Former President Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican nominee, boasts that he “broke Roe v. Wade.” In the aftermath, according to Trump, “states are working very brilliantly” to impose various restrictions on abortion and creating “very beautiful harmony.”

Over the last few days, this process has played out in Louisiana. Lawmakers in the Pelican State voted to continue to require child rape victims to carry their pregnancy to term. 

After Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, Louisiana, along with 13 other states, imposed a ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy. The only exceptions to Louisiana’s ban are when an abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother or in cases of “medically futile” pregnancy, when the fetus has a fatal abnormality. Doctors in the state “who perform illegal abortions can face up to 15 years in prison and steep fines of $10,000 to $200,000.”

In February, Louisana Representative Delisha Boyd (D) introduced legislation that proposed exceptions for rape and incest to Louisiana’s abortion ban. When it became clear that the proposal would fail, Boyd narrowed her bill to allow persons 16 years old and younger to have an abortion if they were the victim of rape or incest. 

The legislation was grounded in Boyd’s personal experience. She was born after her mother was raped by a man when she was 15 years old. Boyd said that her mother suffered years of trauma before dying at 30. 

Neelima Sukhavasi, an obstetrician from Baton Rouge, urged the members of the Louisiana House Committee on Criminal Justice to approve Boyd’s bill. Sukhavasi said that since Louisiana imposed its abortion ban in 2022, “[s]he and her colleagues have delivered babies for pregnant teenagers, including mothers as young as 13.” She told the committee, “[o]ne of these teenagers delivered a baby while clutching a Teddy Bear — and that’s an image that once you see that, you can’t unsee it.” According to Sukhavasi, these girls “can experience health complications that affect them for the rest of their lives.”

Nevertheless, the committee rejected Boyd’s bill last week on a 7 to 4 vote. All seven Republicans on the committee voted against creating the exception for child rape victims. One legislator who voted against creating the exception, Representative Lauren Ventrella (R), said she believed “teenagers who had consensual sex might feign rape or incest in order to get access to abortion service.” Another legislator in opposition, Representative Dodie Horton (R), said rape should be punished, but she “cannot condone killing the innocent.” 

Louisiana politics has long been dominated by anti-abortion advocates. But, on this issue, the legislature is out of step with their constituents. A 2023 survey found that 77% of Louisiana voters supported an abortion exception for rape and incest. A survey this year by The Times-Picayune found a majority of Louisiana voters also support allowing abortion for any reason up to 15 weeks of pregnancy. 

Anti-abortion lawmakers in Louisiana are also pushing a bill that would classify abortion medication as Schedule IV drugs, the same treatment as opioids. If the bill becomes law, Louisiana would be the first state in the country to classify mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled dangerous substances.

Under Senate Bill 276, anyone who possesses mifepristone or misoprostol – the two pills used in a medication abortion – without a valid prescription could face up to “five years in prison and $5,000 in fines.” The bill includes an exemption for pregnant women who use the drugs for their “own consumption.” But it still makes acquiring abortion drugs for future use – a practice known as advanced provision – effectively illegal. 

The proposed law also “appears to target people who might obtain abortion medications in order to distribute them to pregnant people,” WWNO New Orleans Public Radio notes. In Louisiana, distributing or manufacturing controlled substances is a punishable offense “with up to 10 years in prison and $15,000 in fines.” According to the bill’s author, State Senator Thomas Pressly (R), the aim is to take the pills “away from people who are stockpiling these drugs for whatever reason.” The bill, which was written in collaboration with Louisiana Right to Life, also seeks to “create a new crime of ‘coerced criminal abortion by means of fraud,’” Pressly said in a press release. More than 240 Louisiana doctors said the proposed classification is “not scientifically based” and wrote that it could result in “unjustified mistrust by patients and fear of the medication.”

Critics also warn that the new penalties could discourage health providers from prescribing mifepristone and misoprostol and make pharmacies reluctant to fill out those prescriptions. Abortion medication is currently the most popular method of ending a pregnancy. The drugs targeted by Pressly’s bill also have uses outside of abortions: mifepristone is used to treat Cushing’s syndrome, a hormonal disorder, and given for miscarriage treatment. Meanwhile, misoprostol is prescribed to treat ulcers and is sometimes used to help patients give birth. 

