abortion restrictions

Support for abortion rights in Louisiana grew over the last year, and a majority of people now say abortion should generally be legal, according to Louisiana State University’s annual statewide survey.

A WWNO/WRKF review of 33 crisis pregnancy websites and the services they advertise found that the majority offer nearly no maternal health care, nearly no reproductive health care, and some provide health misinformation, including the potentially dangerous practice of “abortion reversal.”

House Republicans voted down two bills that would have given physicians greater autonomy to care for pregnancy complications amid Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban, after opposition from Louisiana Right to Life in a committee hearing Tuesday.

Two bills to add rape and incest exceptions to Louisiana’s abortion ban failed in the state House Criminal Justice Committee on Wednesday.

A majority of likely voters in Louisiana support abortion rights and greater access to abortion than allowed under the state’s near-total ban, according to a new poll released Monday.

Louisiana ranks as one of the worst states in the nation for maternal and infant health, especially for Black and Native American women, according to the latest report from the March of Dimes. Experts said the state’s abortion ban, which went into effect immediately after Roe v. Wade was overturned this year by the U.S. Supreme Court, could make pregnancy and birth even more dangerous.

Louisiana Right to Life — the state’s most powerful anti-abortion group — has been celebrating a victory it’s spent over 50 years fighting to achieve, but it wants to go further. It wants to end an exception to the ban that allows for abortions for so-called “medically futile” pregnancies in the next legislative session.

The Louisiana Department of Health refuses to answer questions from doctors about the state’s abortion ban, making it difficult for physicians to determine what medical care for pregnant people might put them at risk for criminal charges.

Nationally, the midterms are set to be a referendum on abortion rights. But in Louisiana, where the anti-abortion movement holds a political monopoly, abortion rights supporters are faced with the question of how to fight back when they’ve already lost so much.