve already shown us what they will do, and they continue to pursue additional restrictions on our freedom to access needed information and health care.

Our democracy and basic human rights are on the ballot in November. What we can do is vote.  

We can elect leaders who will protect our right to make our own decisions about our bodies. Because there is no politician, of any party, who is more qualified, at any point in pregnancy, to make decisions about your pregnancy than you and your doctor.

And people know this. Nearly 80% of Americans believe the decision whether to have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor, rather than regulated by law. 

Every ballot cast in every election is a nudge toward a different future. Those nudges, taken together, determine the path our country will follow. The moral arc of the universe only bends toward justice and freedom if we all pull together.

So fight for the future you want, the future we all deserve. Vote for freedom.

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Medication abortion has become the most common method of abortion since the 2022 Dobbs decision ended the federal right to abortion. (Getty Images)

Researchers whose anti-abortion-funded studies were used to argue for restrictions on medication abortion — and then were retracted on methodological grounds — are now taking legal action against academic publisher Sage, which pulled their papers in February.

Represented by conservative law firms Consovoy McCarthy and Alliance Defending Freedom, the latter of which sued the Food and Drug Administration over abortion drugs in 2022, the researchers claim Sage’s retractions were unjustified and politically motivated and have led to “enormous and incalculable harm” to their reputations. They asked the Ventura County Superior Court in California to compel Sage to arbitrate with the researchers.

“Sage punished these highly respected and credentialed scientists simply because they believe in preserving life from conception to natural death. These actions have caused irreparable harm to the authors of these articles, and we are urging Sage to come to the arbitration table — as it is legally bound to do — rescind the retractions and remedy the reputational damage the researchers have suffered at the hands of abortion lobbyists,” said ADF senior counsel Phil Sechler in the recent announcement.

A representative for Sage declined to comment on the pending litigation.

A representative for the anti-abortion think tank Charlotte Lozier Institute, which employs the petitioning researchers, declined to comment. The nonprofit serves as the research arm of the influential Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which works to elect federal and state anti-abortion lawmakers.

The three studies at the center of the dispute were published in the journal “Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology,” between 2019 and 2022. Two of them featured prominently in a federal lawsuit aimed at restricting abortion pills, which the U.S. Supreme Court rejected this summer but continues to make its way through the lower courts.

States Newsroom was the first to report last year that Sage had opened an investigation after pharmaceutical sciences professor Chris Adkins contacted the journal with concerns that the researchers had misrepresented their findings. In the 2021 paper, the researchers looked at Medicaid data in 17 states between 1999 and 2015 and tracked patients who had had a procedural or a medication abortion and counted each time they went to an emergency department in the 30 days following those abortions. Their finding that emergency room visits within 30 days following a medication abortion increased 500% from 2002 to 2015 was frequently cited by plaintiffs and judges in the FDA case and used to conclude that the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone is dangerous. But Adkins and other public health experts told States Newsroom that the researchers inflated their findings, and appeared to conflate all emergency department visits with adverse events.

These concerns prompted Sage to re-examine the peer review process and to identify that one of the initial peer reviewers was an associate scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute. The publisher then enlisted a statistician and two reproductive health experts to newly peer review all three articles.

“Following Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines, we made this decision with the journal’s editor because of undeclared conflicts of interest and after expert reviewers found that the studies demonstrate a lack of scientific rigor that invalidates or renders unreliable the authors’ conclusions,” Sage said announcing the retractions, which notes that the experts found that the papers had “fundamental problems with the study design and methodology,” “unjustified or incorrect factual assumptions,” “material errors in the authors’ analysis of the data,” and “misleading presentations of the data.”

In a petition to compel arbitration filed late last week, the studies’ lead author James Studnicki and nine co-authors argue that Sage has delayed arbitration in violation of California contract law. They say they’ve had difficulty publishing new research since the retractions. As examples, the petition notes that in March a free online archive and distribution server for unpublished, non-peer-reviewed manuscripts refused to post one of the petitioners’ manuscripts and that in April a journal rejected the same manuscript, “citing similar pretextual reasons that HSRME used in its retraction.”

