ICE Detention While Pregnant
Sarah Terzo
by Sarah Terzo
In February 2026, pro-lifers published an open letter to the Trump Administration regarding pregnant people incarcerated by ICE.
Pregnant People in ICE Detention
According to ICE Directive 11032.4: “Identification and Monitoring of Pregnant, Postpartum, or Nursing Individuals,” ICE isn’t supposed to be detaining pregnant women at all, except in the most extreme circumstances. The directive reads:
Generally, ICE should not detain, arrest, or take into custody for an administrative violation of the immigration laws individuals known to be pregnant, postpartum, or nursing unless release is prohibited by law or exceptional circumstances exist.
Yet there have been many reports of increasing numbers of pregnant people being placed in detention. Even more troubling, many of these women have been denied necessary medical care, sometimes leading to miscarriages.
In an open letter, a coalition of groups, including the ACLU, the National Immigration Project, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, and the Sanctuary Now Abolition Project, told the stories of women incarcerated by ICE during their pregnancies.
The authors of the letter spent five months interviewing over a dozen women who were pregnant or had recently experienced a miscarriage while incarcerated in two detention facilities in Louisiana and Georgia.
They called their findings “gravely troubling.” Pregnant people in ICE custody experienced:
shackling, use of restraints, and solitary confinement; delayed and substandard prenatal care; denial of prenatal vitamins; inadequate food and water; medical care provided without informed consent; lack of interpretation and translation in medical encounters; and medical neglect leading to dangerous infection after miscarriage.
The letter further stated, “Almost all the women we interviewed reported inadequate prenatal care, denial of prenatal vitamins, and/or medical neglect while detained . . . ”
The report highlighted several stories. To protect the victims from retaliation, it used pseudonyms.
Here are some stories.
A Pregnant Tourist Detained by ICE
“Marie” wasn’t an immigrant, and she wasn’t in the United States illegally. However, she was held in an ICE detention facility for twenty weeks anyway while she was pregnant.
In 2024, Marie was a graduate student visiting the U.S. under a valid tourist visa. During her visit, she discovered she was pregnant and was told her pregnancy was high-risk because of underlying medical conditions.
Marie was the victim of a crime and lost her original travel and identity documents. The embassy of her home country sent her electronic versions as replacements, but she would have to wait for the physical documents to arrive through the mail.
In April 2025, while she was still waiting for the paper documents, Marie decided to travel to Canada. Officials stopped her at the U.S.-Canadian border. Canadian officials declined to accept her electronic documentation and, because she didn’t have the original copies of her identification and visa, contacted U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) agents, who questioned Marie.
Marie showed CBP agents the electronic copies and explained that the paper copies were on their way. She also informed them of her pregnancy. Officials arrested her anyway.
Originally, Marie was told they wouldn’t hold her for long. But after two days, they transferred her thousands of miles away to the detention center in Basile, Louisiana.
Medical Neglect and Harm
Over the twenty weeks that Marie was a prisoner, she endured “multiple instances of medical neglect and psychological harm.”
As soon as she arrived at Basile, Marie told the guards about her pregnancy. However, they didn’t believe her. They held her in solitary confinement for three days before allowing her into the general population.
Officials didn’t schedule Marie for a pregnancy screening and prenatal care review until other pregnant women in the dorms repeatedly complained and agitated for her to receive proper care.
The food at Basile was of such poor quality that Marie often couldn’t eat it. She was also refused prenatal vitamins, despite requesting them. During sick call, a nurse told her, “You won’t die if you don’t take them.”
When Marie received medical care, there was another problem. The facility didn’t provide her with an interpreter during her appointments. Therefore, she was unsure whether she had received prenatal screenings, HIV testing, or vaccinations.
At one point, staff gave Marie a shot without her consent. She didn’t know what medication they gave her because of the language barrier.
Several times during her incarceration, Marie experienced severe cramps and pleaded for medical help, fearing a miscarriage. Each time she was ignored. On at least one occasion, a nurse refused to listen to her symptoms and concerns.
The only “medical care” Marie received for her cramping was Tylenol. Staff told her it was common for pregnant women to have severe cramps. This is untrue, and Marie, who was already experiencing a high-risk pregnancy, was at an elevated risk of miscarriage.
Fortunately, Marie didn’t lose her baby. Other women in detention, including at Basile, weren’t so lucky.
During her time in custody, Marie witnessed other pregnant women being mistreated and denied medical care, including at least one miscarriage. A fellow pregnant detainee from Guatemala delivered a stillborn baby in the bathroom after staff ignored her requests for help. The woman had been bleeding for three days before she lost her baby.
During the twenty weeks of her incarceration, Marie repeatedly pleaded to be allowed to return to her country of legal residence. However, she wasn’t permitted to leave detention. She was eager to travel home, but officials refused to let her. It was only after legal advocates intervened that Marie was finally released.
Incarceration left Marie with deep emotional scars. She said she cried every day and night for a week after returning home and had nightmares.
Possibly because of the medical neglect she suffered for so long, Marie developed eclampsia, a dangerous complication, in the last weeks of her pregnancy. After a “difficult and painful” labor, she gave birth to her baby in August 2025. At the time of the interview, she was suffering from postpartum depression, which she attributed to the trauma she experienced while detained.
Inadequate Food and Water
“Jenny” was taken into ICE custody in February 2025 and incarcerated in Basile, Louisiana. When the agents arrested her, Jenny was visibly pregnant. Even though she informed officers about her pregnancy, they placed her in restraints and transported her across the country to Louisiana.
At Basile, Jenny met two female detainees who had recently suffered miscarriages while in custody. Several other pregnant women were in her housing unit. Staff failed to provide drinking water—the women had to ask guards for it. According to Jenny, sometimes the guards refused.
Besides the lack of drinking water, Jenny suffered from diarrhea and vomiting because the food was of such poor quality. She was transported to the hospital twice because of vaginal bleeding.
Jenny was only released from custody when advocates intervened in her case. After her release, she gave birth to her newborn. According to the interviewer, however, she remains “deeply traumatized” by her time in ICE custody. The memory of the other pregnant women whom she left behind, and the substandard food, lack of drinking water, and poor conditions they endured, haunts her.
Arrested and Shackled Despite a Valid Visa
“Julieta,” a Mexican woman, spent two months in Basile while pregnant, and is still awaiting the birth of her baby. She had lawfully entered the country after an appointment with the CBP. She was issued a visa and granted entry to the U.S., and her visa was still valid when ICE arrested and detained her. ICE is prohibited from shackling pregnant women. However, officials shackled Julieta’s ankles, hands, and waist when they transported her from the East Coast to Louisiana. The flight comprised five layovers.
She found the food at Basile “inedible” and went without eating for some time. According to the interviewers, Julieta “fears that poor nutrition and the stress of detention could endanger her pregnancy or result in miscarriage.”
