Louisiana
Reproductive advocates say Louisiana Black women will continue to suffer without Roe V. Wade
BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — On June 24, 2022, Louisiana’s strict abortion ban became the law of the land. Around that same time, Kaitlyn Joshua was preparing to be a mother again.
“My daughter is now five but at the time she was three, almost four,” Joshua explained. “And we were just kinda thinking it would be a perfect time to add a baby and we were really excited to do that.”
But all that excitement turned into endless doctor visits, confusion and pain.
“My provider’s office stated that they wouldn’t be able to see me, until the 12-week mark,” Joshua said. “The pain that I was experiencing was worse than what I had experienced delivering my daughter.”
Joshua thought she was having a miscarriage, but medical providers and doctors were too afraid to diagnose or treat her.
“I asked her, so is this for sure a miscarriage, like am I not going to be able to continue this pregnancy. She said I’m not sure and I can’t really tell you that in this moment, but I am sending you home with prayers,” said Joshua.
Joshua had no choice but to wait until the miscarriage passed. She says if the law had been different, she would have had access to an abortion. The same procedure often used during miscarriages.
Latoya Harris says she looks at maternal health differently as a Black woman. She says she almost didn’t make it out of the delivery room alive. According to Harris, she said she was given an epidural that didn’t work. She kept telling doctors that something wasn’t right.
“After losing so much blood, I passed out and I woke up to just wondering did I code or did I have to be revived,” Harris asked.
But she pulled through and so did her baby girl. Harris and Joshua are not only mothers with survival stories, but they also represent a statistic. According to the CDC, Black women have the highest rates of pregnancy complications in the U.S.
These women are thankful to be alive, knowing they could have been among the thousands of Black women who die during childbirth.
“They are often times living on lower incomes than their white counterparts and they are also facing implicit or even sometimes explicit racial bias within the health care system,” said Michelle Erenberg, executive director of Lift Louisiana.
“There just needs to be more health care during the pregnancy that’s provided to them,” said Sarah Zagorski from Pro Life Louisiana. “As well as support with more information about the risks that could be involved and those sorts of things, that can help them have a safe birth.”
The CDC says Black women have the highest maternal death rate in the country and in Louisiana.
“There’s a lot of existing health disparities that exist already along racial lines in the state of Louisiana. Black women are less likely to be insured,” Erenberg explained.
“We know that there are women who become pregnant where they don’t have doctor visits and they don’t have access to those things,” said Zagorski.
Now that abortion access is prohibited in the state, pro-choice advocates believe the number of Black women who die during pregnancy will go up, because they will be forced to carry pregnancies to term.
As of 2019, a CDC report found about 40% of women who receive abortions are Black. That report cites Black women are more likely to live in poverty. The National Institute of Health says Black women are more likely to live in contraceptive deserts.
According to the following non-profits, including Advocates for Youth, Black Girls Equity Alliance and Giving Compass, Black women often face barriers in accessing proper sex education.
A study done by the National Black Women’s Justice Institute found that Black women experience high rates of sexual violence. Black women also have the highest rate of unwanted pregnancies.
“We have lawmakers, not doctors that are making these policy decisions, it’s actually adding to those structures of disparity,” Erenberg explained. “The problem is not going to get any better, it’s only going to make the problem worse”
“There’s more that can be done to improve maternal health outcomes,” Zagorski said. “That’s something we are working to do by providing funding to abortion alternatives in the legislature.”
But many, like Joshua, doesn’t think lawmakers want to fix the disparity.
“It doesn’t fit the narrative of the pro-life movement to address the health care disparities,” Joshua said. “It’s so much cuter to create a study than it is to actually throw dollars at an entire community addressing a maternity care desert or sex education in schools.”
“Educating youth, providing support to pregnancy care centers and helping with funding for those resources, that’s our whole mission,” Zagorski explained. “It’s not only about the unborn child, it’s about caring for the mother as well. We want to help them both.”
Until lawmakers do something about it, Joshua believes there will be more stories like hers and Harris’.
“It’s all about control. It’s all about making sure that women understand our place,” Joshua said.
“By God’s grace, he protected me,” Harris said. “Our lives definitely matter.”
Latest News
Louisiana
Louisiana pastor Tony Spell ordered to stay 50 yards from alleged assault victim’s home as bodycam appears to shows him using slur
Louisiana pastor Tony Spell must stay 50 yards from his neighbor’s home unless he’s checking the mail after a protection order was issued against him – as shocking bodycam appears to show him using a homophobic slur to describe his alleged assault victim, just two days after he was arrested.