“These rejections are just the tip of the iceberg but reveal the enormous and incalculable harm that Sage’s retraction has inflicted on the Authors’ reputations and their ability to publish research and scholarship,” reads the court petition. “As scientists, the Authors’ credibility is their lifeblood, but Sage has destroyed the Authors’ hard-earned professional reputations.”

Studnicki, Charlotte Lozier’s vice president and director of data analytics, was on the editorial board of “Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology” until last fall, but the journal’s editor-in-chief dismissed him after the journal and Sage decided to retract the papers. The blog Retraction Watch reports that the journal is no longer accepting new submissions.

Medication abortion has become the most common method since the 2022 Dobbs decision ended the federal right to abortion.

Despite claims by the Charlotte Lozier Institute that medication abortion is unsafe, when administered at 9 weeks gestation or less, the FDA-approved regimen has a more than 99% completion rate, a 0.4% risk of major complications, and around 30 reported associated deaths over 22 years. Common symptoms include heavy bleeding and cramping, diarrhea, and nausea, and sometimes medical intervention is necessary to avoid infection. ProPublica recently reported on two women in Georgia who suffered rare complications of medication abortion, but whose deaths were ruled preventable and were attributed to the state’s near-total abortion ban.

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The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022 ended federal abortion rights. (Sofia Resnick/States Newsroom)

Editor’s note: This five-day series explores the priorities of voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as they consider the upcoming presidential election. With the outcome expected to be close, these “swing states” may decide the future of the country.

Dr. Kristin Lyerly’s placenta detached from her uterus when she was 17 weeks pregnant with her fourth son in 2007. Her doctor in Madison, Wisconsin, gave the devastated recent medical school graduate one option: to deliver and bury her dead child. But she requested a dilation and evacuation abortion procedure, knowing it would be less invasive and risky than being induced. And she couldn’t fathom the agony of holding her tiny dead baby.

But Lyerly’s doctor declined, giving her a direct window into the many ways Americans lack real choice when it comes to their reproductive health decisions. At the time of this miscarriage, Lyerly was getting a master’s degree in public health before beginning her residency. She was able to get a D&E at the same hospital by a different doctor. As an OB-GYN, she soon would learn how much abortion is stigmatized and limited throughout the country, but also regularly sought after and sometimes medically necessary, including among her many conservative Catholic patients in northeastern Wisconsin.

And then, on June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights, prompting states such as Wisconsin to resurrect dormant abortion bans from the 19th and 20th centuries. Lyerly’s job changed overnight. She stopped working as an OB-GYN in Sheboygan and moved her practice to Minnesota. She became a plaintiff in a lawsuit over an 1849 Wisconsin feticide law being interpreted as an abortion ban, which has since been blocked.

When a congressional seat opened up in a competitive Wisconsin district this year, the 54-year-old mother of four joined the post-Dobbs wave of women running for office to restore reproductive rights, which this election cycle includes another OB-GYN and a patient denied abortion care. Lyerly’s decision to run is emblematic of the nationwide backlash against the Dobbs decision, which altered the reproductive health care landscape, with providers, patients and advocates turning to the ballot box to change the laws to restore and broaden access.

Wisconsin is among seven swing states expected to determine the country’s next president and federal leaders. And in many ways they’re being viewed as referendums on how much the right to have an abortion can move the needle in a tight presidential election.

“What we’ve seen in every election since the Dobbs decision is that abortion is at top of mind for voters — and it’s not just helping voters decide who or what to vote for. It’s actually a turnout driver,” said Ryan Stitzlein, vice president of political and government relations at national lobbying group Reproductive Freedom for All. The group is investing in down-ballot races in conservative districts such as Lyerly’s, buoyed by cash and momentum from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ reproductive-rights-focused campaign.

Anti-abortion money is also flowing through the swing states, led by lobbying groups Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Women Speak Out PAC. Some of their messaging, adopted by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and many GOP candidates, often paints Democrats as champions of infanticide, focusing on the rarest and most controversial type of abortions, those performed in the third trimester.

But aside from that rhetoric, many Republican candidates have been quiet on an issue that for years motivated their staunchest supporters.