Louisiana’s limited exceptions for the life of the patient and “medically futile” pregnancies are both extremely narrow and poorly defined. But the state’s anti-abortion officials have promised to prosecute doctors for any perceived violations. A recent report by Physicians for Human Rights and other reproductive rights advocates concluded that Louisiana’s abortion ban violates “federal law meant to protect patient access to emergency care, disregard[s] evidence-based public health guidance, degrade[s] long-standing medical ethical standards, and, worst of all, den[ies] basic human rights to Louisianans seeking reproductive health care in their state.”

Specifically, “initial prenatal care in Louisiana is being pushed deeper into pregnancy, often beyond the first trimester when miscarriage is more common—purposely delayed to avoid the risk of miscarriage care being misconstrued as an abortion in violation of the bans.” As a result, pregnant women are “struggling to access time-sensitive, appropriate care for early pregnancy and miscarriages.”

Louisiana is already “among the U.S. states with the lowest number of employed obstetricians and gynecologists (OB-GYNs) in the country with the majority of its parishes having less than two per 100,000 residents.” This shortage is unlikely to dissipate as obstetricians and gynecologists in the state put themselves at risk of prosecution for providing basic prenatal care. 

Louisiana’s House Committee on Criminal Justice also considered legislation last week to “insulate physicians and other health care providers from facing abortion-related charges if they were only trying to treat a pregnant person’s unavoidable miscarriage or troubled pregnancy.” At the hearing, Louisiana doctors testified that they were afraid of being thrown in jail for treating pregnant patients. The legislation was rejected by the committee. 

Louisiana’s Jewish community has formed an alliance committed to protesting and ultimately repealing a new state law allowing the use of gas as an execution method.

The Jews Against Gassing Coalition was formed after the March 5 passage of House Bill 6, which added the electric chair and nitrogen hypoxia as alternatives to lethal injection for Death Row inmates.

The group gathered May 6 at the state Capitol in Baton Rouge to observe Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Memorial Day, and to urge legislative support for a pending bill to remove gas as an execution method in Louisiana.

“It is unfortunate that we need to be hosting this event on the Capitol steps today. But it is necessary, on the same day we remember past atrocities, to speak out to prevent the state from utilizing a means of execution that evokes memories of the method that was used to kill so many of our ancestors,” said Rabbi Phil Kaplan of Congregation Beth Israel in New Orleans.

“The use of poison gas for state-sanctioned execution unmistakably and immediately evokes for millions of American Jews horrific memories of the depravities our ancestors suffered at the hands of Nazi Germany, where lethal gas as was used to mass murder our people.”

Nitrogen hypoxia made national and international headlines in January when Alabama became the first state known to execute a prisoner using the agent. Death penalty opponents around the world denounced Kenny Smith’s Jan. 25 execution as cruel, inhumane and experimental.

The state’s prediction Smith would quickly pass out after inhaling the nitrogen gas did not turn out to be the case, AL.com reported in a video: “Media witnesses saw that Ken Smith appeared to be conscious for several minutes after the gas began to flow before he proceeded to shake and writhe on that gurney for about 2 minutes. That 2 minutes of shaking and writhing on the gurney was followed by about 5 to 7 minutes of heavy breathing.”

The Equal Justice initiative pounced on the disparity between the state’s promise the gas would induce a quick and painless death and the fact it took Smith from 7:53 p.m. to 8:25 p.m. to die: “Mr. Smith clenched his fists and his legs shook. As Mr. Smith gasped for air, his body lifted against the restraints. Witnesses observed fluid inside of the mask. What witnesses observed last night are clear signs of distress and suffering.”

The United Nations swiftly condemned the execution as barbaric. “The use, for the first time in humans and on an experimental basis, of a method of execution that has been shown to cause suffering in animals is simply outrageous.”

Using Smith “as a human guinea pig to test a new method of execution amounted to unethical human experimentation and was nothing short of State-sanctioned torture,” the U.N. added. “The gruesome death inflicted on Smith is also likely to have caused extreme distress and suffering to his relatives.”

