how has the project evolved?

From Volume 6

When I began this project roughly eight months ago, I envisioned that the stories would focus on clear-cut examples of how individual women have been killed or otherwise harmed by state abortion bans. Stories like those in Volume 1 of Amber Thurman, Nevaeh Crain, and Porsha Ngumezi, for instance. The longer I’ve worked on the project, though, the more the ripple effects have sunk in—how the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, partners, children, and friends of these killed and traumatized people have suffered. More gradually, I’ve also come to realize how health care workers have suffered because of the bans because, in the words of one I quoted in the story of Yeni Alvarez, their “hands are tied” by the bans, so they can’t care for or in some cases even save the lives of their patients. Doctors like Dr. Lara Hart, forced to perform a hysterectomy to save the life of a woman because of Georgia’s abortion ban. Or Dr. Kylie Cooper whose patient Kayla Smith was at risk for life-threatening pre-eclampsia who could not give her patient a clear answer about how sick she would have to become before Idaho doctors would save her. Doctors in abortion ban states are suffering from what researchers call “moral distress,” the pain of being unable to act on their values to care for their patients. In an article in The Atlantic, Sarah Zhang summarizes how “In the two-plus years since Roe  was overturned, a handful of studies have cataloged the moral distress of doctors across the country. In one, 96 percent of providers who care for pregnant women in states with restrictive laws reported feelings of moral distress that ranged from `uncomfortable’ to `intense’ to `worst possible.’ In a survey of ob-gyns who mostly were not abortion providers, more than 90 percent said the laws had prevented them or their colleagues from providing standard medical care. They described feeling “muzzled,” “handcuffed,” and “straitjacketed.” In another study, ob-gyn residents reported feeling like “puppets,” a “hypocrite,” or a “robot of the State” [which inspired the image above] under the abortion bans.” Clearly, those suffering because of abortion bans extend well beyond those people being denied care. Finally, as abortion ban states are finding it harder to recruit and retain ob-gyn doctors, anyone who needs such care is being affected. As I say in the story about Kate Campbell and Nicole Miller, the number of ob-gyns practicing in Idaho decreased by 35 percent between August 2022 and December 2024. As journalist Jessica Valenti wrote recently, “It won’t be long before every single person in the country is touched by an abortion ban.”