More Denial of Medical Care
“Ana” was still in Basile when she was interviewed. She was six months pregnant. She informed ICE that she was pregnant when they arrested her, but they detained her anyway. Ana initially faced a criminal charge concerning a domestic dispute, but she resolved it.
Staff refused to give Ana prenatal vitamins for the first month of her detention. They just told her, “You have to wait,” every time she asked them. She told interviewers she’s suffering from nausea and vomiting. She cannot keep down the food served at Basile, so she barely eats. Ana also has pain throughout her body.
She couldn’t get any medical care for these problems. The only treatment ICE has provided her with is Tylenol.
Ana’s baby will be a U.S. citizen if he or she survives until birth. Ana also has an older child, another U.S. citizen, waiting for her at home.
These are just a few pregnant people detained by ICE. Most of them were lucky that, despite medical neglect, their children were born alive, or they were still pregnant at the time of their interviews.
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For our posts on migrants, see:
When Immigration Is a Life Issue
Would My Grandparents Have Died in the Pogroms?
A Chance for Humanity to Survive: The Urgent Message of ‘An Ordinary Insanity’
by John Whitehead
Daniel Ellsberg was a consultant to the US Defense Department in the 1960s. His responsibilities included, as he described it, “the design of nuclear war plans.” The US nuclear war plan, which Ellsberg was involved in updating, called for the United States to initiate a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union and China, a strike that the US military estimated would kill roughly 600 million people. These deaths would occur both in the targeted countries and in neighboring countries affected by nuclear fallout.
When he learned of this estimate, Ellsberg thought it was “the most evil planning that had ever existed in the history of humanity.” His moral revulsion would ultimately lead him to become a passionate opponent of nuclear weapons.
Ellsberg (1931-2023) is best remembered for his role in the movement against America’s war in Vietnam. In 1971, he shared classified documents on US involvement in Vietnam, known as “the Pentagon Papers,” with the media in the hopes of encouraging opposition to the war.
What is less well known is Ellsberg’s anti-nuclear activism. Along with the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg illegally took classified documents related to US nuclear weapons. These documents were lost before they could be given to the press. Nevertheless, Ellsberg could still draw on his experiences and publicly available information to warn about the threat of nuclear war.
His warnings have been distilled into a new documentary, An Ordinary Insanity, directed by Judith Ehrlich. Based on interviews Ellsberg gave shortly before his death, which are available for free online, the documentary provides a brief (29-minute), extraordinarily powerful overview of the nuclear threat. An Ordinary Insanity is mandatory viewing for anyone concerned with humanity’s future.
Watch here:
The Most Extreme Dimensions of the Threat
The filmmakers examine different dimensions of the world’s nuclear arsenals and nuclear war planning that pose the most extreme risks today. These include the following:
ICBMs and Launch on Warning
One common vehicle for using nuclear weapons is a type of long-range missile known as an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Because, unlike nuclear weapons loaded on planes or submarines, ICBMs are in fixed positions in missile silos, they conceivably could be destroyed if an enemy strikes them.
ICBMs’ vulnerability to attack encourages an approach called “launch on warning.” This means a country will use its nuclear weapons upon warning of a possible incoming nuclear attack from an enemy. Launching ICBMs immediately upon warning of an attack allows a country to use the missiles before they are potentially destroyed by the enemy attack. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that the United States and Russia have hundreds of nuclear weapons ready for use at short notice, making launch on warning possible.
However, launch on warning also makes it much more likely that a decision to use nuclear-armed ICBMs will be made impulsively, without adequate information, in response to “warnings” that might turn out to be false alarms. Full-scale nuclear war could thus begin purely by accident.
This possibility is not merely hypothetical. Ellsberg recounts multiple real-life false alarms, such as the 1983 Stanislav Petrov incident, which could have led to accidental nuclear war.
Presidential Power
Closely linked to the dangers from ICBMs and launch on warning is the danger posed by a national leader having the unchecked power to order the use of nuclear weapons. The United States is one nuclear-armed nation that poses this danger: the American president can order a nuclear strike without anyone else in the government having the legal power to stop him.
The inherent instability of a situation in which one human has the power to launch a nuclear war was highlighted by an incident toward the end of the first Trump administration. Following the January 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol, General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, supposedly assured then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi that “the nuclear triggers are secure and…we’re not going to allow anything crazy, illegal, immoral or unethical to happen.” Milley also reportedly told senior military officers to report to him about any orders to use nuclear weapons, presumably to check such orders from President Trump.
However, whatever assurances Milley might have offered or whatever he might have said to other military officers, the fact is that he had no legal standing to obstruct nuclear orders from the president. As Ellsberg comments, if a president orders a nuclear strike, “there could be a refusal [by a top military commander]. But that person could be fired immediately and replaced. And if the next person refused, again, that process could go on.”
With Donald Trump as president once again, a presidential order to use nuclear weapons looms as an all-too-plausible possibility. Nevertheless, the problem of presidential nuclear authority is far bigger than the current erratic occupant of the White House. No human being, even one far more stable than Trump, can be trusted with this power.
Eliminating ICBMs and launch-on-warning policies and checking presidential power are a few of the constructive steps that An Ordinary Insanity points toward. These steps align well with the policy changes advocated by the Back from the Brink Campaign and resolutions (H.Res 317/S.Res 323) currently before the US Congress.
Taking Action
Ellsberg’s warnings about the nuclear threat must be heeded. As many people as possible should see An Ordinary Insanity. Activists, educators, faith groups, and others should organize screenings and encourage people to take just half an hour of their time to absorb the documentary’s message.
I hope that watching An Ordinary Insanity will motivate people to learn more about the nuclear threat and what they can do about it. A good first step American citizens can take is to contact their representatives and senators to urge them to support H.Res.317 and S.Res.323.
Above all, I hope people take to heart the lesson Ellsberg draws from the existential threat we all face today: “Can humanity survive the nuclear era? We don’t know. I choose to act as if we have a chance.” If many more of us act the same way, we might indeed have a chance of survival.
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For more or our posts on literature against war, see:
Apocalypse Imagined: The Urgent Message of Nuclear War: A Scenario
Catastrophe by Mistake: The Button and the Danger of Accidental Nuclear War
Men and Accountability
by Jim Hewes
Historically, the majority of people behind the population control and eugenics movements were men. The Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of Roe v. Wade, to legalize abortion, were men. Most abortion doctors have been men, and many abortion facilities have been owned by men. In the early days, it was men who aggressively pushed for abortion “rights.”
Power Dynamics and Gender Responsibility
This stance by many men, along with the availability of abortion, has too often allowed them to escape scot-free, with little to no consequences or accountability. For example, nearly 80% of teen fathers don’t marry the mothers of their children. Too many men take a sexual risk, treat their partners as objects, and then sacrifice their pre-born child for convenience, selfishness, or as and an easy way out. In many cases, this decision further destabilizes already fragile and unstable relationships.
