In the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the focus has shifted to states on the verge of eliminating the right to abortion immediately due to “trigger laws. These laws were designed to automatically ban the practice once Roe v. Wade was overturned. In Louisiana, however, the three remaining abortion clinics have successfully filed a temporary restraining order the stoppage the trigger laws. Pro-choice Louisiana Democratic Rep. Mandie Landry spoke with Cheddar's Megan Pratz about what the looming ban means for the future of women's healthcare in a state where there are approximately 10,000 abortions per year. Rep. Landry also touched on a recently-scrapped bill that would have considered the practice of an abortion a homicide. 

Cheddar Politics

Pro-Choice Louisiana Lawmaker on Abortion Bans Hanging in the Balance

Welcome back to cheddar politics, abortion rights are now fully in the hands of the states after the Supreme Court struck down roe v wade last month, we have a patchwork of bands across much of the United States. Some states have yet to enact a ban, while others have bans in effect or on hold in court. Louisiana is one of the states with a ban on hold, but it's in the unique position of having both an anti abortion republican majority in the state legislature and an anti abortion democrat in the governor's mansion, joining us now for more on what's happening in the Bayou is Louisiana. State Representative Mandie, Landry mandy. It's so great to have you and I should call you representative. So I apologize for that. Can you start by giving us a rundown of the state of abortion rights and reproductive healthcare in Louisiana? Because it's pretty confusing with this current injunction. It is confusing and I'm glad you've asked. I'm a state legislator, I'm one of a few pro choice ones and I'm actually a longtime lawyer and I represented an abortion clinic in the past. And so what happened a couple of days after our multiple trigger bans went into effect? Um one of the clinics and some doctors filed for a successful T. R. O. A temporary restraining order that would prohibit or did prohibit the trigger bands from going into effect? And what they argued was that because we have multiple trigger bands and because they conflict that this violates the clinics and the doctors due process rights meaning the state can't can't charge you to convict you of a crime if you don't know what the crime is or what the penalties are for it. So that's still in effect. Are three clinics are open and tomorrow on friday there is a hearing to see if the judge in New Orleans will extend the T. R. O. Into a preliminary injunction. Let's talk a little bit about your job as a state legislature. Because one of the things that made headlines even before this decision was a proposed law in Louisiana that would have criminalized abortion providers. And this is something that pro choice pro abortion rights advocates have long been saying is sort of the end goal of the anti abortion movement. Are you concerned having seen this come up in bill text, even if it ultimately was withdrawn, which it was. Are you concerned that this is the direction that legislation is moving now that roe versus wade has been overturned? I think you might have meant um the bill proposed would criminalize women who have abortions, Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we we did have a bill HB813 that was was very um extensive and was supportive a model bill sort of that these anti choice groups file in every state and it specifically would make abortion would have made abortion a homicide. And even most of my colleagues who consider themselves pro life or even um pretty horrified by that. And so they dialed it back. But I think you're absolutely right. This is the end goal of the anti choice movement. It is to completely control women or anyone who can be pregnant. And I think it's what's going to be pushed next because the extremes of this movement, which are heavily funded, that's what they want in Louisiana. You're in new Orleans, but outside of, you know, the big cities, New Orleans, baton rouge. Um, there really is a lot of rural area where people don't just receive abortion, carrot clinics, They also receive birth control, reproductive healthcare, prenatal care. What are the risks of closing these clinics? Not just to people who want to obtain abortion care, but just general health care risks. I mean, we definitely have healthcare deserts in the state. We have a heavily rural area in the northern part of the state that it's difficult for anyone to get care. There's transportation issues. There's just a lack of providers there. And you're right. The three clinics do provide a fair amount of early maternal care at least. And without having them, there there's going to be um more of a dearth of this care. We, you know, in New Orleans and in baton rouge, we have a lot more of that, but we've always been concerned about our, our pregnant people in rural areas. And that concern is just dramatically grown in the last week or so because we know it's it's already difficult for them to seek care. I like to talk a lot about the abortion desert because I think that this is something that's scalable, is hard to understand for people how big the scale is. And if Louisiana's abortion law trigger law is ultimately upheld, Louisiana will be sort of smack dab in the middle of this anti abortion landscape that stretches from New Mexico currently to florida, though it likely will stretch much further north than that. Ultimately, what does that mean for people in Louisiana who want to obtain this care, what are they going to have to face to get an abortion if it is no longer available in your state? Um, uh, my understanding is that Louisiana will be the furthest state from a clinic. If our trigger bans go into effect, I believe the closest state will be Illinois and it's around 700 miles away. So anyone who needs abortion care in Louisiana will have to go to Illinois or New Mexico or um new york somewhere like that. And as we know, not that many people can afford to travel out of state, they won't be able to take the time off work, they won't be able to schedule childcare. There's a whole lot of barriers there and what it's going to end up happening because we are nowhere near uh an abortion clinic way down here is there's gonna be more unplanned pregnancies go to term, there are gonna be more maternal deaths. There's gonna be more poverty and um we we know that just the the care and the needs of this particular population, the you know the mother and child um is just going to be increased dramatically and and not having anywhere to drive to from Louisiana is kind of at the center of that concern. I need to ask you about something that you put on twitter recently. You were at a Walgreens and you were talking about the availability of the second pill in the medication abortion which is called methotrexate. methotrexate is prescribed to people for a lot of reasons. Most specifically people who have autoimmune conditions. For example my aunt takes it for rheumatoid arthritis. But people are not able to obtain that because they are not being given it under these new laws. What is the responsibility as you see it as a representative, both at the state level and at sort of the corporate level to remind people that they are to remind pharmacy technicians, pharmacists that they need to provide this medication if it's if it's prescribed to them. Right? So what you're describing is last week early in the week is um a lot of people in the state who needed the second pill which you know the second abortion pill were unable to get it from several Walgreens. Um that from what I understand that has been addressed but what happened is very instructive is that whether it's Walgreens Louisiana or the individual pharmacies, they were confused about what the law was, what they could prescribe, what they could get out. And that confusion is only going to continue even if um you know, abortion is completely prohibited, Louisiana, like what you said, um these medicines, this medication is used for other, other treatments. It's even used for miscarriage. And so we're wondering then like what will be the reason or the proof or or what will the pharmacies do when they get this prescription for something that is known as an abortion pill? But it's also used for for other means. And I think it just highlights how ridiculous all of this is and how politicians trying to regulate health care and prescription drugs is only going to end up in harm to um to the patients that need care. Thank you for that perspective. I think that you are right. The confusion is only going to grow. I want to thank Louisiana. State Representative Mandie Landry for joining us here today.