Abortion Ban Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Steve Williams Calls For Abortion Ballot Measure

Huntington Mayor Steve Williams has launched a petition calling for Gov. Jim Justice to include discussion of an abortion ballot measure during the special session in May.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June of 2022, and West Virginia lawmakers convened a special session in September of that year in which they passed the state’s near-total abortion ban or the Unborn Child Protection Act.

The Unborn Child Protection Act, also known as House Bill 302, outlaws abortions in West Virginia except in cases when the mother’s life is in danger, or instances of rape and incest that are reported to law enforcement in a timely manner. Any abortion performed must be done so in a hospital within eight weeks for adults and 14 weeks for minors.

“Women’s reproductive health certainly isn’t a right and it’s at risk,” Williams said. “And particularly the physicians that care for these women placed their own medical license at risk in assisting with women and there’s a level of uncertainty.”

Now, Williams, a Democrat running to be governor, is calling on Justice to include reproductive freedom on the agenda for the upcoming legislative special session.

Williams said if lawmakers believe the will of the people is to uphold the abortion ban, then they should have no trouble putting it to a vote.

“This is not this is not a matter of being pro-life or pro-choice,” Williams said. “This is a matter of freedom, and we’re just simply suggesting let’s put freedom on the ballot.”

The ballot measure, if approved by a Republican governor and Republican majority House and Senate, would allow voters the chance to vote on abortion rights in the state.

Williams referred to former President Donald Trump’s stance on abortion: to let states decide

“I agree with what former President Trump said, is that let’s put it in the hands of the people and let the people speak,” Williams said.

Voters in seven states — California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and Vermont have approved abortion rights measures after they were put up for a vote. Several more states are expected to put the issue up for a vote this year as well.

Study Finds Sterilization Rates Rose Post-Dobbs Decision

More young people are seeking and following through with permanent contraception procedures.

A new study found that rates of young people seeking permanent contraception have risen since the overturn of Roe v Wade.

The study evaluated changes in rates of tubal ligation and vasectomy procedures among adults aged 18 to 30 following the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

The Supreme Court overturned Roe in June of 2022, and West Virginia lawmakers convened a special session in September of that year in which they passed the state’s near-total abortion ban or the Unborn Child Protection Act.

In a written statement, Kristin Sinning, Marshall Health obstetrician-gynecologist and professor at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, confirmed an increase in patients expressing interest in and proceeding with permanent sterilization within the past two years.

“Marshall Obstetrics and Gynecology offers patients a comprehensive range of contraception methods including permanent sterilization procedures,” Sinning wrote. “During the past two years, our clinics have experienced an increase in patients expressing interest in and proceeding with permanent sterilization. This is consistent with the findings outlined in the recent Journal of American Medicine Association article.”

Jacqueline Allison is an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Health Policy and Management and one of the authors of the study on rates of permanent contraception. She said the study was inspired by the conversations she had with friends and family following the overturning of Roe v Wade.

“I think a lot of people who with the capacity for pregnancy, including myself, felt a lot of fear and anxiety around the ruling,” Allison said. “And that fear and anxiety, as we saw in our study, translated to changes in contraceptive decision-making.”

Allison said the study found a substantial increase in both tubal ligation and vasectomy procedures among young people since the Dobbs decision.

“We also found that this increase in tubal ligation procedures was twice that of the vasectomies,” Allison said. “It was also the increase was also sustained in the post Dobbs period, whereas for vasectomies, there was sort of an initial uptick, and then the rate leveled off.”

There could be multiple reasons for those rates, but Allison suspects people who can get pregnant are more likely to experience the consequences of not being able to terminate an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy.

“Women disproportionately experience the health, social and economic consequences of abortion bans, whereas men may not experience those consequences as directly,” Allison said.

Another factor could be that men might not have health insurance coverage for a vasectomy. Allison explained that under the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, all private payers are required to cover contraceptives, at no additional cost to patients.