Men often fail to recognize that they are equal participants in the risks associated with sexual activity and birth control. As a result, they assume they can remain “baby-free.” The burden is placed on the woman, who is seen as solely responsible for the pregnancy. The man may then blame her, viewing the pregnancy as her problem—one that can be resolved with minimal financial cost and effort.
As feminist legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon observes, abortion “does not liberate women; it frees male sexual aggression.” In this view, abortion can function as a “get-out-of-jail-free” card for men who seek non-committal sexual relationships.
Some men feel entitled to tell women what to do with their bodies if it serves their own temporary desires. It is often women who suffer the more severe emotional and psychological consequences.
While men play a significant role in causing unintended pregnancies, many appear indifferent to preventing them. Although abortion is often framed as expanding women’s choices, it can also expand men’s ability to manipulate, pressure, coerce, or abandon responsibility altogether. Women—and often their children—bear a disproportionate burden, including economic hardship, while the issue of absent fathers remains insufficiently addressed.
Yet a man’s responsibility for fatherhood does not end at conception.
Impact of Male Support on Women’s Decisions
Research suggests that a lack of male support is a major factor in abortion decisions.
One study found that seven out of ten women who chose abortion did so because they lacked involvement, support, or commitment from the father, leaving them feeling overwhelmed, afraid, and totally alone.
A large study by Arthur Shostak (published in Men and Abortion: Lessons, Losses and Love. 1984), found that only about one-fourth of men offered financial support for raising the child, and only about half accompanied their partner to the abortion clinic.
Additionally, one study reported that 64% of women who had abortions said their partner provided no support.
Relational and Emotional Aftermath
When women are treated as objects or exploited, this dynamic can perpetuate itself. Some women, having experienced objectification, may in turn view their pre-born children in a similar way.
A woman may first feel unwanted by a man and tragically pass on that sense of unwantedness through abortion to her pre-born child.
Often, abortions occur because the child is perceived as unwanted. However, abortion can also result in a lost opportunity for fatherhood, creating an absence that affects both parents.
For many, the day of the abortion marks not only the loss of a child but also the significant loss of their relationship. Often, nothing remains the same afterward. Trust and vulnerability may be diminished, and the possibility of building a future together—including having children—can be significantly affected.
Men, too, pay a price for what is often framed as “reproductive health” when it is disconnected from responsibility and the value of life. The misuse of sexuality can introduce a profound death into what is meant to be a deeply intimate and life-giving experience. In this sense, the consequences extend beyond the immediate decision, affecting emotional, relational, and moral dimensions of life.
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For our posts on similar topics, see:
What Do Men Have to Say on Abortion?
No Combat Experience, No Opinion: Parallels in Pro-bombing and Pro-choice Rhetoric
Introducing the Consistent Life Ethic in Your Catholic Community
by Lois Kerschen
Recently, a Consistent Life Ethic (CLE) advocate wrote to ask how one successfully introduces our principles to one’s Catholic church community, especially if, as in this person’s case, it’s a congregation with a heavily pro-choice attitude. The following are some suggestions about what one can do. These suggestions are specific to Catholic parishes, but some could be modified and applied to other places of worship.
First is an evaluation of what the parish might already know or be doing. If the parish has a pro-life committee, ask its members if they’re familiar with the CLE and its principles as laid out in the 1980s by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. If they’re acquainted with CLE, ask what the committee does to promote it. If there isn’t a pro-life committee (although most parishes I know have one), you can consider starting one.
Starting such a committee requires the approval of your pastor, as well as your work and commitment. The advantage is that you can make sure the committee advocates for the CLE right from the beginning. Using the CLE approach might also make such a committee more attractive to potential participants, especially if you’re in a left-leaning parish.
Knowing that a too-high percentage of Catholics consider themselves pro-choice, you need to make it clear that being pro-life should mean being whole-life: that is, working against the death penalty, war, euthanasia, and other threats to life which they likely already oppose. Thus, they will see that being pro-life doesn’t mean just anti-abortion. It’s hoped that, in time, those who are pro-life on these other issues will see the connection to abortion. Additionally, when a peace and justice committee becomes more familiar with the CLE, they may find that whatever issues they focus on will get a better hearing among those who know they apply the principles across the board and include abortion opposition.
In a conservative parish, some might waffle on capital punishment or war, but again, hopefully after learning about the consistent life ethic and working on the related issues at their parish, they’ll be led to an understanding of why the Catholic Church opposes the death penalty and modern warfare. Similarly to the situation above, when Catholics who are pro-life on abortion and/or euthanasia apply pro-life principles to war and the death penalty as well (as several recent popes have done), they may find that, far from watering down their advocacy for the unborn and elderly, the CLE will get them a better hearing by being pro-life across the board.
Particularly in a left-leaning parish, it’s important to introduce people to the non-stereotypical pro-life organizations such as Feminists for Life, Democrats for Life, New Wave Feminists, Rehumanize International, Secular Pro-Life, and of course the Consistent Life Network. That way they’ll learn that being pro-life isn’t an inherently religious thing, not something that a stodgy Catholic Church pushes on them, and not an impediment to women’s rights, but something that fits their way of thinking.
Another suggestion is to contact the pro-life or peace-and-justice committees of other parishes to find out what they do. You could contact some of the parishes listed on the CLN website that have endorsed the ethic, or your diocesan pro-life office, which might be aware of CLE efforts elsewhere in the diocese.
Of course, one can always ask permission of the pastor and/or pro-life committee and/or peace and justice committee for you to make a presentation about the CLE. Have literature available. If you aren’t keen to give a presentation yourself, ask the diocesan pro-life office if there is anyone they can send.
As to the pastor, you could encourage him to include the CLE in his homilies since Catholicism promotes the CLE. Offer to bring him any materials he might need to learn more and offer to back up his homily by passing out CLN literature at Masses or at some church event.
Alternatively, ask the pastor just for permission to pass out literature at the Masses or services and have your promotion listed among the announcements at your church.
If the parish has a school, you have a prime opportunity to teach the Consistent Life Ethic. Suggest to the principal that they use the CL Kids! resources to teach the ethic. Another possibility is to make a presentation about the CLE to the upper-grade students.
The person who made the inquiry to CLN goes to a parish that’s very reluctant to talk about abortion. They’re largely pro-choice and see abortion as a political hot potato that none of them wants to touch. This situation makes for a hard nut to crack when no one is responsive to overtures about the CLE. Sometimes, you have to just keep trying.
If the pastor is the problem, perhaps you could ask another priest who is a CLE advocate to gently broach the subject for you. Tragically, far too often, parish priests try to avoid talking about specific life issues because they think they’re too controversial, and they don’t want to offend anybody. This is, of course, a priest who’s failing in his duties to teach the Church’s principles.
