How Texas abortion law turned a pregnancy loss into a medical trauma : Shots

August 22, 2022 Dania

Elizabeth and James Weller at their home in Houston two months after losing their baby girl due to a premature rupture of membranes. Elizabeth could not receive the medical care she needed until several days later because of a Texas law that banned abortion after six weeks.

Julia Robinson for NPR

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Julia Robinson for NPR

New, untested abortion bans have made doctors unsure about treating some pregnancy complications, which has led to life-threatening delays and trapped families in a limbo of grief and helplessness.

Elizabeth Weller never dreamed that her own hopes for a child would become ensnared in the web of Texas abortion law.

She and her husband began trying in late 2021. They had bought a house in Kingwood, a lakeside development in Houston. Elizabeth was in graduate school for political science, and James taught middle-school math.

The Wellers were pleasantly surprised when they got pregnant early in 2022.

In retrospect, Elizabeth says their initial joy felt a little naive: “If it was so easy for us to get pregnant, then to us it was almost like a sign that this pregnancy was going to be easy for us.”

Things did go fairly smooth at first. Seventeen weeks into the pregnancy, they learned they were expecting a girl. They also had an anatomy scan, which revealed no problems. Even if it had, the Wellers were determined to proceed.

“We skipped over the genetic testing offered in the first trimester,” Elizabeth says. “I was born with a physical disability. If she had any physical ailments, I would never abort her for that issue.”

Elizabeth thought of abortion rights in broad terms: “I have said throughout my life I believe that women should have the access to the right to an abortion. I personally would never get one.”

And at this particular point in her life, pregnant for the first time at age 26, it was still somewhat abstract: “I had not been put in a position to where I had to weigh the real nuances that went into this situation. I had not been put in the crossroads of this issue.”

But in early May, not long after the uneventful anatomy scan, the Wellers suddenly arrived at that crossroads. There they found themselves pinned down, clinically and emotionally, victims of a collision between standard obstetrical practice and the rigid new demands of Texas law.

It was May 10, 2022. Elizabeth was 18 weeks pregnant. She ate a healthy breakfast, went for a walk outside and came back home.

In the nursery upstairs, they had already stashed some baby clothes and new cans of paint. Down in the kitchen, images from recent scans and ultrasounds

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Texas can take new border motion ex-Trump officers want more | Overall health and Fitness

April 12, 2022 Dania

By ACACIA CORONADO and PAUL J. WEBER – Associated Push

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday delivered new orders alongside the U.S.-Mexico border and promised more to appear as former Trump administration officers push him to declare an “invasion” and give point out troopers and Nationwide Guard customers authority to transform again migrants.

The two-term Republican governor did not say whether or not he supports these kinds of a notion, which constitutional students say is legally dubious, practically unparalleled and would almost absolutely experience swift courtroom worries.

But for now, Abbott said state troopers would begin stopping and inspecting business cars that come throughout the border, which he acknowledged would “dramatically slow” auto targeted traffic close to U.S. ports of entry. He also explained bus charters to Washington, D.C., would be presented to migrants who volunteer for them, in a dig at President Joe Biden and Congress, who Abbott has criticized for not carrying out more than enough.

Abbott claimed the inspection stops would manifest on Texas roadways and observe the regulation. “But of study course, everyone always information a lawsuit,” he said.

The new directives volume to the “unprecedented actions” that Abbott promised in reaction to the Biden administration winding down a community wellness law – now set to expire in May perhaps – that has limited asylum-seekers in the name of preventing the unfold of COVID-19. When that takes place, it is envisioned to attract much more migrants to the southern border.

Texas officers also claimed they would begin “increased armed service activity” on the border and

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Texas trans teens shut out from medical care amid GOP efforts

March 25, 2022 Dania

For LGBTQ mental health support, call the Trevor Project’s 24/7 toll-free support line at 866-488-7386. You can also reach a trained crisis counselor through the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by calling 800-273-8255 or texting 741741.

Jennifer’s 15-year-old son had been on testosterone therapy for only two weeks when she got a call from his doctor. The exchange felt “very clandestine,” she said.

“He calls from his personal number, calls my personal number [and] doesn’t use my child’s name because he’s scared somebody is recording the conversation,” Jennifer said.

The doctor told her he could no longer prescribe her son’s treatment. The medical malpractice insurance carrier, he explained, had stopped covering doctors who offered hormone therapy to minors.

The doctor’s call came a week after Gov. Greg Abbott ordered investigations into parents and licensed facilities that provide standard medical care to transgender teenagers. Abbott’s order was based on a nonbinding interpretation from Attorney General Ken Paxton that classified puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgical care as child abuse.

