Latest news with #post-Roe
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Our film imagined a post-Roe nightmare. Then it came true
When I first met Amy in the emergency room, she had a minor laceration on her finger. She claimed it was from an accident in the kitchen, but her cowering posture, downcast eyes and hesitant responses to basic questions suggested there was more to her visit than she was letting on. Amy reminds me of the girls I grew up with. Delicate, but exhausted and under pressure. She works long hours at a convenience store with a manager who offers no flexibility. Determined to save enough for college classes toward her degree, Amy has also shouldered the responsibility of supporting her mother, who has grown dependent on painkillers. She cleans homes to cover unexpected expenses, like becoming pregnant after a condom broke during sex, but she was unable to scrape together enough cash to purchase the morning-after pill. On June 3, the Trump administration revoked guidance that required hospitals to provide emergency abortions for patients in need. This national directive was issued in 2022 by the Biden administration, using the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and it was intended to assist women facing medical emergencies and other serious complications. The Trump administration's action is just the latest salvo in an ongoing battle, one in which reproductive freedom seems to be losing ground every day. The mood, among both doctors and patients, is one of persistent uncertainty and fear. Here in the emergency room, Amy and I both feel it. The cut on Amy's finger was a ruse — a desperate act to access care. She is pregnant and doesn't want to be. But in our state, abortion is illegal. As an emergency physician, I tell her – quietly – that if she travels to another state, she can receive proper care. She'll need to budget a certain amount of cash for travel expenses. We keep this conversation between us. The possibility of this scene has become all too familiar a worry in real life, but the truth is that Amy isn't real. And I'm not really an emergency physician, I just play one in a movie. A few months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, while we were both still attending journalism school at New York University, my friend Nate Hilgartner approached me about a film he wanted to write and direct about the ethical implications of a post-Roe world. He had me in mind to play a doctor in a rural town torn between her duty to help her patient and the imperative to obey restrictive new laws. It would be an American horror story, he told me. At the time, it seemed prophetic but impossible, a bit of artful exaggeration to warn against a dystopian tendency. Today, it's our reality, and in some ways, things are worse. The consequences of a woman not receiving the reproductive healthcare of her choice could lead someone like our fictional protagonist to lose her ability to create a life on her own terms, trapping her in a cycle of poverty with a lack of education. In Georgia, a pregnant woman who has been declared brain-dead is being kept on life support until her baby can be delivered. Across the country, women have been turned away from emergency rooms after suffering ectopic pregnancies, which require an emergency abortion to prevent potentially fatal outcomes. Doctors have been reprimanded and fined, including Caitlin Bernard, an OB-GYN from Indiana, who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim denied an abortion in Ohio. Three years ago, all of this would have sounded like fiction, a fever-dream storyline out of The Handmaid's Tale. An investigation by ProPublica in December 2024 revealed that doctors in states with abortion bans often feel abandoned by lawyers and hospital leaders when seeking guidance on how to proceed with patients in emergencies. Since information about managing the bans in each state have been provided only on a 'need-to-know' basis, many doctors are left to navigate alternative options on their own, with some becoming too afraid to offer care, fearing professional and personal consequences. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oreg.) described the situation as doctors 'playing lawyer' and lawyers 'playing doctor,' leaving pregnant women facing life-or-death situations caught in the middle. Experts warn that the decision to eliminate access to emergency life-saving abortions will further exacerbate the crisis for doctors. The Trump administration's order to revoke emergency abortions sends a clear message to women who lack adequate resources to afford proper care. EMTALA, enacted in 1986, was designed to protect patients and ensure they receive stabilizing emergency care, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay. While all pregnant women benefited from this law, it now appears that only those with sufficient health care and life circumstances will be able to survive potential emergencies. I am a writer and an actor, not a doctor. But for a time I imagined what it was like to be seated across from a woman scared and uncertain about the choices she could make about her body. Amy may not be real, but her plight is. Many of us may not admit it, but we've had our scares, moments where we've had to seriously consider the possibility of what we'd do if confronted with a pregnancy we weren't ready to have. At an age where I contemplate my own reproductive future, I am given pause: How can anyone assume there will never be complications in their pregnancy? Stories like Amy's aren't just about the right to make decisions about our bodies; they're also about the painful truth that those choices often come with a cost. When we set out to make this film, No Choice, we hoped to imagine a plausible future — not to prophesy our present reality. We could never have predicted just how quickly real-world headlines would not only validate our story, but outpace its darkest possibilities. Making a film was just one of many actions we hope other people will take to challenge the belief that a woman's body belongs to the state, not to herself. No Choice premieres in Los Angeles at the Dances With Films festival on June 23 — just one day shy of the third anniversary marking the fall of Roe v. Wade.