Smith devoted his last words to echo that sentiment and to reflect on the damage done to the state’s moral fabric, according to the federal Defender Services Office: “Tonight, Alabama caused humanity to take a step backward. …  I’m leaving with love, peace and light. Thank you for supporting me, love all of you.”

“Tonight, Alabama caused humanity to take a step backward.

Religious groups swung into action in early March when Louisiana legislators, acting in special legislative session convened by Gov. Jeff Landry, voted to emulate Alabama’s use of nitrogen hypoxia. Leaders from a cross-section of faith organizations gathered on the Capitol steps to blast the legislation as “inexcusably cruel.”

And their voices were heard. Baton Rouge Public Radio recently reported the use of nitrogen hypoxia “is getting some pushback late in the legislative session.” Senate Bill 430, which would strike the use of gas from the state’s lineup of execution methods, passed out of committee unanimously in April.

The Jews Against Gassing Coalition ascribed the shift to legislators’ emerging awareness of the connection between gas and genocide.

“We realized after speaking to many legislators in the past few weeks that they didn’t realize how it would feel for us as Jews to add gassing as some method of execution,” said Jacqueline Stern, an executive board member with the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans. “They didn’t make the association with the Holocaust, but after it was brought up to them, it was undeniable and they understood our coalition’s perspective.”

Opposition to the use of nitrogen hypoxia for executions is rooted in the historical experience, moral teachings and commitment to justice of the Jewish community, said Aaron Bloch, director of Jewish multicultural and governmental affairs for the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans.

“The use of lethal gas in executions evokes painful memories of the Holocaust, where millions of Jews and others were murdered in gas chambers,” he explained. “And while we do not suggest comparisons to the atrocities of Nazi Germany under which millions of our relatives were murdered, still, we cannot imagine that Jewish communities anywhere can stand by while prisoners are executed in our names using any variation of that mechanism.”

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Global condemnation falls on Alabama for experimental capital punishment method

Condemning Alabama for using an experimental drug to execute a prisoner misses the point, author warns

Special to the American Press

Louisiana Pre-K-12 education improved in the latest U.S. News & World Report Best States rankings. Pre-kindergarten through 12th grade education in Louisiana moved from 41st to 40th, which marks the state’s highest ranking in this national indicator. This comes a year after Louisiana Pre-K-12 education jumped five places in these same rankings.

“This positive growth reflects the efforts of students and teachers,” said Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Dr. Cade Brumley. “While I’m encouraged, I also realize we have more work ahead to provide a high-quality education for every student.”

Louisiana has benefitted from the state’s fundamental shift in how students are taught to read, a focus on foundational math skills, an emphasis on career and college readiness, and bold policy decisions that support a back to the basics approach to education.

“Louisiana’s steady climb in this ranking reflects the hard work of educators and their unwavering focus on positive outcomes for students,” said BESE President Ronnie Morris. “The consistent progress we’re seeing in measures of K-12 performance confirms that our state is on the right track, and underscores the productive partnership between educators, policymakers and stakeholders that has been essential to driving success. We must continue working together in support of the good work of students and schools to keep this momentum going.”

This is the latest data to show the continued progress of Louisiana students:

• Louisiana is one of three states where average reading achievement in 2023 was above 2019 levels.
• Louisiana ranked at the top of a national list recognizing states for adopting a comprehensive early literacy policy to provide students with the foundational reading skills to learn, graduate, and succeed.
• Louisiana has exceeded its pre-pandemic school performance score following consecutive years of growth.
• Louisiana high school students earned record achievements on Advanced Placement tests.
• Louisiana’s 2023 senior class earned the first annual increase in average ACT since 2017, even as the national average dropped.
• Louisiana students increased scores for the second consecutive year and 75% of school systems improved on the 2023 LEAP.
• Louisiana’s 4th graders led the country in reading growth and the state’s overall ranking moved from 46th to 42nd among the states from 2019 to 2022 on NAEP.

The U.S. News & World Report Pre-K-12 ranking informs the Best States rankings. It measures state performance across the life cycle of a young person’s education, encompassing preschool enrollment, standardized test scores among eighth-graders, high school graduation rate and college readiness.