Jennifer asked The Texas Tribune not to disclose her last name because she fears the state could launch an investigation into her family for obtaining hormone therapy.

Leading medical organizations across the country say gender-affirming care is the best way to provide care for transgender children. It primarily involves choices around name, pronouns and clothing that align with a child’s gender identity. It can eventually include puberty blockers and hormone treatment. Surgical care is rarely, if ever, performed on teenagers.

On Monday, a state appeals court reinstated a lower court’s injunction temporarily halting the investigation of transgender kids’ parents and medical providers. The court says the injunction will remain in place while an appeal of the decision plays out.

But in response to the Texas GOP’s recent efforts to limit scientifically backed gender-affirming care, LGBTQ advocates say hospitals, insurance companies and pharmacies across the state had already started restricting critical treatment for fear of legal consequences.

Health care providers worry they could lose their medical licenses if they don’t abide by Abbott’s directive.

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told the Tribune that Abbott’s directive has had a chilling effect on health care practitioners, hospital systems and clinics.

“What’s happening right now is the state inserting itself between doctors, patients and families,” Murthy said. “That runs counter to the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship.”

Transgender teenagers now are grappling with narrowing access to medical care in a state where adequate, inclusive health care is already hard to come by. The lack of access has driven some to secure a substandard quality of care and others to stop seeking care altogether.

Jennifer said the doctor’s decision to stop hormone therapy was devastating for her family. She had searched for months for a pediatrician who would use her son’s correct pronouns and respect his identity. She had combed through parent Facebook groups and left voicemails with multiple health care centers before she met

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2 dentists killed in business office shooting in Texas

March 18, 2022 Dania

TYLER, Texas (KLTV/Grey News) – Both dentists shot in a Texas clinic have died, a sheriff’s place of work spokesman mentioned Thursday.

The suspect, Steven Alexander Smith, 40, is charged with money murder, according to Smith County Sheriff’s Business office spokesman Larry Christian. He is held on a overall of $3 million bond, KLTV reported.

The sheriff’s business office suggests the victims are Dr. Blake G. Sinclair, 59, of Tyler, and Dr. Jack E. Burroughs, 75, of Tyler.

At roughly 2:45 p.m. Wednesday, the sheriff’s office environment acquired a 911 connect with for a taking pictures at Economical Dentures & Implants. Deputies stated they observed two male victims inside the business enterprise suffering from gunshot wounds.

The preliminary investigation revealed Smith was a affected individual at the clinic. Investigators said he became indignant at clinic staff and went to his pickup truck in the parking good deal.

He then returned and entered into the foyer space in which he was met by clinic personnel. Smith had a handgun and eventually shot two physicians on employees within the business enterprise, in accordance to the sheriff’s office environment.

Both equally victims ended up taken to a Tyler healthcare facility, but they succumbed to their injuries.

Smith was later on arrested at a home in south Tyler.

Witness to taking pictures stated she hid driving foyer wall

Steven Smith is also billed with aggravated assault. That cost stems from the suspect allegedly pointing the gun at a nurse, who pleaded with him, stating she experienced kids.

Sheriff Larry Smith reported a speedy-wondering staff of the Dental Care Heart took a picture of the suspect’s license plate, which was offered to a very first-arriving deputy. The deputy despatched that details together to dispatch. Dispatch then ended up equipped to track down an deal with.

A deputy arrived just as the suspect was arriving at the household in south Tyler, the sheriff mentioned.

Negotiators managed to persuade the suspect’s mom and dad to appear out of the dwelling. Then they convinced the suspect to come out a few minutes afterwards.

Authorities identified two handguns in the household, which have been the exact same caliber as the gun applied in the taking pictures, Sheriff Smith explained. Numerous shell casings were being recovered from the flooring of the dental facility.

The sheriff said equally health professionals ended up found within the right doorway, about 15 feet or so inside of. The sheriff also said he believes the two physicians were the meant targets.

The sheriff explained a deputy did CPR on one particular of the physicians for five minutes prior to the ambulance arrived.

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At-home abortion medicine requests soared right after Texas constraints

March 6, 2022 Dania

Requests for abortion drugs skyrocketed in Texas following a state law that bans abortions all around 6 weeks of being pregnant went into impact final September.

A research published Friday in JAMA Community Open, by scientists at the College of Texas, observed requests created by Texans to an worldwide humanitarian group referred to as Help Obtain, which delivers abortion medicine by mail, soared by approximately 1,200 per cent the week Senate Bill 8 went into impact.

Throughout the following three weeks, that number fell, but day by day requests remained substantially elevated — an normal of 37.1 day by day requests compared to 10.8 requests prior to the regulation going into location. Requests from all other U.S. states also amplified through the exact same time period of time, but by much smaller sized amounts.