“That mandate did not include the vasectomy,” Allison said. “So it’s also possible that men do not have insurance coverage for vasectomy, whereas women do have coverage for tubal ligation.”

Allison said she expected to see an increase in interest and follow through with permanent contraception procedures following the Dobbs decision, but did not expect the increase to be as pronounced as it was. She was also surprised to learn that younger people were already more interested in the procedures than their older counterparts were at their ages.

“Even before the Dobbs ruling, younger people were more likely to go out and get permanent contraception, or they were there, the rate was increasing, rather,” Allison said. “And that’s opposite, that’s not what we see when we look at like all adults or older adults. So it suggest to me that, you know, young people are increasingly choosing this option, even before Dobbs.”

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Marshall Health.

Abortion Pill Case To Be Heard By The U.S. Supreme Court

Developments in a legal battle over medication abortion in West Virginia could change access in the state.

GenBioPro v. Raynes

In November 2023, GenBioPro filed an appeal to a judge’s August ruling in its case against West Virginia’s near-total abortion ban.

In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Chambers dismissed some claims filed by pharmaceutical group GenBioPro in a lawsuit against the state’s attorney general Patrick Morrisey.

GenBioPro v. Raynes claimed that Morrisey violated federal law, more specifically the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, by prohibiting the sale of the drug in West Virginia.

“Mifepristone is a medication that is subject to a very specific set of regulations that Congress itself considered,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, GenBioPro’s legal counsel. “The state of West Virginia cannot and should not, under our constitution, be able to maintain a law that conflicts with that.”

The clause gives Congress broad power to regulate and restrict states from impairing interstate commerce.

“The theory is based on the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which unequivocally says that when federal law and state law conflict, it is the federal law, that must take precedence,” Perryman said.

However, Chambers, who presides over the southern district of West Virginia, said states have the right to regulate public health and morality by curtailing the sale of goods.

The court earlier ruled that GenBioPro had legal standing to bring a suit against the attorney general’s office on the basis of economic damages incurred by the company.

On Feb. 7, GenBioPro filed an appellate brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, arguing that West Virginia’s post-Dobbs abortion ban is in direct conflict with federal law.

The brief urges the Court to reverse the District Court’s August ruling in GenBioPro v. Raynes, which dismissed GenBioPro’s challenge to West Virginia’s near-total abortion ban.

According to Morrisey’s office, in August 2023, the district court dismissed the preemption claim against the state’s Unborn Child Protection Act and the constitutional challenges entirely, but it allowed the preemption challenge to the telehealth provisions to proceed.

Morrisey said GenBioPro removed the telehealth challenge in order to proceed with an appeal.

“GenBioPro won its challenge to the telehealth ban, which it is not pursuing now at this time, but the district court ruled for the state with respect to GenBioPro’s challenge to the abortion ban,” Perryman said.

Perryman said GenBioPro believes that West Virginia’s restrictions are unconstitutional and said that is why she is taking the case on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

National Litigation

In the first case of its kind since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, oral arguments for and against access to the abortion pill will be heard at the U.S. Supreme Court on March 26.

The outcome of the case will determine how and when patients can access mifepristone, a pharmaceutical approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2000.

GenBioPro manufactures a generic version of Mifepristone. The medication is used in conjunction with Misoprostol for medical abortions and can be taken at home to terminate a pregnancy.

Mifepristone is currently approved for use up to 10 weeks gestation and is often used to treat miscarriages and accounts for more than half of abortions in the U.S.

Mifepristone was first approved by the FDA in 2000 and the agency required the drug to be prescribed in person, over three visits to a doctor. Since 2016, the FDA eased restrictions, allowing patients to obtain prescriptions through telemedicine appointments, and to get the drug by mail.

The original lawsuit was brought by the anti-abortion legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom.

On April 7, 2023, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk imposed a nationwide ban on mifepristone, declaring that the FDA had improperly approved the drug.

