The Post-Roe Health Care Crisis
Reveal
The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX
4.7 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 10 June 2023
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s been nearly one year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that protected abortion rights for half a century. Many states have passed laws severely restricting or banning abortion. And in states like Texas, pregnant patients are being put in peril.
Freelance journalist Sophie Novack reports on the hard decisions Texas doctors and nurses are making in the aftermath of the state’s ban. Providers are facing impossible choices when it comes to caring for pregnant patients with medical complications. Some fear that performing an abortion, even to save the life of a mother, could lead to criminal prosecution.
Reveal reporter Laura C. Morel has spent the last year investigating anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. Now that abortions are severely restricted or banned in much of the country, these centers are trying to fill some of the health care gap that’s emerged in conservative areas. In states that continue to allow abortions, crisis pregnancy centers have doubled down on their mission to discourage patients from terminating their pregnancies – often using deceptive practices to lure them into their facilities. Morel talks to a Florida woman who describes her experience at a Jacksonville crisis pregnancy center, where a volunteer deceived her into thinking it was an abortion clinic. As Morel and episode host Nadia Hamdan discover, deceiving pregnant women is part of these centers’ long history.
Finally, we explore how a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision has made it harder to regulate anti-abortion centers – and how the lack of regulation harms clients. Morel tells the story of an anti-abortion nurse in Kentucky who reported infection control problems at the crisis pregnancy center where she volunteered, only to find that the facility is allowed to operate in a regulatory gray zone.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is Reveal. |
| 0:09.4 | I'm Al Ezen. |
| 0:11.1 | This month marks a year since Roe v Wade was overturned. |
| 0:15.8 | Since then, we've had a team of reporters, producers, and editors covering how the ruling |
| 0:20.9 | is impacting people across the country. |
| 0:23.9 | And it isn't just people wanting to have abortions. |
| 0:27.3 | It's also about people who are trying to have kids. |
| 0:30.9 | This hour, we investigate a budding healthcare crisis in this new post-role reality. |
| 0:37.4 | Nadia Hamdang is a part of the team covering reproductive health, and she's going to be your |
| 0:41.6 | host for today's episode. |
| 0:43.4 | Nadia takes it from here. |
| 0:45.3 | Thanks, Al. |
| 0:47.2 | So we start in Texas, my home state, where the most recent fight over abortion rights has |
| 0:52.9 | been playing out the longest. |
| 0:55.1 | It all starts there in September of 2021, nine months before the Supreme Court's bombshell |
| 1:00.9 | decision. |
| 1:02.2 | One of the strictest abortion laws in the country takes effect in Texas today. |
| 1:07.0 | It bans the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, and that's before many women even |
| 1:11.9 | know they're pregnant. |
| 1:13.8 | The new law says a doctor is not allowed to perform an abortion if the fetus has any |
| 1:19.2 | sort of cardiac activity. |
| 1:21.7 | The law also allows private citizens to bring civil suits against anyone who assists a pregnant |
... |
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