One parish pastor told me that when he gives a homily that mentions the prohibition of abortion, his collection goes down. I reminded him that he works for God, not for money. Nonetheless, parish priests feel a great deal of pressure to not stir up trouble. So, let them know that the CLE, with its emphasis on all the life issues, not just abortion, makes the subjects more palatable, especially when he can quote all the most recent popes on the importance of the consistent life ethic in Catholic teaching.
Pope Leo, for example, said in an address in Chiclayo, Peru, in 2023, when he was Cardinal Robert Prevost, that Cardinal Bernardin’s framework was coherent and “anchored in respect for human dignity.” Admittedly, he described discovering ways to “teach and promote precisely this kind of thinking” as one of the “greatest challenges” facing Catholics, but he has continued as Pope to promote the Consistent Life Ethic. Like Cardinal Bernardin, he includes modern warfare and the rights of migrants, as well as abortion, among pro-life issues.
Again, tying together warfare, immigration, and abortion as well as capital punishment, racism, poverty, and euthanasia will get people to pause, think, and start making connections.
In our divisive society, it’s hard to talk about life issues, even among Church members who ought to be receptive, and even to a pro-life committee or a peace and justice committee that might have a negative impression of the consistent life ethic because of bad information. All the more reason, though, to make the effort so that you can make a difference and spread adherence to the consistent life ethic.
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For more of our posts on similar topics, see:
Fratelli Tutti – Consistent-Life Excerpts
Becoming a Catholic Conscientious Objector
The Consistent Life Consensus in Ancient Christianity
Abortion and the Christian Bible: A Consistent-Life Perspective
Changing our Thinking & Preventing Another World War
by John Whitehead
The Consistent Life Network held its most recent vigil against the threat from nuclear weapons on May 16th. In the past, the vigil has been held outside the White House. However, the area around the White House is currently closed off to the public, so we had to gather elsewhere in Washington, DC.
The May 16th vigil took place at Pershing Park, which was in its own way an appropriate location for a witness against violent threats to human life.
Pershing Park is the site of a monument dedicated to remembering the First World War. The First World War was a global catastrophe that claimed millions of lives, including the lives of over 100,000 Americans. The First World War also helped to sow the seeds of later global catastrophes.
The First World War was followed by the even more bloody and destructive Second World War, which claimed tens of millions of lives. The Second World War led to the invention of nuclear weapons, which were used to destroy the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The world wars of the 20th century brought us into the nuclear age we live in today.
The Third World War
In the nuclear age, we live under the constant threat of a Third World War, fought with nuclear weapons. A Third World War would claim billions of lives and would be the final global catastrophe for humanity.
Today, more than 100 years after the First World War and more than 80 years after the Second World War and the invention of nuclear weapons, the nuclear threat remains very real and severe. In fact, it has grown more severe in recent years.
The two countries that possess the largest numbers of nuclear weapons are the United States and Russia. The current tensions between the United States and Russia could escalate into war. The ongoing war in Ukraine, which has pitted Russia against the United States and other nuclear-armed nations that belong to NATO, could be the spark that sets off a global firestorm.
Meanwhile, the network of international treaties that were meant to limit the numbers of nuclear weapons in the world and to reduce the nuclear threat have gradually fallen apart. The New START Treaty, which limits the numbers of American and Russian nuclear weapons, tragically expired without being renewed earlier this year.
In light of the nuclear threat, two major pieces of legislation currently before the US Congress seek to establish new limitations on nuclear weapons (H.Res 100/S.Res 61) and to pursue other measures to reduce the dangers of nuclear war (H.Res 317/S.Res 323). Americans can and should lobby their representatives and senators to support both these pieces of legislation.
However, responding effectively to the nuclear threat requires more than just political action in the conventional sense. Responding to the nuclear threat requires a change in thinking. Not just a change in the thinking of politicians, but in all of us.
Two Changes
We need to become more aware of and informed about the nuclear threat.
The world’s leaders are unlikely to act against the nuclear threat if the world’s peoples are ignorant of or indifferent to the threat. People need to know:
- the harm nuclear weapons can cause
- how many nuclear weapons there are in the world
- which nations possess nuclear weapons
- how nuclear war might occur
- what measures have been taken and can be taken in the future to reduce the threat
Some progress is being made in this area, but more needs to be done. Activists, educators, faith leaders, and journalists need to speak out on this issue.
Awareness and discussion of the global nuclear threat should be as common as awareness and discussion of global climate change. I would note that these two threats are related: nuclear weapons destroy not only people but the environment, and the struggle against nuclear weapons can and should be tied into the larger cause of protecting the environment.
One place to start in learning more about the nuclear threat are the resources of the Back from the Brink campaign. Back from the Brink offers an online “Beginner’s Guide to Nuclear Weapons” and other educational resources. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons also has useful educational materials.
We need to change our larger ideas about international relations.
We need to reject the nationalistic, competitive, and often paranoid ideas that frequently dominate relationships among nations.
These views include the idea that our own country’s good is all that matters and that we don’t need to pay attention to the welfare of other countries or the welfare of the planet. They include the idea that if another nation displays suspicion or hostility toward us, we should always respond in kind. Above all, they include the idea that building a bigger, more powerful military is how we make our country safe in the long run.
These ideas are sometimes praised for being “realistic,” but they are not. Mutual suspicion, hostility, and military competition lead to arms races and increase the dangers of war. Building large, powerful militaries increases the likelihood that policymakers will use them to fight wars.
These ideas also stand in the way of the cooperation that is necessary to address global problems that affect all humanity, not least the threat of nuclear weapons. Such ideas are not realistic but woefully short-sighted.
Rather than falling back into fear and hostility, we need to recognize the value of reducing tensions and trying to build cooperative relationships among countries. Even if conflicts among countries persist, as they likely will, we need to be prudent enough to recognize that it is in everyone’s interests to reduce the danger that conflicts will escalate to the nuclear level.
Let’s change our thinking, educate ourselves and others, and act prudently so that the First and Second World Wars are never followed by a Third World War.
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For more posts on this topic, see:
A Tragedy for the World: The End of the New START Treaty and What Comes Next
Mourning the Dead and Protecting the Living: Remarks from the August 9th Peace Vigil
Persuading People to Act against the Nuclear Threat: Some Findings and Recommendations
Nuclear Disarmament as a Social Justice Issue
Nukes and the Pro-Life Christian: A Conservative Takes a Second Look at the Morality of Nuclear Weapons
Or check out the Nuclear Weapons section in our list of all our posts.
