MSNBC’s Joy Reid held a literal roundtable panel discussion on Tuesday’s The ReidOut to mourn the one-year anniversary of the demise of Roe v. Wade. Panelists included Vice President Kamala Harris who not only naturally told MSNBC’s they wanted to hear, but in a role reversal became the interviewer when she told OB-GYN Dr. Ivey that pro-lifers are making it impossible to treat miscarriages.
At one point in the discussion, Reid declared that instead of urging her children to exercise some self-control, she would not let them attend college in a red state, “If my children were -- they're out of college now, but if they were still choosing colleges, I would not let them choose a red state, I’m just being honest. I wouldn't let them choose a state that banned abortion.”
She proceeded to ask Ivey to discuss “some of the very specific medical consequences that you're seeing.”
Despite admitting that he currently has no evidence for his theory and that there is more than one variable in determining what causes maternal mortality, Ivey proclaimed, “We fully expect an increase in maternal mortality and morbidity, an increase in those rates. Now, the numbers aren't in yet, and then of course, the pandemic complicates that. The last information from Texas was through 2019, you know, and we saw that the maternal mortality rate was just about stable.”
Ivey also stated that:
We're seeing delays in care, patients are sicker, and before they can be intervened upon and it's absolutely gut-wrenching to sit there and see a woman get so sick when you know that you could help her before that ever happens. We are seeing increased strains on families, families now have to travel, and of course, women with fewer resources are disproportionately impacted by this. So now, they take time off work, have to get child care, travel to New Mexico or another state. Huge financial strain.
Shifting from interviewee to interviewer, Harris followed up by recounting that, “I'm hearing countless stories of women who are in the process of miscarriage, intended to take pregnancy to term, and are in the process of miscarriage, and are having to travel from places like Texas to Colorado, places like Texas or Florida to Seattle.”
Texas law is very clear. It states that “An act is not an abortion if the act is done with the intent to… remove a dead, unborn child whose death was caused by spontaneous abortion.” “Spontaneous abortion” is just the medical term for a miscarriage.
Fitting in quite naturally in her new role an MSNBC interviewer, Harris continued to not let facts get in her way, "For his part, Ivey called pro-life laws “absolutely dangerous” and claimed that he had a patient who “Had chronic kidney disease and hypertension and could not access contraception and had a hemoglobin, was very anemic, her hemoglobin was about half of what ours would be. She had ruptured membranes at 17 weeks.”
The problem was that “the baby still had a heartbeat.” Catching himself using some uncomfortable language, he continued, “because the fetus still had a heartbeat, we were unable to provide care until her condition takes, becomes life-threatening.”
Texas’s law has an “exception for medical emergencies” section and elsewhere states that a medical emergency does not necessarily need to be life-threatening. What you can’t do in Texas is simply abort a baby in the name of convenience like Reid wants. MSNBC should stop spreading fake news.
This segment was sponsored by Liberty Mutual.
Here is a transcript for the June 20 show:
MSNBC The ReidOut
6/20/2023
7:27 PM ET
JOY REID: If my children were -- they're out of college now, but if they were still choosing colleges, I would not let them choose a red state, I’m just being honest. I wouldn't let them choose a state that banned abortion, but can you talk some of the very specific medical consequences that you're seeing, Dr. Ivey, taking place here.
TODD IVEY: Absolutely. We fully expect an increase in maternal mortality and morbidity, an increase in those rates. Now, the numbers aren't in yet, and then of course, the pandemic complicates that. The last information from Texas was through 2019, you know, and we saw that the maternal mortality rate was just about stable.
But now we're seeing delays in care, patients are sicker, and before they can be intervened upon and it's absolutely gut-wrenching to sit there and see a woman get so sick when you know that you could help her before that ever happens. We are seeing increased strains on families, families now have to travel, and of course, women with fewer resources are disproportionately impacted by this. So now, they take time off work, have to get child care, travel to New Mexico or another state. Huge financial strain.
KAMALA HARRIS: Dr. Ivey, can you also talk a bit about, Joy, if you don't mind.
REID: No, please, please, absolutely.
HARRIS: I'm hearing countless stories of women who are in the process of miscarriage, intended to take pregnancy to term, and are in the process of miscarriage, and are having to travel from places like Texas to Colorado, places like Texas or Florida to Seattle. To get care, to address their miscarriage, and the stories I have heard include women so afraid that during that plane trip she might actually miscarry, but she cannot get care in the place where she lives. And think about what that means. In terms of the emotional trauma that is reinforced by all of these laws. She's already experiencing emotional trauma because of what is happening and then requiring her to go through TSA, get on a plane with perfect strangers, to seek help, if she can afford to actually travel.
IVEY: And it's dangerous.
REID: And it's dangerous.
IVEY: Absolutely dangerous. You know, I have a story, I walked into work one day and there was a patient who had just had a baby about six months before. Had chronic kidney disease and hypertension and could not access contraception and had a hemoglobin, was very anemic, her hemoglobin was about half of what ours would be. She had ruptured membranes at 17 weeks.
HARRIS: Right.
IVEY: So because the baby still had a heartbeat, because the fetus still had a heartbeat, we were unable to provide care until her condition takes, becomes life-threatening.