SBA Pro-Life America declined an interview for this story but shared a press release outlining the organization’s strategy trying to reach 10 million voters in Montana, Ohio and all of the battleground states except for Nevada. The group endorsed 28 House candidates total this cycle, and a fifth of them are in North Carolina. One of North Carolina’s endorsed candidates in a toss-up race is Republican GOP challenger Laurie Buckhout, who does not mention her abortion stance on her campaign website, and did not return a request for comment.

“Our field team is talking to persuadable and low propensity pro-life voters to urge them to cast their votes against the party that endorses abortion in the seventh, eighth and ninth months,” said SBA’s national field team director Patricia Miles in the press statement.

But throughout this election cycle, polls in the swing states have shown bipartisan support for abortion rights, especially when voters are educated about what abortion bans do. Voters in more than half of the states expected to determine the presidential winner have, to varying degrees, lost access to abortion. And abortion-rights activists across these states told States Newsroom they are determined to protect that access, or to get it back.

Arizona sees backlash after GOP upholds Civil War-era abortion ban

In Arizona, the Dobbs decision resurrected a Civil War-era ban that allowed abortions only to save a pregnant patient’s life.

Legislators repealed the law, but abortion-rights supporters fought for more certainty. This fall, Arizonans will vote on a proposed ballot measure that would protect access until fetal viability, around 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Now, two of the judges who upheld the abortion ban — Justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn King — are up for reelection, in races infused with national cash by groups such as RFA and Planned Parenthood. Also on the ballot is Proposition 137, which would give lifetime appointments to state judges. The Republican-initiated measure has garnered controversy in part because it is retroactive to this year’s election, so if approved, any retention bids would be nullified even if the majority votes to unseat the judge.

Ballot organizers turned in more than 800,000 signatures, double the required number, and overcame opponents’ legal challenges to qualify the abortion-rights ballot measure, Proposition 139. Abortion is legal up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, but there are many state restrictions that the Arizona Abortion Access Act would eliminate, such as a ban on any abortions sought for fetal genetic abnormalities and a blocked law from 2021 granting personhood status to fertilized eggs.

Recent deaths reignite controversy over Georgia’s abortion ban

This month, ProPublica reported on the deaths in 2022 of two Georgia women who suffered rare complications after they obtained mifepristone and misoprostol for early-term medication abortions. Both were trying to navigate a new state law that banned abortions at about six weeks of pregnancy and threatened medical providers with up to a decade in prison.

In one case, doctors at an Atlanta-area hospital refused for 20 hours to perform a routine dilation and curettage, a D&C, to clear the patient’s uterus when her body hadn’t expelled all the fetal tissue. In the other, a woman who had ordered the pills online suffered days of pain at home, fearful of seeking medical care. Both women left children behind.

Georgia’s law permits abortion if the patient’s life is at risk, but medical providers have said the law’s language is unclear, tying their hands and threatening the health of patients who have high-risk pregnancies.

Their cases, which a state medical review committee found to be “preventable,” have galvanized activists in the state.

Harris spoke at length about the women, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, at a recent campaign event in Atlanta. She blamed their deaths on Georgia’s law, calling it “the Trump abortion ban,” because the former president appointed three justices he’d promised would overturn Roe v. Wade.

“This is a health care crisis, and Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis,” Harris said. “Understand what a law like this means: Doctors have to wait until the patient is at death’s door before they take action. … You’re saying that good policy, logical policy, moral policy, humane policy is about saying that a health care provider will only start providing that care when you’re about to die?”

Trump has not commented on the deaths. He has repeatedly said this year that abortion access should be left to the states. He has dismissed the idea of a federal abortion ban, but during the presidential debate, he refused to say whether he would veto such legislation.

At a recent rally in North Carolina, Trump addressed “our great women” (a demographic he’s trailing among), saying, “you will no longer be thinking about abortion, because it is now where it always had to be, with the states, and with the vote of the people.”

Abortion was a driving concern in this spring’s qualifying process for Georgia’s 2024 legislative elections — the first opportunity for aspiring state lawmakers to jump on the ballot in response to their state’s severe abortion restrictions.