Racism and Planned Parenthood: Stories from Employee Lawsuits
by Rachel MacNair
I’ve been spending a lot of time going through and compiling lawsuits against Planned Parenthood, including a lot of employee grievances. In my previous post, Racism and Planned Parenthood: Documentation, I covered employees organizing together to oppose the racism they encountered. But to get more of a sense of the experience of what individuals working there have to face, the Complaints in lawsuits have many lengthy stories.
Below I offer excerpts of a geographically diverse sample of such complaints. I link to the page at the Problems at Planned Parenthood website where a longer excerpt can be found, and the full documents are linked to for those who want their full story. To find it, scroll down to the city’s name (they’re in alphabetical order), or do a search for the last name.
Los Angeles, CA – Bryant, filed 11.02.2017
3. This harassment and discrimination occurred on a daily basis and included, but was not limited to, the following:
a) Calling African-Americans “homies;”
b) Criticizing the performance of African-American employees;
c) Making comments about the hair and braids of African-American employees; and
d) Making derogatory racial slurs about African-Americans . . .
9. On or about August 2, 2017, plaintiff was terminated. Plaintiff was terminated because she was a witness in support of another employee’s complaints of discrimination and harassment and because she complained of harassment and discrimination.
Merrillville, IN – Barnes, filed 06.14.2020, from paragraph 9:
The Merrillville clinic manager confronted the Plaintiff with the false allegation that the Plaintiff and two other African American nurse practitioners were “promoting a negative environment” by talking to each other about job-related nurse practitioner issues. During the conversation, this manager also told the Plaintiff “there’s just too many of y’all here,” meaning too many black / African American employees.
New York, NY – Cruz, filed 12.18.23, Preliminary Statement
In August 2020, Planned Parenthood hired . . . Cruz, an Afro-Latina woman as a Senior Video Producer. Cruz was renowned for her joyous and uplifting portrayals of communities of color, and she was excited to lend her talents to the reproductive justice movement. Unfortunately, Cruz immediately learned that Planned Parenthood expected her to perform menial work well below her pedigree and complete excruciating hours for days on end with no break and no overtime pay. Even worse, Planned Parenthood openly tokenized Cruz by forcing her to . . . attend meetings about Latino Heritage Month projects in which she had no involvement. In addition, Planned Parenthood required Cruz attend regular performative “retreats” about race, wherein it expected she educate her white colleagues about life as a brown person . . .
Cruz also advocated for diversity in hiring, criticizing Planned Parenthood’s tendency to hire its executives’ white friends over deserving contractors and staff of color. Cruz felt more and more desperate as she came to realize that not a single person at the organization cared about these issues of equity. Eventually, her doctor insisted that she go on medical leave for the sake of her mental health, during which she realized that she could not conceivably return.
Nashville, TN – Flores, filed 02.23.23
9. During a company retreat, several employees including Flores renewed their protected complaints of racism. In response, Planned Parenthood leadership scolded Flores; they explicitly cited her race complaints as “mean” and “hostile,” and scolded her for what they called a “snarky” look on her face. Flores was reduced to tears during this exchange and weeks later Flores was retaliatorily terminated. Planned Parenthood’s racist treatment and unlawful termination resulted in substantial psychological and financial distress to Flores . . .
10. Early in her employment, Flores realized that while her team and other teams at a similar level were comprised mostly of individuals of color, most managers, supervisors, officers, and directors at PPTNM were white. Flores discussed this racial discrepancy with colleagues on her teams, who confirmed this was a usual practice for PPTNM and shared their observation that white PPTNM employees received praise and responsibilities not provided to staff members of color. Flores soon learned that this disparity of opportunity for employees of color at PPTNM was part of a systemic issue present in most Planned Parenthood affiliates nationwide.
Houston, TX – Huffmeyer, filed 09.23.2019
18. At the end of August 2017, PPGC assigned a new supervisor to oversee Ms. Huffmeyer’s performance . . . Following that appointment, Ms. Huffmeyer’s workplace quickly turned into a living nightmare. Not only did [the new supervisor] persistently belittle Ms. Huffmeyer; she also resorted to treating her so badly that her work environment quickly became sufficiently hostile to start causing her health to deteriorate, all because of Ms. Huffmeyer’s race and national origin. Among other health issues, Ms. Huffmeyer developed daily headaches and fever blisters . . .
19. Instead of seeing her working conditions improve, Ms. Huffmeyer was unceremoniously terminated, just over three months after the complaint was filed, without any respect for the ten years of impeccable service she delivered to the Company.
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If you know of other lawsuits of any kind or other documentation of problems, please send information to:
info@problemsatplannedparenthood.org
For similar posts, see:
Racism and Planned Parenthood: Documentation
Planned Parenthood Staff Revolt
Medical Dangers, Sex Abuse, Labor Problems, Racism: Documenting Planned Parenthood
Does Planned Parenthood Reduce Abortions by Preventing Pregnancies?
Capturing Justice and Humanity: The Photography of Steve Schapiro
by John Whitehead
During his career as a freelance photojournalist, Steve Schapiro (1934-2022) produced an extraordinary body of work. He captured notable people and events for magazines such as Life, Look, Newsweek, and Time, with some of his most significant photos chronicling the American Civil Rights Movement. A concern for social justice ran throughout Steve’s photography, which contains much to move and inspire activists today.
This photography and the man behind it are the subjects of a new documentary, Steve Schapiro: Being Everywhere. Directed by Maura Smith, Steve’s wife, the film features countless examples of his work as well as extensive interviews with him about his life and work.
I should provide full disclosure at the outset: in addition to being married to Steve and the documentary’s director, Maura is also my cousin. She, Steve, and their son Theophilus (who is a producer on the documentary) have been family and close friends to me over the years. Thus, I cannot pretend to be objective on this topic. However, I can profess sincere admiration for Steve and his work and tell others why they should take an interest in them.
“People Who Need to Be Talked About”
As Steve recounts in the documentary, his love of photography began at age nine, when he was at summer camp. There he first practiced developing photographs in a dark room and found it a thrill to watch the images slowly emerge. Later in life, he began taking photos on the streets of New York City, in imitation of Henri Cartier-Bresson, who favored capturing spontaneous moments.
Steve comments, “[Cartier-Bresson] was able to catch things at their peak of emotion, with great design and giving you information about the subject. And I thought that was a superb way of doing photographs.”
An important contact Steve made early in his career was the Rev. Norman Eddy, an East Harlem minister. Eddy arranged for Steve to photograph a camp of migrant farm workers in Arkansas. One piercing image from this series shows the outside wall of a cabin for the workers on which someone, probably a child, has written the words, “I love anybody that loves me.” The photo series was eventually picked up by the New York Times magazine and helped bring about electrification to the migrants’ camp.
Another crucial contact was a doctor in East Harlem who worked with people with substance abuse issues. He made it possible for Steve to accompany a group of people with such problems and do a photo series on them.
Steve observes that knowing clergy and social activists offered a way to do stories on “people who need to be talked about.”