At practically the same moment, U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice in Washington state issued a contrary ruling, in a case brought by 17 states and the District of Columbia seeking to expand the use of mifepristone. Rice declared that the current FDA rules must remain in place.

While the case was argued in lower courts, the Supreme Court put the lower court decisions on hold, allowing the abortion pill to continue on the market as it had been. That stay will remain while the court considers the case.

The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine argues they have the authority to bring the case because the “FDA overlooked important safety risks in approving mifepristone and amending its restrictions.”

They argue the FDA depends on emergency room doctors to be a crucial component of the mifepristone regimen, as the treating physician in the event of complications.

“According to the doctors, when they treat women who are experiencing complications after taking mifepristone, they are required to perform or complete an abortion, or otherwise required to participate in a process that facilitates abortion,” the filing states. “They maintain that personally conducting those procedures violates their sincerely held moral beliefs.”

The Biden Administration responded that the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine failed to show “any evidence of injury from the availability” of the medication.

“This Administration will continue to stand by FDA’s independent approval and regulation of mifepristone as safe and effective,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

Dozens of groups have filed briefs with the supreme court, from both sides of the argument.

On Jan. 30, GenBioPro filed an amicus brief to SCOTUS in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. Federal Drug Administration.

In the brief, GenBioPro claims: “The court never examined the clinical studies underlying and amply supporting FDA’s 2016 changes, which reported that thousands of patients had successfully and safely used mifepristone under the modified conditions.”

Perryman released the following statement:

“The Fifth Circuit’s ruling in this case undermines decades of science and access to evidence-based medication, as well as the FDA’s regulatory authority,” Perryman said. “The ruling was not based on science or facts, but rather furthered another effort waged by extremists in their attacks on women’s rights and ability to access necessary medication.”

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. Federal Drug Administration on March 26, 2024.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Marshall Health.

Senate Passes Two Reproductive Rights Bills

Abortion is banned in the state of West Virginia unless medically necessary, or if the pregnancy is no longer viable. There are also exceptions in the abortion ban in the case of rape.

Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, sponsored two notable bills related to pregnant persons in the state.

The Senate is building momentum now that it is well into the second half of the legislative session. Ten bills were passed and sent to the House of Delegates; two bills were sent to the governor’s desk.

Senate Bill 352

Abortion is banned in the state of West Virginia unless medically necessary, or if the pregnancy is no longer viable. There are also exceptions in the abortion ban in the case of rape.

Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, sponsored two notable bills related to pregnant persons in the state.

Senate Bill 352 requires informed consent prior to a medically necessary abortion being performed. Informed consent means that the patients that are seeking an abortion must be informed of things like associated medical risks, the probable gestational age, and that perinatal hospital services are available before they decide to go through with the abortion. Some of the information doctors are required to present is on the Department of Health’s website.

Those opposed to the bill say that the bill requires doctors to present patients with scientifically inaccurate propaganda.

Rucker said this bill ensures that the patient has all the information that they need to make the decision to have a abortion.

“This is a decision. We’re affecting life and death,” Rucker said. “It is a decision that will impact a woman’s life after the decision is made- whatever decision is made. So I think it is only the right thing to do that she has all the information available.”

Sen. Mike Caputo, D-Marion, voted against the bill and read a letter on the Senate floor Wednesday from a physician who urged him to do so.

“I am horrified to learn that the Senate is attacking reproductive health care yet again by advancing Senate Bill 352,” Caputo read. “Banning abortion was not enough. Now lawmakers want to go after the very narrow exceptions afforded in the ban by further demeaning and degrading providers and patients who are deserving of respect and compassion. Enough is enough.”

The physician asked Caputo to try and stop the bill.

“It is dangerous, and far outside the mainstream of medicine,” Caputo read. “Organizations representing 1000s of clinic clinicians, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American College of Nurse Midwives and the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine have strongly opposed bills that place lawmakers in the position of interfering with how health care is provided to push a political agenda. ”

Senate Bill 620

Last year the legislature passed a bill that funded the mothers and babies pregnancy support program.