Melita Easters, the executive director and founding chair of Georgia WIN List, which endorses Democratic women who support abortion rights, was already calling this year’s general election “Roevember” back when President Joe Biden was still the party’s nominee.

But Easters told States Newsroom that having Harris on the ticket instead has elevated the issue of reproductive freedom even more and “has breathed new life into down-ballot campaigns.” Easters said she is especially encouraged after a Democratic state House candidate in Alabama who ran on abortion rights flipped a Huntsville seat during a special election in March.

Michigan Democrats continue betting on abortion after 2022 successes

Michigan was one of the earliest states post-Dobbs to show that abortion rights could be a strong election-winning issue.

Months after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Michiganders overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to protect abortion rights in the state constitution; reelected Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who vowed to prioritize reproductive freedom; and voted for Democratic majorities in both chambers, giving the party a legislative trifecta for the first time in 40 years. In 2023, the legislature repealed a 1931 abortion ban that was still on the books and passed the Reproductive Health Act, expanding abortion access in the state.

This year, state and national abortion-rights groups have campaigned in toss-up congressional districts across Michigan, warning that a federal ban would supersede the state’s protections.

State judicial races, meanwhile, have attracted millions of dollars, as they could determine partisan control of the Michigan Supreme Court. Democrats secured a slim 4-3 majority on the state Supreme Court in 2020 after Republican-nominated justices controlled the court for most of the last few decades.

Nevada reproductive rights activists hope ballot initiative improves turnout

In Nevada, abortion remains legal through 24 weeks and beyond for specific health reasons. In 2023, the state’s Democratic-led legislature passed a law shielding patients and providers from out-of-state investigations related to abortion care; it was signed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo.

Seeking to cement these rights in the state constitution, reproductive health advocates mobilized a ballot initiative campaign, which they hope will drive voter turnout that would affect the presidential and down-ballot races. Constitutional amendments proposed through an initiative petition must be passed by voters twice, so if voters approve Question 6 in November, they will have to approve it again in 2026.

In the state’s closely watched U.S. Senate race, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen currently edges Republican Sam Brown, who has had inconsistent positions on abortion and reproductive rights but opposes the abortion-rights measure.

National anti-abortion groups Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Students for Life of America have notably not focused on Nevada in their campaign strategies.

Growing Latinx voting bloc in North Carolina 

In North Carolina many Democrats are campaigning in opposition to a 12-week abortion ban that the Republican-majority legislature passed last year after overriding Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto.

In a high-profile race for governor, Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein faces Republican opponent Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who has previously said he believes “there is no compromise on abortion,” according to NC Newsline. The lieutenant governor is now facing calls to withdraw from the race over comments made on a pornography website years ago, and Stein has started racking up endorsements from prominent state Republicans.

Iliana Santillan, a political organizer who supports abortion rights, has focused on mobilizing Latinos, a growing voting bloc in the state. The executive director of progressive nonprofit El Pueblo and its political sister group La Fuerza NC told States Newsroom she’s talked to many young women motivated to secure their own reproductive rights, including her college-age daughter. She said the Latinx community faces additional reproductive care barriers such as language and transportation, with undocumented immigrants scared to cross state lines without a driver’s license.

Santillan also said there’s a misconception that all Latinos are against abortion because they’re Catholic, when in reality opposition to abortion skews among older voters.

“With older folks, the messaging that we’ve tested that has worked is: ‘We don’t want politicians to have a say in what we do with our bodies,’” Santillan said.

Motivated voters in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania, with its 19 electoral votes, is the largest swing state and considered essential to win the White House.

In a poll conducted this month by Spotlight PA and MassINC Polling Group, abortion ranked as the fifth most-important concern in the presidential race for likely voters, with 49% naming it as among their top issues.

The issue is far more important to Democrats, however, with 85% calling it a top issue compared with 17% of Republicans. Among those who aren’t registered with either major party, 49% called it a top issue.

In 2022, voters surprised pundits by sending enough Democrats to the state House to flip it blue. Voters were responding to the Dobbs decision, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro told Pennsylvania Capital-Star at a recent Harris campaign event.