Later, Black Americans’ struggle for equal rights became a major focus of Steve’s work. He covered events such as the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom in Washington, DC, and the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965.
Steve also did a photo essay for Life on James Baldwin and accompanied Baldwin on a trip to North Carolina and Mississippi. During the Mississippi trip, they visited Medgar Evers, who would be assassinated a few months later. Years after the trip, the Baldwin family decided to use Steve’s photos to illustrate a new edition of The Fire Next Time.
Efforts to challenge poverty and racial inequality continued to be a theme in Steve’s work in subsequent years. Toward the end of his life, he did series on the Black Lives Matter movement . Shane Claiborne later wrote a remembrance of Steve.
Capturing Lives in an Image
In keeping with the Cartier-Bresson approach, Steve explains that he liked to “wait for that moment when there’s something in someone’s eyes, in the way they look, which gives you a hint as to who they are and what’s very special about them.”
Steve’s photos certainly met this goal. He had a near-preternatural gift for photographing people or scenes at precisely the angle or moment that would convey something meaningful about the subject. Looking at a Steve Schapiro photo, you feel a story is being told.
This kind of richness in an image is on display in the James Baldwin series. One stand-out photo is of Baldwin talking to another man, whose back is to the camera. Bundled up in an overcoat, Baldwin looks at the other man with a half-guarded, half-inquisitive expression. In his arms, Baldwin holds a copy of The Contours album “Do You Love Me (Now That I Can Dance).” As Steve comments, the photo’s precise combination of elements subtly conveys Baldwin’s loneliness in life.
© Steve Schapiro, courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles
Another remarkable combination comes in a photo of Jerome Smith, a Louisiana activist with the Congress on Racial Equality who participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides to protest segregation. Smith endured violence in the course of his work.
Steve photographed Smith while the activist was in a church in New Orleans. Smith sits off to the side of the sanctuary and leans forward with his chin in his hand, in an attitude that suggests prayer, reflection, and weariness. At the other side of the photo is a stained-glass image of Jesus, perhaps in the Garden of Gethsemane.
© Steve Schapiro, courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles
Some of Steve’s most eerily powerful images came from a 1968 assignment for Life to cover Memphis in the aftermath of Martin Luther King’s assassination.
Steve had photographed King prior to that point, and the photographs reflected the constant threat of violence that overshadowed the civil rights leader’s life. In the documentary, Steve points out that in photos King was frequently not looking into the camera but looking somewhere off to the side, seemingly scanning crowds of people for possible dangers. Subject to attacks and constant death threats, King was perhaps always “wondering who would be the one.”
When the threats finally became a terrible reality, Steve traveled to Memphis to photograph the site of the assassination. “The streets were empty. It felt very lonely,” he remembers.
At the Lorraine Motel, Steve visited the room where King had been staying. Hosea Williams, one of King’s aides, allowed Steve to photograph the room, which still had the late minister’s clothes and effects in it.
One photograph brought together the different elements in the room in an extraordinary way that spoke volumes. As Steve says, “The physical man was gone, his material things remained, and I knew that his spirit and message would live on forever.”
In addition to activists and other well-known people, Steve’s photos also feature many ordinary people who, while their names might not have been recorded by history, are in their own way no less memorable.
Striking images of this kind appear in the series on migrant workers and people struggling with addiction. Other examples from the documentary include an older woman working as a store cashier; some kids hanging out on a city street; a mother reading a newspaper on the subway while her daughter sleeps on her lap; and another mother and child, presumably poor and even homeless, standing in a grocery store parking lot while the mother holds a sign bearing the message “It’s got to be somebody’s fault!”
My favorite photograph shown in the documentary balances the famous and ordinary beautifully. Taken in 1963, it shows Martin Luther King and his colleague, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy. The two civil rights leaders are not the main subject of the photo, though. Abernathy is off to one side and King is out of focus in the background.
The heart of the photo is a teenage boy standing next to Abernathy and holding a young girl (his sister?). He is looking directly into the camera and smiling with clear delight. Is he delighted about having his picture taken by a professional journalist? At being in the company of eminent clergy? At some private joke? I don’t know, but his warmth and personality suffuse the image.
© Steve Schapiro, courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles
Images like these reflect the peculiar magic of Steve’s work and good photojournalism in general. Across divides created by race, class, or (what is perhaps most insidious) everyday indifference toward strangers, a talented photographer can realize an image that clearly conveys the message “I am a unique human being, with dignity.”
Steve Schapiro: Being Everywhere is available for streaming through Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, and YouTube.
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Some of our other posts on artistic expression:
Exposing Injustice Through Graphic Images
Comprehending Horror through Animation: The Art of the Anti-War Animated Movie
Seeing the Humanity of “the Enemy”: Movies to Provoke Thought and Discussion
Pope Leo: Abolish the Death Penalty
The Consistent Life Network is a nonsectarian group and we pride ourselves on our religious/non-religious diversity. The pope is a prominent spokesperson for consistent-life themes, and does so again here.
This is especially timely, since the Trump administration recently started pushing for new methods of execution, including firing squads. The pope’s opposition to Trump’s war in Iran has also been a major theme of recent news.
The Vatican version of the transcript includes footnotes.
Pre-recorded message, DePaul University, Chicago, April 24, 2026
The event, titled “A Beacon of Light in Darkness,” was organized to mark the 15th anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois. The event was heavily associated with the Catholic Mobilizing Network, a national anti-death penalty advocacy group.
”
Dear friends,
I am pleased to greet all of you who are gathered at DePaul University to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the decision to abolish the death penalty in the State of Illinois.
The Catholic Church has consistently taught that each human life, from the moment of conception until natural death, is sacred and deserves to be protected. Indeed, the right to life is the very foundation of every other human right. For this reason, only when a society safeguards the sanctity of human life will it flourish and prosper.
In this regard, we affirm that the dignity of the person is not lost even after very serious crimes are committed. Furthermore, effective systems of detention can be and have been developed that protect citizens while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption.
This is why Pope Francis and my recent predecessors repeatedly insisted that the common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment. Consequently, the Church teaches that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
I therefore join you in celebrating the decision made by the Governor of Illinois in 2011, and I likewise offer my support to those who advocate for the abolition of the death penalty in the United States of America and around the world. I pray that your efforts will lead to a greater acknowledgement of the dignity of every person, and will inspire others to work for the same just cause.
With these sentiments, I cordially invoke upon all of you the divine blessings of wisdom, joy and peace. Thank you.
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For more of our posts on the death penalty, see:
Open Letter to Governor Stitt: the Pro-life Case against the Death Penalty
The Death Penalty and Abortion: The Conservative/Liberal Straitjacket
Is the Death Penalty Unethical? (Hannah Cox)
Our blog post list includes several more under “death penalty.”