The grants under this program are for anti-abortion pregnancy centers, maternity homes, adoption agencies and “life-affirming social service organizations.”

Rucker’s other bill, Senate Bill 620, adds flexibility to the ways in which that funding can be used.

Lawmakers Discuss Informed Consent Abortion

A bill moved through the Senate Health and Human Resources Committee on Thursday that would require medical professionals to educate someone granted an abortion in West Virginia about possible risks.

Abortion is banned in West Virginia with exceptions for rape, incest, or to save a pregnant person’s life.

Senate Bill 352 requires physicians to offer those who are granted an abortion in West Virginia an ultrasound and information on the gestational age of the fetus or embryo and possible risks associated with the procedure.

The bill states that consent is only voluntary and informed if the licensed medical professional informs the patient of the medical risks associated with the particular abortion procedure including the possibility of infection, hemorrhage, danger to subsequent pregnancies, infertility and reversal.

Physicians would also be required to educate patients on options for perinatal hospice services if they carry a non-viable pregnancy to term.

Sen. Patricia Rucker, a R-Jefferson, said the bill does not further restrict abortion in West Virginia.

“What this does is ensure women have informed decisions, and information to make decisions under the limited circumstances we allow,” Rucker said.

The committee substitute for Senate Bill 352, Modifying the Unborn Child Protection Act, passed the committee and goes to the full Senate floor for consideration.

Appeal Filed In Abortion Pill Court Battle

The lawsuit claimed that Morrisey violated federal law, more specifically the commerce clause of the U.S Constitution, by prohibiting the sale of the drug in West Virginia.

Abortion pill manufacturer GenBioPro has filed an appeal to the judge’s August ruling in its case against West Virginia’s near-total abortion ban.

In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Chambers dismissed some claims filed by pharmaceutical group GenBioPro in a lawsuit against the state’s attorney general, Patrick Morrisey.

GenBioPro manufactures a generic version of Mifepristone, an FDA approved, non-invasive prescription pill. The medication is used in conjunction with Misoprostol for medical abortions and can be taken at home to terminate a pregnancy.

The lawsuit claimed that Morrisey violated federal law, more specifically the commerce clause of the U.S Constitution, by prohibiting the sale of the drug in West Virginia.

The clause gives Congress broad power to regulate and restrict states from impairing interstate commerce. However, Chambers, who presides over the southern district of West Virginia, said states have the right to regulate public health and morality by curtailing the sale of goods.

The court earlier ruled that GenBioPro had legal standing to bring a suit against the attorney general’s office on the basis of economic damages incurred by the company.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said his office stands ready to fight an appeal and that the judge’s former ruling made it clear the regulation of abortion falls on the states.

“As we did in federal district court, we stand ready to defend West Virginia law to the fullest,” Morrisey said. “There’s no doubt in my mind the new Unborn Child Protection Act is not preempted by federal law and that all of these statutes are constitutional.”

Skye Perryman, Legal Counsel to GenBioPro and President and CEO of Democracy Forward, said this appeal is a critical next step in her organization’s fight to protect access to medication abortion.

“West Virginia’s decision to step in where Congress has granted FDA the authority to regulate mifepristone is unlawful and could undermine not only access to medication, but the country’s entire drug regulation system,” Perryman said. “What’s more, decades of science support mifepristone’s safety and efficacy and it is unacceptable that people living in West Virginia who need this basic health care are being forced to travel out of state or forgo care altogether. We look forward to continuing to represent GenBioPro in the further stages of this case.”

According to Morrisey’s office, in August, the district court dismissed the preemption claim against the state’s Unborn Child Protection Act and the constitutional challenges entirely, but it allowed the preemption challenge to the telehealth provisions to proceed.

Morrisey said GenBioPro removed the telehealth challenge in order to proceed with an appeal.