Abortion dominating the news in Louisiana
LIFT Louisiana has organized opposition to conservative regulations
(Lift Co-director Lakeesha Harris addresses reporters at Chicago's Union Station as part of Lift's Black August Freedom Rides)
It’s been chaotic in Louisiana since the Dobbs decision came down this summer. The state had a trigger ban already in place. There was a debate in the state legislature about amending those laws to permit exceptions in cases of rape, incest and when the woman’s life was in danger. The only one to get through was the last one.
“It was a real battle,” said Michelle Erenberg, who leads LIFT Louisiana, a reproductive rights organization in the state. “During the legislative session, everyone saw the writing on the wall because the leak had come out during the session.”
LIFT Louisiana began in 2016. Erenberg was one of its co-founders. It started because she and a local attorney wanted to resist the onslaught of antiabortion legislation coming through the state government. Most of their work focused on educating the public about abortion and reproductive rights. They also organized public testimony against the legislation when abortion was debated.
The three most important antiabortion organizations there are Louisiana Right To Life, Louisiana Family Forum and the Conference of Catholic Bishops. They’re bolstered by congregation leaders throughout the state. Erenberg said it’s been harder for lawmakers to continue to support those group’s suggested regulations because it’s gotten more extreme.
“It's been a little bit painful for them,” Erenberg said.
The trigger ban is currently in effect after a few legal challenges. LIFT staffers have organized resistance by getting constituents to lobby their representatives.
The state recently made headlines because of Nancy Davis, a woman who had to travel to New York to get an abortion even though her doctors detected fetal deformities. That harkens back to the beginning of the modern reproductive rights movement. In the early 1960s, Sherri Chessen–an Arizona woman who hosted a children’s television show–had a deformed fetus after taking Thalidomide by mistake.
After Chessen alerted a newspaper reporter about the drug’s dangers, the journalist also mentioned that she planned an abortion. Chessen was identified and then endured nonstop harassment until she got an abortion in Europe. Her story is told in A Private Matter, a 1992 movie starring Sissy Spacek.
Almost 30 percent of women in Louisiana live in poverty. And they have to travel hundreds of miles to either Kansas, Florida or North Carolina to get an abortion.
“These are the populations of folks in our communities that are most impacted,” Erenberg said. “And we're going to see them really struggling to access abortion care, and in most cases, it will be impossible.”