USA – New Mexico high court rejected the bedside interrogation by police of a 19-year-old high school student after her traumatized pregnancy loss + + + + Study finds Dobbs has affected pregnancy care beyond abortion + + + + How state abortion bans are affecting women having miscarriages as well as those seeking abortions + + + + Free and Just: 61 years of Medicaid: Pregnant patients and rural communities suffer from sweeping health care cuts under Trump and Republican lawmakers

Pregnancy Justice reports that the New Mexico high court rejected the bedside interrogation by police of a 19-year-old high school student after her traumatized pregnancy loss

Dear all,

We have extraordinary news to share. The New Mexico Supreme Court unanimously ruled that statements given by our client, Alexee Trevizo, to police during her hospital bedside interrogation after the traumatized teen’s pregnancy loss are inadmissible in her murder case.

In 2023, Alexee, then a 19-year-old high school student, went to the Emergency Room for what she thought was severe back pain. She didn’t know she was pregnant. She was given several strong doses of medications, including morphine and muscle relaxers. Only after the drugs were administered and she was hooked up to an IV was she given a pregnancy test. Alexee was then left unattended for hours, with no one informing her of the positive test results. Confused, scared, and medicated, after a 19-minute labor in a hospital bathroom, she delivered a stillborn baby alone and returned to her hospital room.

After the delivery, her doctor waited nearly two hours to address Alexee’s life-threatening haemorrhaging, choosing instead to call law enforcement. When police arrived, a nurse told them Alexee had “killed her baby,” and the doctor helped two armed officers interrogate the heavily medicated Alexee while the police blocked the door.

At the time of the police confrontation, Alexee was a 19-year-old high school cheerleader who, three hours earlier, had been unaware she was pregnant, had been given an array of mind-altering drugs for pain, and had experienced a traumatic labor. When police entered Alexee’s room with her physician, Alexee lay only in her hospital gown, bleeding profusely, and reporting the delivery of a stillborn alone in a hospital bathroom. The confrontation occurred in a small treatment room with several adult authority figures: a physician, a male charge nurse, and two armed male police officers, who blocked her only exit. [Def. Ex. H, Body Cam. X6031529F at 3:02; RP 158 ¶¶ 13-14, 159 ¶ 5]

With a severely weakened case, we don’t know what the prosecution will do next. As it happened, the New Mexico Supreme Court unanimously agreed with the legal arguments of Pregnancy Justice (see 2024 Trevizo-brief-to-NM-Supreme-Court.pdf, which spells out all the legal arguments involved).

The Court also ruled that mandatory reporting rules are narrow, meaning once the report is made, “the physician’s duty ends,” and everything else remains privileged.

[We argued] that pregnancy loss health crises should never be met with criminalization, and hospitals should never be used as proxies for law enforcement.

In solidarity,

The Pregnancy Justice Team

New York, NY, USA

SOURCE: E-mail, dated 31 July 2026.

+ + + +

Study finds Dobbs has affected pregnancy care beyond abortion

BOSTON — In 2022, the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision allowed states to ban or severely restrict abortion. Four years later, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) researchers report that the effects of those laws are being felt throughout the health care system, forcing physicians to weigh legal risks, delay treatment and deviate from standard medical practices when caring for patients with other serious pregnancy-related conditions. The findings from the qualitative study are published in JAMA Network Open.

“In our study of physician-reported consequences of abortion bans across specialties, abortion bans were described as affecting care delivery far beyond what is traditionally categorized as abortion,” said Sara Neill, MD, MPH, senior author of the study and an obstetrician-gynecologist at BIDMC. “Where decision-making was previously guided primarily by clinical judgment and patient values, care was increasingly shaped by legal risk.”

SOURCE: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center News, by Jacqueline Mitchell. 30 July 2026.

+ + + +

How state abortion bans are affecting women having miscarriages as well as those seeking abortions

It’s been four years since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision opened the door to state abortion bans. Now, a new study finds those bans are hurting women who aren’t seeking abortions at all, as well as those who are. Researchers have found that delays in miscarriage treatment increase the risk to a woman’s health and fertility and prolong the grief of a lost pregnancy.

SOURCE: PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), by Sarah Varney, Rachel Wellford. Video with transcript. 28 July 2026.

+ + + +

Free and Just: 61 years of Medicaid: Pregnant patients and rural communities suffer from sweeping health care cuts under Trump and Republican lawmakers

WASHINGTON, DC –– Today (30 July) marks the 61st anniversary of Medicaid being signed into law. The program is a lifeline for pregnant patients, working families, and rural communities across the country who need comprehensive health care — including reproductive health care. Despite Medicaid’s critical role in making health care accessible to millions of Americans, the Trump administration gutted funding for the program. As a result, rural hospitals are shutting down at record rates and labor and delivery units are closing their doors, putting women and families at greater risk in communities already facing severe health care disparities.

Not only have Republicans weakened our health care system, and cut vital programs like Medicaid, but Republicans in Congress are passing policies that drive up costs for everyday Americans. Notably, polling shows that Americans in the battleground overwhelmingly oppose cuts to Medicaid and nearly 70% of Americans in the battleground support access to Medicaid.

More than 74 million Americans rely on Medicaid for health care, including essential reproductive health services like birth control, wellness exams, STI tests and treatment, breast and cervical cancer screenings, and more. The program provides coverage for nearly 1 in 4 rural residents, including 23.3% of women of childbearing age living in rural areas. Medicaid covers nearly half of all rural births and provides essential financial stability to the hospitals and clinics that rural areas rely on to access care.

To mark the anniversary of Medicaid and spotlight dangers of nationwide health care cuts, Veronica Ingham, Managing Director for Free & Just released the following statement:

“Let’s be clear, forcing pregnant patients to jump through hurdles and travel hours for essential care is dangerous and deadly. Republican lawmakers are fueling a health care crisis, and families across the country will continue to suffer the consequences.”

SOURCE: Wisconsin Politics. 30 July 2026.