Taking Abortion to the Next Level: Infanticide
by Jim Hewes
Doe v. Bolton (a companion case to Roe v. Wade) significantly expanded the definition of the “health” exceptions. The ruling interpreted “health” very broadly, encompassing a woman’s overall well-being, not just physical danger. This broad interpretation enabled a woman to obtain an abortion at any point in her pregnancy, to protect her “health,” as defined by the attending physician.
Similarly, California law (Assembly Bill AB 2223 in 2022) previously prohibited abortion after the point of fetal viability but included an exception, when a physician determined it was necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant person (once again, a broadly defined standard).
Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont, along with the District of Columbia, do not have bans based on how far along a pregnancy is. Their laws protect the right to abortion throughout pregnancy. These jurisdictions impose no gestational limits, making abortion legal at any stage of pregnancy.
From Late-Term Abortion to Infanticide
Since abortion can be performed up until birth in some jurisdictions, it can be viewed as a natural extension to allow infanticide after birth. In 1982, “Baby Doe” was born in Bloomington, Indiana. A routine operation could have fixed the problem of a birth defect that would not allow food to pass into this boy’s stomach. However, the parents and doctors decided to let him starve to death because he had Down Syndrome. Many families came forward, willing to adopt the child. The Supreme Court in Indiana ruled that the parents had the right to withhold care, which would mean that the child would starve to death. The child was not given food or water and died in agony a few days later.
Kathy Tran, a Democratic legislator in Virginia, stated during a 2019 committee hearing that her bill (HB 249) would allow abortion up until birth. Republican Delegate Todd Gilbert asked if the bill would allow an abortion when a woman is “about to give birth” and “is dilating.” Tran initially responded that it would be “a decision that the doctor, the physician, and the woman would make at that point.” When pressed further on whether her bill specifically allowed it, Tran replied, “My bill would allow that, yes.”
Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam also voiced support for legislation that would significantly loosen restrictions on late-term abortion. He stated that if a mother is in labor, “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
Democrats in Congress voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would have required medical providers to provide care to infants who survive an attempted abortion. The act would have mandated that healthcare providers give such children the same level of care as any other newborn, ensured immediate transport to a hospital, required reporting violations to law enforcement, and imposed criminal penalties for intentionally killing a newborn child.
Logic suggests that the same reasoning used to justify late-term abortions could justify ending the child’s life right after birth. In Mothers Who Kill Their Children by Cheryl Meyer and Michelle Oberman, the authors report on numerous cases of women who have killed their children after birth (some very famous). They discovered that, for various reasons, these children only became unwanted after they were born.
In fact, if the newborn baby’s life is worth so little, couldn’t a case be made (like the Nazi doctors did), to harvest their organs before they’re killed and give them to those babies whose parents want them to live?
Bioethics and the Justification of Infanticide
Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and a Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne, has argued that infanticide under certain circumstances, particularly for severely disabled infants, would be morally permissible. He claims that newborns are not “persons” in a moral sense because they lack self-consciousness and the capacity to envision a future life. Singer writes:
If the fetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears that the newborn baby does not either, and the life of a newborn baby is of less value to it than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee is to the nonhuman animal . . . so to kill a newborn baby cannot violate the principle of respect for autonomy. In all this the newborn baby is on the same footing as the fetus, and hence fewer reasons exist against killing both babies and fetuses. (Practical Ethics p.169 & 171)
James Watson, a Nobel Laureate in 1973, similarly stated: “If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice . . . the doctor could allow the child to die, if the parents so choose, and save a lot of misery and suffering” (Children from the Laboratory, J. Watson, AMA Prism, Ch.3 p.2. May 1973). Dr. Francis Crick, also a Nobel Prize winner in 1978, supported infanticide.
Alberto Giubilinim & Francesca Minerva argue that since both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, but are only potential persons, what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is allowed. This includes cases where the newborn is not disabled (especially since there can be misdiagnosis or no diagnosis at all).
Historical and Eugenic Precedents
Lucas Warren, 2018 Gerber spokesbaby
Ancient Greece allowed infanticide, so those they deemed “defectives” would not pollute their society.
In the United States, the eugenics movement was promoted by Margaret Sanger, the founder of what is today known as Planned Parenthood.
In Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, eugenics was used to eliminate after birth more than 100,000 lives of those who had mental or physical disabilities. This was before the Nazi regime even began the “Jewish solution.”
As the saying goes: “we’re not putting them out of their misery – but putting them out of our misery.” Thus, infanticide becomes a reality.
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For a post that does follow-up to the “Baby Doe” case mentioned in this post, see:
A Lawyer’s Turnaround on Baby Doe with Her Own Down Syndrome Baby
For an innovative perspective on a prevalent infanticide thought experiment, see:
Is There a Post-Dobbs Back Alley? The Record on Women’s Abortion-Related Deaths
by Rachel MacNair
I had just turned 14 when Roe v. Wade came down. I reacted positively – it would get rid of back-alley butchers. Soon I realized it actually put a back-alley butcher back in business. The problem wasn’t the legal nature of abortion, but the nature of abortion, period.
There were arguments before Dobbs that abortion bans wouldn’t have dire back-alley impacts that we didn’t already have before. But now we don’t have to speculate about what would happen. We can observe what did happen.
I commented right after Dobbs that we were about to have a “natural experiment” – unlike a lab experiment, it’s not set up on purpose, but it’s still set up, so we can collect data. My post’s first section made predictions on women’s deaths. I document below that my predictions were just about right.
ProPublica has been chomping at the bit to show abortion bans have deadly consequences for women. It won a 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its coverage.
If abortion bans are deadly for women, that would be alarming to those of us advocating them. So – is it true?
ProPublica List
(to date, April 2026; in chronological order by death date)
| Name
Date of Death |
Condition | Malpractice? |
| Joselli Barnica
09.07.21 |
Wanted pregnancy, miscarriage | Delayed antibiotics for sepsis, etc. |
| Amber Thurman
08.19.2022 |
Legal Abortion | Delayed D&C at emergency visit 5 days later |
| Candi Miller
11.12.2022 |
Abortion pill from online | From the online source, sloppiness |
| Porsha Ngumezi
06.11.2023 |
Natural Miscarriage | Delayed, treated with misoprostol when should have been D&C |
| Nevaeh Craine
10.29.2023 |
Wanted pregnancy, infection | Two hospitals and three visits, ignored symptoms |
| Tierra Walker
12.26.2024 |
Difficult pregnancy | Several ways of not following protocols |
Joselli Barnica
ProPublica: “A Woman Died After Being Told It Would Be a ‘Crime’ to Intervene in Her Miscarriage at a Texas Hospital.”