Politico
13-06-2025
- Health
- Politico
The post-Roe fight over data privacy
Hey everyone! I hope you are all having a lovely Pride Month. Thanks for reading Women Rule. We'll be on hiatus next week and back in your inbox on June 27. Reach out and say hello: klong@ and ecordover@ This week I had a chat with Rep. Sara Jacobs on her reintroduction of the My Body, My Data Act. The post-Roe era has elevated a new data privacy fight, as concerns grow over how reproductive and sexual health data is collected and disclosed. But the issue has been front of mind for Rep. Sara Jacobs for years, even prior to the Dobbs decision. The California Democrat reintroduced the My Body, My Data Act on Thursday, which aims to increase protections for those who use apps and sites that collect reproductive and sexual health data, such as period tracking apps. Jacobs points to certain instances where reproductive health data, which is not protected under HIPAA, has been used to investigate and prosecute users in states with strict abortion laws. Jacobs describes the push to protect reproductive and sexual health data as 'the abortion fight of the 21st century.' The bill, which was introduced in 2022 and then reintroduced the following year, would provide consumer protections for users who disclose their reproductive and sexual health data on apps and websites. This includes limiting the data that can be collected to only that which is necessary to provide a certain product or service, and bolstering transparency from companies on how that data is collected, retained and shared. Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) sponsored the bill's Senate counterpart. The legislation was introduced twice before, first in 2022 and again the following year, but made little headway. And with a Republican-controlled Congress, the bill's reintroduction will likely result in a similar fate. Women Rule spoke with Jacobs on the reintroduction of the bill, which comes on the heels of the three-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. I first wanted to talk a little bit about the bill. I think especially in a post-Roe world, there's growing concern over government tracking on period apps and other apps and sites related to reproductive and sexual health. I first introduced this bill because right after the opposite decision came down when Roe v. Wade was overturned, I started getting all these messages from friends and peers wondering what they should do about their period tracking apps, and I also use a period tracking app, and we started looking into it and there's basically no protections for this kind of reproductive and sexual health data. It's not covered under HIPAA, and so we're already seeing people try to use this data to go after people who are getting abortions and those helping them in states that have criminalized abortion. We know that they want to go after this data, and so I think it's incredibly important that we as Congress do something to protect this very sensitive data. Actually, there was a poll two years ago that showed that 2 in 3 Americans, including 54 percent of Republicans, support Congress making it illegal for apps and search engines to sell their reproductive health data. Why is it important for this bill to pass now? Well, in 2017, even before the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Mississippi police used Google search history to go after someone and alleged that she had an abortion. In 2022, the police used Facebook messages in Nebraska as part of an investigation into an abortion illegal under state law. More recently, a data broker sold cell phone and geolocation data to an anti-abortion political group that then used that information to dispense misinformation about reproductive health to people who had visited 600 abortion clinics in 48 states. And more Americans are turning to online clinics for medication abortions. Young people increasingly use the internet, live online, we are googling questions about medicine, we are using Ubers to get places, right? And all of this data can be misused, and we know the lengths that police and prosecutors will go to to try and intimidate or prosecute people for having abortions. With a Republican controlled Congress, it seems unlikely that the bill will pass, but have you received any support from across the aisle? Unfortunately, while I work in a bipartisan way with a lot of Republicans on data privacy, when it comes to this kind of data, they have been unwilling to engage even though they claim to support data privacy. We're coming up on the three-year anniversary of Roe v. Wade being overturned, and you've mentioned a few examples. Could you talk about how the Dobbs decision has impacted those who use these reproductive and self sexual health tracking apps and sites? Look, especially in states that have criminalized abortion — something like 1 in 3 women live in a state that has criminalized abortion in some way — there is an incredible amount of fear that even if they have a natural miscarriage they could be prosecuted because they Googled something once or that this kind of information can be used against [them] and weaponized against people. I think as we're seeing more and more states and as we know that at the end of the day this Republican Party wants a federal abortion ban, it's more important than ever that we protect people's data. Is there anything in particular about