“What we are seeing here is holding in stage with what we’ve witnessed in other spots exactly where abortion has been seriously limited,” reported direct study writer Dr. Abigail Aiken, an affiliate professor of public affairs at the University of Texas, Austin.

It is unclear how lots of of the requests led to at-property abortions.

It is attainable that some of the requests had been produced pre-emptively, by women who have been not still expecting but preferred to have the treatment on hand, claimed Dr. Daniel Grossman, director of Advancing New Specifications in Reproductive Well being at the College of California, San Francisco, who was not associated in the new study.

Clinical abortions involve getting two supplements — mifepristone and misoprostol — 48 several hours apart. The drugs can be utilised up to 10 weeks into a being pregnant, in accordance to the Food stuff and Drug Administration.

On Thursday, the abortion legal rights study group Guttmacher Institute reported that a lot more than fifty percent of abortions in the U.S. are now completed with medicine, rather than in-clinic surgical procedure. The spike has been partly driven by an maximize in telemedicine all through the pandemic, but health care abortion has been on the rise considering the fact that 2000, when the Food and drug administration accepted mifepristone.

In December, the Food and drug administration claimed it would forever permit sufferers to receive the abortion drugs by mail.

Nonetheless, mail-purchase abortion medicines are also becoming qualified by condition lawmakers.

A different Texas legislation, SB 4, which went into effect in December, bans mail-buy abortion capsules and telehealth consultations for abortions. Everyone who prescribes the medicine through telehealth or by mail faces jail time and a $10,000 fantastic.

Grossman mentioned the tablets are very harmless from a professional medical standpoint. “But I do have genuine problems about the authorized threats individuals may possibly be having,” he mentioned.

30-six states at the moment require abortions to be finished by a certified medical doctor, in accordance to the Guttmacher Institute, but it is still unclear how point out legislation utilize to businesses like Support Obtain, which are not based mostly in the U.S.

Past info has

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St. David’s Health care options $953M of jobs at Central Texas health care amenities

February 20, 2022 Dania

The $249 million venture at St. David’s South Austin Health-related Centre consists of a $168 million future expansion that will be completed in 2024 to incorporate 30 beds, four running rooms, support space and a 24-bed rehabilitation device. (Rendering courtesy St. David’s Healthcare)

St. David’s Healthcare is scheduling to establish practically $1 billion in well being care infrastructure across Central Texas to meet swift spot advancement.

The Central Texas health and fitness system strategies to create two new hospitals, develop one behavioral wellness hospital, and grow potential and expert services at existing services, in accordance to a Feb. 15 announcement.

David Huffstutler, president and CEO of St. David’s Healthcare, stated in a release that as the Central Texas population expands to “outlying locations,” there is a need to create added treatment sites in these places.

“While the COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly compounded the challenges our area is struggling with, there was previously a have to have for more actual physical capability in our existing hospitals to care for clients, as properly as additional services in our local community, which includes behavioral well being services,” Huffstutler claimed in a launch.

New hospitals and expansions include things like:

$249 million for a renovation and an enlargement at St. David’s South Austin Clinical Center

$185 million for a new entire-support acute care healthcare facility in the Kyle area

$145.9 million for a renovation and an growth at St. David’s North Austin Health care Centre

$142.5 million for a new total-services, acute care hospital in Leander

$80 million for the design of future capacity at location hospitals to accommodate long run growth

$53.1 million for an growth at St. David’s Round Rock Medical Heart

$43 million for a renovation and an expansion at St. David’s Professional medical Heart

$33.8 million for a new 80-bed behavioral wellbeing healthcare facility close to St. David’s North Austin Clinical Center

$20.9 million for an enlargement at Heart Clinic of Austin

St. David’s Healthcare will fund the $953 million in tasks with no debt or philanthropic endeavours, according to the Feb. 15 release.

New hospitals

The two new hospitals will be built in Leander and Kyle. These facilities are scheduled to open up in 2024.

The 150,000-sq.-foot Leander clinic will be developed as the 3rd stage of St. David’s current development, which has an emergency centre and a health-related office building. St. David’s is obtaining land for the 160,000-sq.-foot Kyle hospital, in accordance to St. David’s.

Both of those acute treatment hospitals will have a 24-hour unexpected emergency office, inpatient and outpatient operation, essential care capabilities, robotic companies, maternity expert services and new child expert services. The hospitals will just about every create about 200 total-time work opportunities when open up.

St. David’s is also setting up to build a behavioral health medical center near the St. David’s North Austin Medical Center. The 80-bed hospital will present psychological wellness providers to adolescent, grownup and geriatric clients, according to the release. The medical center will have indoor remedy parts, outdoor remedy

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