Spell, 48, is banned from speaking with the neighbor either online and in person, according to the order issued Friday, which has since been reported by The Advocate.
“Mr Spell may walk over and check his mailbox; other than checking his mailbox, he is to be 50 yards away from the protected person’s property,” a note on the order says.
Spell, the pastor of Baton Rouge’s Life Tabernacle Church, will appear in court in September after being charged with second degree battery over last month’s assault that unfolded opposite the church.
He claimed Scott Sherwin’s son had threatened to rape and kill his wife before delivering 35 blows.
But two days after the brawl Scott Sherwin reported Spell for allegedly mowing his lawn at 4 a.m., WBRZ reported.
“He’s doing this to intimidate my victim son,” Sherwin claimed in bodycam video seen by The Post.
“Do you cut your grass at 4 in the morning?” he asked the responding officer.
“You gotta get him to stop man,” the furious dad said.
Sherwin claimed his family was unable to sleep – alleging Spell was carrying out “psychological warfare.”
An enraged Sherwin then swore at his neighbor, allegedly flipping him off, according to the bodycam.
“I was asleep when this started at four in the morning,” Sherwin stressed, aggressively pointing at his phone.
The cop then went over to Spell, who was sitting on his lawnmower, before asking for his name.
“Everybody in the world knows my name,” Spell brazenly replied to the cop.
Spell, who faces up to eight years in prison if convicted, then labeled Sherwin’s son a “f—-t” and seemed to take pride in the now-viral beatdown.
“He’s just sore because I beat the crap out of his f—-t boy,” he said.
“And he’s next if he comes over here and harasses these boys,” Spell said, speaking while a group of teens gathered nearby.
Spell then started his lawnmower up and told the boys “get to work,” essentially ordering them to clear off.
Spell strongly defended his actions after being released from jail over the assault.
“Number one, I’m a husband, number two, I’m a father, and number three, I’m a pastor who shepherds his flock,” he said. “I will not allow a man to murder my children when I’m gone,” he told reporters.
He revealed what Sherwin’s son allegedly said, which prompted the beatdown.
“He said, ‘Tony, I’m going to rape your wife, I’m going to rape all your grandchildren, and the next time you go out of town, I’m going to kill them,’” Spell said.
He addressed the altercation to his congregation and compared it to “domestic terrorism.” He also cited a Bible passage from Mark 16:18, WAFB reported.
“In my name, they shall lay hands on the sick. And they shall recover,” he said.
“So today, I fulfilled the scripture. I laid hands on the sick. I don’t know how much recovery they’re going to have, but I laid hands on the sick.”
Spell has been in a longstanding feud with Sherwin; the pastor filed a lawsuit during the pandemic in 2020 over surveillance cameras that were installed.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Spell was ticketed for holding in-person church services, defying Louisiana’s social distancing restrictions.
Spell claimed the cameras were installed to monitor him.
In April 2020, Spell was accused of attacking a protester outside his church. Police alleged that Spell backed his church bus in the direction of the protester, who was identified as Trey Bennett, according to news station WAFB-TV.
He was arrested for aggravated assault but never formally charged.
A new study from researchers at LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center, FMOL Health | Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, and the Metamor Institute found that metabolic and bariatric surgery can be delivered safely and effectively for adolescents and young adults living with severe obesity, leading to significant weight loss and improvements in obesity-related health conditions.
Published in Obesity Surgery, the study examined outcomes from 76 patients ages 10 to 25 who underwent bariatric surgery through a Louisiana-based program at the Metamor Institute between January 2020 and March 2025. Researchers evaluated safety outcomes as well as longer-term health improvements associated with surgical obesity treatment.
The study found that patients achieved an average total body weight loss of 29%-32% maintained over one to five years. Among patients with available follow-up data, 94% experienced remission of type 2 diabetes, 67% showed improvement in hypertension and dyslipidemia and 64% experienced improvement in gastroesophageal reflux disease. Surgical complications remained low, with only 5% of patients experiencing complications within 30 days of surgery.
Researchers noted that these outcomes were likely supported by a comprehensive, multidisciplinary care model that included experienced surgeons, nutritional guidance, behavioral support and coordinated medical follow-up. The study population represented a broad cross-section of Louisiana patients, with nearly 75% covered by Medicaid, highlighting the importance of ensuring access to effective obesity treatment options across socioeconomic backgrounds.
The findings support current American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations that adolescents age 13 and older with severe obesity and related health risks be evaluated for metabolic and bariatric surgery as part of comprehensive, evidence-based obesity care.
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