the My Body My Data Act that you would like to highlight? This is the abortion fight of the 21st century, right? Because it's about access and it's about how they're enforcing these really horrible laws. Americans are now becoming more aware of how their data is being used and stored, in part because of DOGE and what Elon Musk is doing. And we know that women are often trying to find the apps and services that claim to safeguard their data, but each individual person shouldn't have to try and figure this out on their own, and it shouldn't be up to companies to do the right thing. This is the exact kind of thing you need the government for, to protect very sensitive health data. And young people intrinsically understand this issue from both sides of the aisle. But part of what's hard is that so many of my colleagues do not understand this. There's just a bit of a mismatch between Congress and the American people on this issue. POLITICO Special Report How Kamala Harris Is Processing the LA Unrest by Melanie Mason for POLITICO: 'Harris has been choosy about when to weigh in publicly on politics since leaving Washington. So her statement on social media this week denouncing President Donald Trump's activation of the National Guard as a 'dangerous escalation' instantly lent itself to frenzied tea leaves reading. … For Harris, it was a natural issue to speak up on for several reasons, according to one of the people familiar with her thinking and granted anonymity to speak freely. First, she's coming at this as a lifelong Californian who came up in law enforcement and has made the rule of law a driving theme of her career. She also empathizes with the protesters, after growing up steeped in the civil rights protests of her childhood and campus anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s.' Trump's DOJ Indicted a Democratic Congresswoman. The Case Could Fall Apart. by Ankush Khardori for POLITICO: 'The decision to proceed with an indictment following the initial charges against the New Jersey Democrat comes at a politically volatile moment — following President Donald Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard and the Marines in response to protests in Los Angeles, and in the midst of ongoing wrangling over the scope and legality of the administration's deportation effort. In recent weeks, that effort has generated heartrending images from courthouse arrests and more admissions of mistaken deportations from the Justice Department. Meanwhile, the administration is moving to deport hundreds of thousands of people who entered the country legally under the last administration.' Phil Murphy Skated to the NJ Governor's Mansion. Mikie Sherrill Might Not Have it So Easy. by Matt Friedman and Madison Fernandez for POLITICO: 'Rep. Mikie Sherrill was the vanguard of the anti-Trump backlash in 2018. Just months after the political unknown declared her Democratic candidacy for Congress and began raising money at a fast clip, the 24-year Republican incumbent bowed out rather than face the first competitive general election of his career. Sherrill easily won what had long been a safe Republican district in a blue wave election that flipped the House. Now, Sherrill stands as Democrats' bulwark against a red tide after winning the party nomination for New Jersey governor Tuesday night.' Number of the Week More on that here. MUST READS Doctors Report the First Pregnancy Using a New AI Procedure by Alice Park for Time Magazine: 'Doctors at Columbia University Fertility Center have reported what they are calling the first pregnancy using a new AI system, in a couple that had been trying to start a family for nearly two decades. The pregnancy was possible due to an advance developed by the Columbia team, led by Dr. Zev Williams, director of the center, to address azoospermia, or a lack of detectable sperm in the ejaculate. Male factors account for about 40 percent of infertility in the U.S., and azoospermia is responsible for about 10 percent of those cases. Until recently, there was little doctors could do to address the lack of sperm needed to fertilize an egg, other than using donor sperm.' Domestic Abusers Could Have Easier Path to Getting Gun Rights Back Under Trump Proposal by Jennifer Gerson for The 19th: 'The Trump administration is proposing a change to how people convicted of crimes can have their gun rights restored, raising concerns over what this means for victims of domestic violence. The Democratic Women's Caucus and the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Robert Hinchman, senior counsel at the Department of Justice (DOJ), criticizing an interim final rule that would move the responsibility for determining if someone gets their gun rights back from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to the Office of the Attorney General. While the ATF is part of the DOJ, the letter says the proposal would create 'an apparent lack of an objective, holistic process for making' these decisions.' Senate Democrats File Bill to Prevent Ban on Transgender Military Service by Luis Martinez for ABC News: 'The 'Fit to Serve Act' would prohibit the Defense Department from banning transgender service members from serving in the military. If passed, the law would prevent the DOD from denying access to healthcare on the basis of gender identity, and it would also prohibit the military from forcing service members to serve in their sex assigned at