Shapiro also won in 2022, and so far his administration has supported over-the-counter birth control pills and ended the state’s contract with a network of anti-abortion counseling centers. He said his administration would not defend a current state law that prohibits state Medicaid funding from being used for abortions.

Abortion isn’t protected under Pennsylvania’s state constitution, but it remains legal up to 24 weeks’ gestation, and clinics there have seen an influx of out-of-state patients.

Wisconsin abortion services resume

After more than a year without abortion access, reproductive health clinics in Wisconsin resumed abortion services in September 2023, shortly after a judge ruled that the 1849 state law that had widely been interpreted as an abortion ban, applied to feticide and not abortion. A state Supreme Court race a few months earlier saw Justice Janet Protasiewicz win in a landslide after campaigning on reproductive freedom.

Seven months later when Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher announced his resignation, Lyerly threw her hat in the ring, running as the only Democrat in the 8th District. She now faces businessman Tony Wied. Although in the past it was considered a swing district, it has leaned conservative in recent election cycles. With the redrawn maps and national support, Lyerly said it’s a competitive race.

“We have the potential to really fix, not just reproductive health care, but health care,” Lyerly told States Newsroom. “Bring the stories of our patients forward and help our colleagues understand, build those coalitions and help to gain consensus that’s going to drive forward health care reform in this country.”

Wied’s campaign website does not mention abortion or his policy proposals related to health care, though the words “Trump-endorsed” appear prominently and abundantly throughout the site. Wied hasn’t said much about the issue beyond it should be a state issue, but the two are scheduled to debate this Friday night. His campaign declined an interview.

Currently the only OB-GYNs who serve in Congress oppose abortion. If Lyerly wins in November, she would not only change that (potentially alongside Minnesota Sen. Kelly Morrison) but also could help flip party control in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Most Wisconsin voters oppose criminalizing abortion before fetal viability, according to a poll this year by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation.

Patricia McFarland, 76, knows what it’s like to live without abortion access. For more than 50 years, the retired college teacher kept her pre-Roe abortion a secret, having grown up in a conservative Irish Catholic family like many of her suburban Milwaukee neighbors.

McFarland told States Newsroom she has been politically active most of her life, but the Dobbs ruling dredged up the physical and emotional trauma from the illegal procedure she had alone in Mexico City. Now, McFarland rarely leaves home without her “Roe Roe Roe Your Vote” button, engaging anyone who will talk to her about the dangers of criminalizing pregnancy.

The mother and grandmother said she’s been canvassing and doing informational sessions with her activist group the PERSISTers, as well as the League of Women Voters. As she has warned fellow Wisconsities about the federal power over their reproductive freedom, she said the enthusiasm for abortion rights in her state is palpable.

“For women my age,” McFarland said, “we don’t want our grandchildren to lose their ability to decide when to become a mother.”

Georgia Recorder’s Jill Nolin contributed to this report.

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Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford speaks with reporters outside the U.S. Capitol about border policy negotiations on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats attempted to pass a resolution Tuesday addressing abortion access in emergency medical situations, but Republicans blocked it from moving forward.

The floor action followed months of unsuccessful attempts by congressional Democrats to approve legislation on various reproductive rights, including access to birth control and in vitro fertilization.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Tuesday she introduced the resolution to clarify what Congress’ objective was several decades ago when lawmakers approved the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA.

“We want to make it clear that Congress’s intent is that women can get life-saving care when they go to an emergency room anywhere in this country,” Murray said.

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford blocked Murray’s unanimous consent request to approve the resolution, saying that doctors in emergency departments are able to act in cases of miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy and life-threatening situations.

“This is a false claim that somehow what happened in the Dobbs decision and what’s happening in states is limiting that,” Lankford said. “It’s actually the political rhetoric that’s making people afraid.”

Lankford objected to another of Murray’s unanimous consent requests in March, blocking approval of legislation that would have expanded access to in vitro fertilization for military members and veterans.

No recorded vote

Unanimous consent is the fastest way to approve legislative items in the Senate. Under the process, any one senator can ask to approve a bill or resolution and any one senator can object. There is no recorded vote that puts all senators on the record.