Secular Pro-Life Video: Does Texas require doctors to wait until there’s no heartbeat to intervene in emergencies? (Josseli Barnica)
Before Dobbs, with a Texas abortion ban, Joselli had a wanted pregnancy but suffered a miscarriage at 17 weeks. They delayed intervention until there was no heartbeat, citing the Texas heartbeat law. Unlike the following cases, ProPublica had the word of the medical team. They misinterpreted the law; the remedy is to educate doctors on this.
After the D&C was finally done, doctors didn’t confirm the fetal parts were all removed and sent her home with them still inside her. She got an infection. It caused her death. The doctors should have taken her concern seriously when she reported symptoms. There’s certainly no abortion ban that keeps doctors from properly monitoring and treating an infection.
Amber Nicole Thurman
ProPublica: Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care
Secular Pro-Life: Georgia Woman Dies After Delayed Treatment of Abortion Pill Complications (Amber Thurman)
LifeNews.com: Leading OBGYN Believes Woman Died From Abortion Pill, Not Pro-Life Law
Amber was a Georgia resident, past the state’s gestational limit. She went to North Carolina to get the abortion pill regimen. Returning to Georgia, five days later she had complications. The doctors discussed but didn’t do a clearly-indicated D&C to remove fetal remains. Since the twins were already dead, there was no legal issue. ProPublica attributed this delay to doctors’ fears of the Georgia heartbeat law, without asking them what the reason for delay was.
Candi Miller
ProPublica: Candi Miller Died Afraid to Seek Care Amid Georgia’s Abortion Ban
LifeNews.com: Candi Miller Died From the Abortion Pill, Not From an Abortion Ban
This involved an online order of abortion pills. Of course that’s dangerous. No check for ectopic pregnancy, which the pill wouldn’t treat? No check for negative blood type to see if she needs a Rho-gam shot? Those who argue it shouldn’t be banned should at least insist on better regulation and monitoring.
Porsha Ngumezi
ProPublica: A Third Woman Died Under Texas’ Abortion Ban
Secular Pro-Life: ProPublica tries again: responding to claims about Porsha Ngumezi’s death
Porsha Ngumezi bled heavily from a miscarriage and went to the emergency room. She wasn’t seen for seven hours and then was given misoprostol instead of a proper D&C. After she died, the doctor’s notes claim her bleeding was minimal, contradicting nurses’ notes. Delaying the D&C for fear of the abortion ban? Administering misoprostol would also be against that ban.
Nevaeh Craine
ProPublica: A Pregnant Teenager Died After Trying to Get Care in Three Visits to Texas Emergency Rooms
Secular Pro-Life: Nevaeh Crain’s family says her death is being used for politics
and ProPublica can’t see malpractice, only abortion bans (Neveah Crain)
LifeNews.com: Nevaeh Crain Died Because of Poor Medical Care, Not From an Abortion Ban and Neveah Crain’s Family Blame Hospitals for Her Death, Not Texas Abortion Ban
Nevaeh was happily 6 months pregnant. With symptoms of infection, she made three different visits to two different emergency rooms and couldn’t get them to take her reports of symptoms seriously.
Tierra Walker
ProPublica: In Texas, Tierra Walker Wasn’t Offered an Abortion Before a High-risk Pregnancy Killed Her
Secular Pro-Life: Interview with Dr. Christina Francis regarding the case of Tierra Walker
LifeNews.com: Abortion Activists Exploit Pregnant Woman’s Tragic Death to Lie About Abortion Bans
Tierra had a high-risk pregnancy and so should have received better coordinated care than she did. ProPublica claims at 20 weeks she asked about terminating and was turned down. But at 20 weeks, terminating a high-risk pregnancy has its own medical risks. It’s not like getting rid of the pregnancy gets rid of the risk. So doctors’ judgment on the medical issue alone may have been correct. What we do know suggests that the medical risk management could have been better coordinated.
Not on the List Because There Was No Ban to Blame
Alexis Aguellos died February 6, 2025 from an amniotic fluid embolism as a complication of a 22-week abortion at Fort Collins Planned Parenthood. State legislature testimony, heard in the video clip below, shows the ambulance was called much later than it should have been.
This fits the pattern of the Roe era. Abortion-related deaths were only kept track of by pro-life groups (see lists from Feminists for Life, Students for Life, and Operation Rescue). Women’s deaths from abortions when there’s no ban don’t count in “pro-choice” eyes. Literally – they don’t count them.
Baseline
Here are the most recent numbers on abortion-related women’s deaths from the Centers for Disease Control when Roe was reigning:
To reasonably conclude that abortion bans, introduced in 2022 or soon thereafter, caused a spike in abortion-related maternal deaths, there would have to be more such deaths than in preceding years. ProPublica mentions six cases in three years. Only the two from 2022 would count as abortion-related, and no previous year had fewer deaths than that.
The concept of making a before-and-after comparison, basic to science, hasn’t been done. These are journalists, not scientists, and it shows. But even journalists should take into account a comparison to what happened previously before declaring a change, for fear of discovering that they’re only finding the situation is about the same after Dobbs as it was before.
Dobbs didn’t stop malpractice. Separate from abortion, it’s been a longstanding problem in the medical field to dismiss women’s reports of pain or symptoms.
Conclusion
We now have well over three years of experience of a post-Dobbs world in which 13 U.S. states have banned abortion and 28 more have gestational limits. We have a publication that’s pouring resources into trying to find these bans hurting women. They find cases that fit the narrative, find pro-abortion doctors to bolster their case, ignore what the actual doctors involved in the cases have to say, and assert what they know to be true because it’s supposed to be true.
ProPublica and others of similar advocacy claim women wouldn’t get proper treatment for natural miscarriages as doctors delayed needed treatment for fear of abortion bans. There are thousands upon thousands of women suffering natural miscarriages every year. They get the needed treatment. If this were actually a widespread problem, ProPublica reporters should be able to come up with many more cases.
I’m grieved for the loss of the lives of all the women they named and the one they didn’t. I also grieve for the amount of harm that’s been done to women by abortion businesses.
I personally have found a flood of problems just at Planned Parenthood since the year 2000 that dwarfs the evidence they give:
- Well over a hundred malpractice lawsuits, an average of over four a year.
- Hundreds of ambulance calls.
- Some of the health inspection reports detail horrifying clinic conditions.
- Many of the patient and employee online reviews indicate medical dangers, including emergency room visits.
Those mainly don’t involve deaths, though there are 11 cases of patient deaths. They include a lot of complaints that don’t have to do with abortion. So these findings aren’t comparable.
But the point is that finding risky practices among abortion providers is easy to do. ProPublica weakens their case by being unaware of how meager their cases are in comparison.
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For posts on similar topics, see:
The Back Alley and the Front Alley
Post-Roe Stats: the Natural Experiment
Abortion Facilitates Sex Abuse: Documentation
Excerpt – Peace Psychology Perspectives on Abortion: Child Abuse
Almost No One? How Survey Polls Work