birth. It would also make it illegal for the military to discriminate against service members on the basis of gender identity.' QUOTE OF THE WEEK Read more here. on the move Fortune journalist Emma Hinchliffe was promoted to editor of the Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter at the publication, leading editorial for the 28-year-old franchise. Martina McLennan is now director of policy communications for economic and health policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. She previously was communications director for Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). (h/t POLITICO Influence) Cara Duckworth is now SVP of comms at USTelecom – The Broadband Association. She previously was chief corporate comms officer at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. (h/t POLITICO Playbook)
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Democrats introduce bill that aims to protect reproductive health data
Three Democratic members of Congress are introducing a bill to limit companies' ability to hoover up data about people's reproductive health – a measure, they say, that is necessary to protect women from persecution in the post-Roe v Wade era. Representative of California, Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon on Wednesday will file the My Body, My Data Act in both the US House and Senate. The bill aims to block companies from collecting, using, retaining or disclosing information about someone's reproductive health unless that data is essential to providing a requested service. This provision would apply to information about pregnancy, menstruation, abortion, contraception and other matters relating to reproductive health. 'Young people live our lives online, right? That includes tracking our periods, but it also includes our phones tracking our location and using Google to think about your medical care or how to obtain an abortion for yourself or a friend, or ordering abortion pills online, or using an Uber to travel to an abortion clinic,' Jacobs said. 'All of those things are tracked online, and none of those are protected right now.' Law enforcement officials have already attempted to use people's data trails to identify abortion seekers. In 2022, the year that the US supreme court overturned Roe, Nebraska brought a series of felony and misdemeanor charges against a teenager and her mother in connection to the teen's abortion. The charges relied on Facebook chats, which the social media giant had turned over. (Both the teenager and her mother pleaded guilty and were sentenced to time behind bars .) In 2023, anti-abortion activists used cellphone location information to send anti-abortion messages to people who had visited some Planned Parenthood clinics. And in May, a Texas police officer searched tens of automatic license plate reader cameras, including in states that permit abortion, for a woman who officials suspected of self-managing an abortion. The post-Roe landscape is also creating more opportunities for online surveillance. In recent years, orders for abortion pills online have spiked, as tens of thousands more Americans have used online services to obtain pills to 'self-manage' their own abortions. A number of women have also faced criminal charges over miscarriages, leading abortion rights advocates to worry that women who Google phrases like 'how to get an abortion' and then miscarry could find themselves in law enforcement's crosshairs. 'It doesn't deal with everything in terms of data brokers, but it does put women in a much stronger position to protect their rights,' Wyden said of the My Body, My Data Act. 'Reproductive rights are the ultimate privacy priority, because the fundamental right of a woman to control her own body and her own healthcare is as private as it gets.' An earlier version of the bill was introduced in 2023. Given that Republicans control Congress, the bill is not likely to pass. 'I have many Republican colleagues who say they care about data privacy. We work together on data privacy in every other area, but when it comes to anything abortion-related, they refuse to do it,' Jacobs said. 'This is also the third oldest Congress in history, and I'll be honest, many of my colleagues don't understand how period tracking apps or website searches or location data even work.' Jacobs says she uses a period tracker run by a company based in Europe that is subject to the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, a set of strict regulations that governs how businesses obtain and handle people's online data. While the US has no similar regulations on the federal level, Washington state in 2023 became the first in the country to create a state version of the My Health, My Data Act. That law covers health data that is not otherwise protected by the US Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (Hipaa) – including information about reproductive healthcare services – and requires companies to give their customers more privacy disclosures and seek their authorization before selling their data. It also gives Washington residents the ability to demand those companies delete their personal information. Jacobs advises people to use apps based in states with some degree of protection for reproductive health data. She added: 'If you live in a state that is really criminalizing abortion and going after people, you should be careful about what you put online.'