Murray’s two-page resolution, which had the backing of 40 cosponsors, would have expressed “the sense of the Senate that every person has the basic right to emergency health care, including abortion care.”

The resolution also expressed that “State laws that purport to ban and restrict abortion in emergency circumstances force medical providers to decide between withholding necessary, stabilizing medical care from a patient experiencing a medical emergency or facing criminal prosecution, and put the lives, health, and futures of patients at risk.”

This resolution wouldn’t have actually changed the text of EMTALA.

The 1986 law states that hospital emergency departments must treat or transfer patients who have emergency medical conditions, regardless of their health insurance status or ability to pay.

It defines an emergency medical condition as something that could result in the health of the patient being in “serious jeopardy,” such as the patient “experiencing serious impairment to bodily functions, or serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part.”

Dobbs decision

The federal law has been the center of political and legal debate since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion two years ago in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling.

The Biden administration issued a public letter shortly afterward saying EMTALA protected doctors and other qualified health care providers who ended a pregnancy to stabilize the patient if their life or health was at risk.

Republican attorneys general in several states challenged that view of the law and the U.S. Department of Justice later sued Idaho over its abortion law.

That case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, but the justices ultimately decided to send it back to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The high court said it should have waited to hear the case until after the lower court ruled.

At the center of the disagreement between Republican state attorneys general and the Biden administration is that the federal law applies when a pregnant patient’s life or health is at risk; many of the conservative state laws only allow abortions after a certain gestational age when a woman’s life is at risk.

Exactly when a woman’s life becomes at risk due to pregnancy complications has led to dozens of stories from women throughout the country, who say they had to wait for treatment until their health deteriorated further.

Analysis from the Associated Press released in August found that more than 100 women experiencing medical distress during pregnancy were turned away from hospitals or negligently treated during the last two years.

ProPublica recently obtained reports “that confirm that at least two women have already died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state.”

‘This cruelty is unforgivable and unacceptable’

The Senate resolution that Republicans rejected Tuesday is nearly identical to one House Democrats introduced earlier this month.

Murray said ahead of her UC request that women and their families will not forget about being denied medical care due to Republican state restrictions on abortion access.

“No woman is ever going to forget when she was sent off to miscarry alone after her doctor said, ‘Look, I know your life is in danger, but I’m not sure I’m allowed to save you right now,’” Murray said. “No husband is going to forget calling 911 in a panic after finding his wife bloody and unconscious. No child is going to forget, for a single day of their life, the mother that was taken from them by Republican abortion bans.

“This cruelty is unforgivable and unacceptable. Democrats will not let it become settled status quo.”

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Vice President Kamala Harris departs Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport aboard Air Force 2, after speaking at a campaign rally inside West Allis Central High School on July 23, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Tuesday during a radio interview that she supports changing a Senate procedure in order to codify the right to an abortion.

Vice President Harris said she is in favor of ending the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, known as the filibuster, to advance abortion rights legislation. But that task would hinge on Democrats agreeing to do so and holding on to majority control in the Senate, a difficult feat this November as Republicans appear potentially poised to take back the upper chamber. 

“I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe, and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do,” she said during an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio.

Harris in 2022 said she would cast a tie-breaking vote in favor of abortion rights in her role as vice president. She has often pledged to sign into law a codification of Roe v. Wade, the constitutional right to an abortion struck down by the conservative U.S. Supreme Court in 2022.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in August that Democrats would talk about rules changes to codify abortion rights, NBC reported.

Trump in Pennsylvania

At a Monday rally in Pennsylvania, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump referred to himself as a “protector” of women. Trump said women no longer needed to think about abortion and it is “now where it always had to be, with the states.”

“All they want to do is talk about abortion,” the former president said at the rally, referring to Democrats. “It really no longer pertains because we’ve done something on abortion that no one thought was possible.”

Trump has called for Senate Republicans to dismantle the filibuster, but GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other Republican leaders like No. 2 Sen. John Thune of South Dakota have vowed to keep the procedure in place.

Current Senate projections indicate Republicans are likely to gain control of the Senate. Republicans are also expected to pick up a seat in West Virginia, and only need to hold on to seats in Florida, Texas and Nebraska.