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Ali Velshi: The U.S. may have just entered the most dangerous chapter of the post-Roe era yet
This is an adapted excerpt from the June 8 episode of 'Velshi.' We may have just entered the most dangerous chapter of the post-Roe era to date. With new, but little-noticed, developments over recent days, it's apparent that not only are women under greater threat of being criminalized for their pregnancies, but the health and lives of pregnant women are more endangered now than at any time since the Dobbs decision was handed down. Since the Supreme Court's 2022 decision, draconian abortion bans have been enacted in more than a dozen states. We have seen the deadly impact of those bans. In Georgia, Amber Thurman died of sepsis after not receiving an abortion procedure, known as dilation and curettage, that could have saved her life. Also in Georgia, Candi Miller died after she was too afraid to seek medical care because of the state's abortion ban. In Texas, Josseli Barnica, Porsha Ngumezi and Nevaeh Crain all died after being denied proper care following miscarriages. And in the same state, Kylie Thurman lost part of her reproductive system after being turned away from a Texas hospital with an ectopic pregnancy. These are just some of the cases we know about. To put it quite simply: Abortion is health care, emergency abortion is emergency health care — and without it, women die. Despite that fact, last week the Trump administration revoked guidance issued by the Biden administration that directed hospitals to provide emergency abortions to women regardless of a state's abortion laws. So why would the Trump administration want to come after emergency abortions specifically? The ones where, if you don't get them, you could die? Well, University of California, Davis law professor Mary Ziegler has a theory. She notes that the new guidance from the Trump administration does not just revoke the Biden-era guidance on providing emergency abortions, it also suggests that hospitals are required to protect the health of a pregnant woman's 'unborn child.' This, Ziegler suggests, hints at a broader anti-abortion strategy. As she writes in a new piece for MSNBC: 'In the longer term, the end of the Biden-era guidance may be the tip of the sword further carving up abortion protections, even in states where that right is still protected.' So not only is it dangerous to experience a pregnancy complication in the wrong state, it's likely to get more complicated even if you live in a 'safe' state. But that is not even the end of the alarming trends in anti-abortion zealotry. Miscarriage is the most common pregnancy complication in America, affecting up to 1 in 5 pregnancies, according to the National Institutes of Health. And yet, since Dobbs was handed down, we have seen case after case of this common medical condition becoming a criminal investigation. Mallori Patrice Strait spent five months in police custody after miscarrying in a public bathroom in Texas. Those charges were dropped, and an autopsy determined she had naturally miscarried a nonviable fetus. Brittany Watts was arrested on felony corpse abuse charges in Ohio, for her miscarriage, which happened at home after she had been to a hospital with severe bleeding and was told her pregnancy was not viable. The charges against her were eventually dropped. In Georgia, Selena Maria Chandler-Scott had a miscarriage and was arrested for disposing of the fetal tissue. Those charges were also dropped. In South Carolina, Amari Marsh was accused of murder after losing her pregnancy. She was held in jail without bond for 22 days, ultimately released on house arrest with an ankle monitor. Thirteen months later, she was cleared by a grand jury. If you're not following these stories closely, it might be tempting to think of each as a one-off: a bad arrest or a wrong judgment call. But make no mistake, this is systematic criminalization of women's bodies — and they are saying it out loud. Tom Truman, a prosecutor for Raleigh County, West Virginia, said that while he would be unwilling to charge a woman for her miscarriage, other prosecuting attorneys in the state have discussed the possibility. Speaking to a local news outlet, Truman advised that if women who miscarry want to avoid arrest, they should call authorities to tell them that their pregnancy has ended. 'Call your doctor. Call law enforcement, or 911, and just say, 'I miscarried. I want you to know,'' Truman said. ''Isn't there a difference between somebody that's eight months pregnant and nine weeks pregnant?' … Those are going to be decisions that are going to have to be parsed out.' Strict abortion bans could turn a common medical outcome, one that only happens to pregnant women, into a matter for the police. The idea is that you are supposed to call 911 if you have a miscarriage at home so that it can be investigated as a crime. This is America in 2025. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Despite Trump directive, emergency abortion care is still a legal right
In the days since the Trump administration rescinded federal guidance tied to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, EMTALA, a wave of alarming headlines has swept across social media: 'Trump just made it legal for hospitals to let pregnant people die.' 'Emergency rooms can now refuse life-saving abortion care.' As a clinician, I know that isn't true. As a reproductive health strategist, I know those headlines are dangerous. And we all know what happens next: confusion, delay, and harm. Let's be clear — EMTALA is still in effect. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act requires hospitals to provide stabilizing emergency care to all patients, regardless of their ability to pay. That includes emergency abortion when it's the necessary treatment to prevent serious harm or death, even in states with abortion bans. What was rescinded is the Biden-era guidance — a post-Roe clarification that reinforced these obligations and gave clinicians added protections in legally ambiguous states. Without it, hospitals and providers are left to navigate complexity and risk on their own. And in emergency medicine, hesitation can be deadly. When a provider has to stop and ask, 'Will I get sued or arrested for doing what I know is right?' that delay can cost a life. Complications can escalate in minutes. And legal fear, not clinical doubt, can make even experienced clinicians pause. We don't need to wait for another preventable tragedy. We need to act now. We must correct the fear-based narrative and demand clarity and courage from our hospitals. More opinion: Elon Musk-Trump spat on X is a distraction from the failures of DOGE Well meaning advocates and organizations have flooded timelines with warnings suggesting emergency abortion care is no longer available. The fear is valid. But the messaging is misleading, and that matters. When headlines tell the public that hospitals are 'allowed to let women die,' we create a different kind of emergency — one rooted in mistrust. Patients internalize those messages. They begin to doubt the health care system. They wonder if anyone will help them. Some bleed at home instead of going to the ER. I've already heard from patients who are scared to seek emergency care because they believe hospitals will turn them away. That fear isn't irrational — it's the natural outcome of a system that has failed too many women, including Amber Nicole Thurman, who died in Georgia after being denied abortion care during a miscarriage. Her story is one of several that underscore just how high the stakes are. And it affects health care providers too. When social media, national news and even advocacy organizations circulate panic without context, our instinct is to pause and wonder if the legal ground has shifted again. In medicine, uncertainty delays care. And in emergency medicine, that delay can be fatal. Here's what's still true: EMTALA is still in effect. Hospitals are still required to provide abortion when it's the necessary emergency treatment. Patients still have the right to receive stabilizing care. But rights only matter if people trust they can use them, and clinicians can only act if they trust their institutions will back them up. We must sound the alarm, but we cannot afford to fuel panic. Because fear doesn't just spread — it paralyzes. And that paralysis costs lives. While courts and lawmakers dominate the headlines, we must remember that hospital systems are power players, too. They're institutions with boards, reputations, legal teams and responsibility. Every hospital in the U.S. — especially those in abortion-restricted states — should be urgently reviewing their EMTALA protocols, issuing clear guidance to staff and publicly affirming that abortion will be provided when medically necessary. Silence from leadership isn't neutrality. It's complicity — and it's deadly. Providers need to know they'll be protected for doing their jobs. Patients need to know their care won't be delayed by legal ambiguity. The moment of crisis is not the time to call a lawyer or fumble through a policy binder. Hospitals must act before the next emergency, not after. We have a constitutional mandate. Let's lead like it. In 2022, Michigan voters passed Proposal 3 by a wide margin, enshrining the right to reproductive freedom, including abortion, into our state constitution. That makes this moment even easier for our hospitals — a no-brainer, if you will. We have legal clarity. We have the public mandate. Now we have a responsibility to lead by example for the rest of the country. We've seen what happens when hospitals fail to lead. A ProPublica investigation in Texas found that after the state's abortion ban took effect, the sepsis rate among pregnant patients in Houston surged by 63%. In Dallas — where hospitals empowered doctors to act — it rose by just 29%. The difference? Hospital policy. Some institutions supported their clinicians. Others left them to weigh legal risk against patient safety. People suffered. Some died. Michigan's hospitals don't face the same legal barriers. We've enshrined reproductive rights into our constitution. The only question now is whether our institutions will rise to meet this moment — not just for Michiganders, but as a model for the nation. We have the opportunity to set a precedent of leadership. Of valor. Of honoring the Hippocratic Oath and protecting half of our population. This is a chance to show that when legal clarity and public support align, health systems don't hesitate — they lead. To Corewell Health, Henry Ford Health, Trinity Health Michigan, McLaren Health Care, Michigan Medicine and the Detroit Medical Center: this is your moment. Issue clear EMTALA guidance. Protect your providers. Affirm your commitment to emergency abortion care loudly and publicly. And to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer: Michigan has already set a national example by enshrining reproductive freedom into our state constitution. Now, we need your leadership again. Issue state-based guidance that reinforces EMTALA protections and directs hospitals to act swiftly and decisively when patients need life-saving abortion care. Then go one step further. Call on your fellow governors, especially in states where abortion is banned. Governors like Andy Beshear in Kentucky. If they said they were 'sending it back to the states,' then let's show them what the states can do. Let's show the country what leadership looks like when it centers care, not politics. Because silence is not safety, and neutrality is not leadership. More opinion: Democrats better hope Michigan Gov. Whitmer changes her mind about presidential run If you're reading this from another state, you're not powerless. Call your local hospital and ask if they have clear EMTALA guidance for emergency pregnancy care. Push your lawmakers to require transparency and protect providers. Share accurate information — panic spreads fast, but facts save lives. Support front-line providers who are navigating unclear laws with courage. Even without constitutional protections, your voice can demand clarity, accountability and care. Hospitals everywhere need to hear it. Nikki Vinckier is an OBGYN physician assistant, reproductive rights advocate and founder of Take Back Trust, a national patient education platform helping people navigate and protect their reproductive health care. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Emergency abortion still a legal right despite Trump move | Opinion