Democrats will need to secure wins in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Additionally, Senate Democrats would need to break a possible 50-50 tie through a Democratic presidency — if they want to remain the majority party and change the filibuster.

If Harris wins, and Democrats hold 50 seats in the Senate, then Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the vice presidential nominee, would be the tie-breaking vote.

During a Tuesday Senate press conference on abortion, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said she was supportive of Harris’ stance and that it would be a carve-out of the filibuster, rather than an elimination of it.

“What we are talking about is a simple procedure to allow, whenever rights are taken away from someone, that the U.S. Senate can, without being blocked by a filibuster, be able to restore those rights,” she said.

Harris, Trump and the economy

The Harris campaign hosted a Tuesday press call with business owner and  “Shark Tank” investor Mark Cuban, to advocate for Harris’ economic policies.

Polls have found that voters view Trump as better for the economy. Pew Research found that Trump’s key advantage is the economy, with 55% of voters viewing the former president as making good economic decisions, and 45% of voters viewing Harris as making good decisions about the economy.

“In a nutshell, the vice president and her team thinks through her policies,” Cuban said. “She doesn’t just off the top of her head say what she thinks the crowd wants to hear, like the Republican nominee.”

Battleground states still the favorite spot

The candidates will continue to campaign and travel, especially around battleground states this week.

Trump is scheduled Tuesday to visit Savannah, Georgia, where he will give an afternoon campaign speech about lowering taxes for business owners.

Walz is scheduled to head back to his home state of Minnesota Tuesday for a campaign reception there.

Harris is heading to Pennsylvania Wednesday for a campaign rally and then she’ll travel to Arizona on Friday and Nevada on Sunday.

Trump is stopping in Mint Hill, North Carolina, on Wednesday to give remarks about the importance of making goods in the U.S. His running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, will travel to Traverse City, Michigan, on Wednesday to rally supporters.

Vance on Thursday will give a campaign speech on the economy in Macon, Georgia, and then host a voter mobilization drive in Flowery Branch, Georgia.

On Friday, Trump is scheduled to rally supporters in Walker, Michigan and in the evening hold a town hall in Warren, Michigan.

 Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth speaks about access to in vitro fertilization on the steps of the Capitol building on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, along with other Senate Democrats holding photos of families who benefited from IVF. At right, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., holds a photo of Duckworth’s family that includes Duckworth’s children, born with the help of IVF. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — The closely divided U.S. Senate gridlocked Tuesday over the best way to provide nationwide protections for in vitro fertilization, despite lawmakers from both political parties maintaining they want to do so.

Republicans voted against advancing a Democratic bill that could have prevented states from enacting “harmful or unwarranted limitations” on the procedure and bolstered access for military members and veterans. Two Republicans voted with Democrats — Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.

Wisconsin’s Republican Sen. Ron Johnson voted against the measure and Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin voted for it.

That came just a short time after Senate Democrats — who narrowly control the chamber — in a procedural move blocked a GOP bill from Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Katie Britt of Alabama that would have barred Medicaid funding from going to any state that bans IVF.

The 51-44 vote that prevented Democrats’ legislation from moving toward a final vote followed numerous floor speeches and press conferences, including by the Harris-Walz presidential campaign, that sought to elevate the issue ahead of the November elections. The measure needed 60 votes to advance.

“This is a chance for my colleagues across the aisle to put their votes where their mouths have been,” said Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the bill’s sponsor and a mom of two children born as a result of IVF. “They say they support IVF. Here you go — vote on this.”

Duckworth said the legislation would provide critical IVF services to U.S. military members and veterans, many of whom experience infertility or experience difficulty having children due to their service.

“It allows our military men and women, prior to a deployment into a combat zone, to preserve and freeze their genetic material; so that should they come home with injuries that result in them becoming infertile, they will have already preserved their genetic material so that they can, themselves, start those beautiful families they wanted,” Duckworth said.

Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris released a written statement following the vote rebuking GOP senators for blocking the bill.

“Every woman in every state must have reproductive freedom,” Harris wrote. “Yet, Republicans in Congress have once again made clear that they will not protect access to the fertility treatments many couples need to fulfill their dream of having a child.”

Republicans blocked Democrats’ bill earlier this year. But Senate leadership scheduled another vote after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump reignited the issue in August when he said his administration would mandate health insurance companies pay for IVF — a significant break with how the GOP has approached the issue.

“We are going to be, under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment,” Trump said during an interview with NBC News. “We’re going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.”

Alabama ruling

Democrats began speaking at length about preserving access to IVF earlier this year after the Alabama state Supreme Court issued an opinion in February that frozen embryos constitute children under state law.

That ruling forced all the state’s IVF clinics to halt their work until the state legislature passed a bill providing criminal and civil protections for those clinics.

Democrats have since argued that legislating the belief life begins at conception, which is championed by most conservative Republicans, is at odds with access to IVF, which typically freezes more embryos than would be implanted.

Those frozen embryos can be preserved or discarded, depending on the patient’s wishes, the clinic’s policies and state law. Some conservatives believe that discarding shouldn’t be legal or are opposed to the process altogether.

The Southern Baptist Convention, for example, voted earlier this year to oppose IVF, writing in a resolution that couples should consider adoption and that the process “engages in dehumanizing methods for determining suitability for life.”

“We grieve alongside couples who have been diagnosed with infertility or are currently struggling to conceive, affirm their godly desire for children, and encourage them to consider the ethical implications of assisted reproductive technologies as they look to God for hope, grace, and wisdom amid suffering,” it stated.

Senate Democrats’ press for IVF protections has gone hand-in-hand with their efforts to bolster other reproductive rights, like access to birth control and abortion.

The issues could play a significant role in determining the outcome of the presidential election this November as well which political party controls the House and Senate.

Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance missed Tuesday’s vote, but voted against advancing Democrats’ IVF bill when it was on the floor in June.

IVF bill from Cruz, Britt

Before the Senate held a vote on Democrats’ bill, Cruz asked for quick approval of an IVF bill he and Britt introduced earlier this year.

Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray blocked his unanimous consent request.

During debate on that bill, Britt questioned why Democrats haven’t scheduled a recorded vote on her legislation, saying it could get the 60 votes needed to advance toward final passage.

“Today, we have an opportunity to act quickly and overwhelmingly to protect continued nationwide IVF access for loving American families,” Britt said. “Our bill is the only bill that protects IVF access while safeguarding religious liberty.”

The Britt-Cruz legislation has three co-sponsors, including Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis, Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall and Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker.

Murray said the Britt-Cruz bill didn’t address what would happen in states that legislate fetal personhood, which she called “the biggest threat to IVF.”

“It is silent on whether states can demand that an embryo be treated the same as a living, breathing person,” Murray said. “Or whether parents should be allowed to have clinics dispose of unused embryos, something that is a common, necessary part of the IVF process.”

Cruz tried to pass his legislation through the unanimous consent process, which allows any one senator to ask for approval. Any one senator can then block that request from moving forward — as Murray did. There is no recorded vote as part of the UC process.

Cruz previously asked for unanimous consent to pass the bill in June, but was blocked then as well.

Legal protections

Democrats’ 64-page bill would have provided legal protections for anyone seeking fertility treatment, including IVF, and for the health care professionals providing that type of care.

It would have barred state and federal governments from “enacting harmful or unwarranted limitations or requirements” on IVF access.

The legislation would have bolstered fertility treatment coverage for members of the military and veterans, as well as their spouses, partners, or gestational surrogates.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine supports Democrats’ legislation. Chief Advocacy and Policy Officer Sean Tipton wrote in a statement released this week that Democrats’ IVF bill would “protect the rights of Americans to seek the medical services they may need to have children and ensure no healthcare provider faces legal consequences for trying to help their patients as they seek to build their families.”

“This legislation also increases access to IVF treatments for all Americans by mandating that employer-sponsored insurance plans and other public insurance plans cover fertility treatment,” Tipton wrote. “Significantly, it would ensure the federal government does right by its own employees by providing coverage for active-duty military, veterans, and civilian staff.”

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