OP-ED: How Louisiana anti-abortionists prevented my daughter from attending my mother’s unveiling

By MARK D. ZIMMERMAN 

The Louisiana Legislature prevented my daughter from attending the unveiling for my mother, her grandmother, Dena Schild Grenell, z”l.

My mom passed away at the age of 94 in September of 2024, and she was buried at Jewish Burial Rites cemetery in her birthplace of New Orleans. Her funeral was attended by family and friends, including her three sons and five grandchildren. On this past August 10, family and friends gathered again at the cemetery for the traditional unveiling ceremony, where her headstone was officially uncovered, announcing to the world that “peh, nun, Dena bat Aharon v’Chana,” (“Here is buried Dena, daughter of Harry and Hannah.”)

Six-month-old Mark D. Zimmerman and his mom. (Photo courtesy)

Some of those who had attended the funeral were not able to come to the unveiling for a variety of reasons, as is often the case. But Dena’s granddaughter– my daughter Melissa, who lives in Brooklyn, New York – decided not to attend in order to protect her own life, a life that the governor and legislators of Louisiana don’t care about at all.

Allow me to explain.

In October 2024 the Louisiana legislature passed Act 246, which among other things added the medications Misoprostol and mifepristone to the state’s list of Schedule IV controlled dangerous substances, basically a further effort to prevent abortions in Louisiana (Louisiana is the first state in the nation to designate these medications thusly.).

But while those politicians may care about “unborn babies,” they do not care at all about the health of pregnant women. Yes, these medications can be used to induce abortion (which is already illegal in Louisiana), but they are also used for other medical purposes, including to stop postpartum hemorrhaging and for the treatment of women undergoing miscarriages.

Louisiana’s law requires hospitals, which have typically stored those medications right next to the beds of women in labor, to instead lock them away, potentially in another part of the hospital.

Doctors have clearly stated that this could add crucial, and potentially deadly, minutes to their efforts to provide those medications to women who are in the midst of an emergency miscarriage or having dangerous bleeding after childbirth. Dr. Jennifer Avegno, an emergency physician and director of the New Orleans Health Department, said that placing these medications in locked cabinets could add “several minutes to that process. “If you’ve ever watched someone bleed out after childbirth, as I have,” Dr. Avegno stated, “you know that minutes can make a difference.”

And that gets to the issue for Melissa, who after great emotional, physical, and financial cost learned in early 2025 that she was pregnant through the marvel of IVF (in-vitro fertilization). On September 17, she checked into the Alexandra Cohen Hospital for Women and Newborns in New York City, and a day later she and her husband Yotam welcomed their son, Raphael Caleb, into the world. Happily, Raphael is doing well, and Melissa recovered from a complicated birth. And in fact, among her childbirth complications was Uterine Atony, which is basically an issue with uterine muscles insufficiently contracting during childbirth, leading to extreme and life-threatening blood loss. So yes, Melissa suffered from the exact medical complication for which the drugs Misoprostol and Mifepristone have been lifesavers for so many women. And specifically, Melissa received misoprostol from her doctors at the Alexandra Cohen Hospital for Women and Newborns in New York City, and it absolutely saved her life.

Had Melissa attended her grandmother’s unveiling in New Orleans, and had she gone into labor a month early – which is not unusual – she could have found herself in need of the exact same medication in a New Orleans hospital. And had that been the case, there may well have been a slight delay in her doctor’s obtaining the Misoprostol to administer to her. My daughter, had she been in Louisiana for her grandmother’s unveiling, could well have been one of the women at risk to whom Dr. Avegno was referring.

Because of Act 246 in Louisiana, Melissa did not take that chance. But pregnant women in Louisiana are living with the huge risk of danger to their lives that thankfully Melissa was able to avoid by not coming to New Orleans. And let me say this more bluntly, and accurately. Melissa did not attend her grandmother’s unveiling because of the real risk that, because of this horrendous Louisiana law, had she experienced uterine atony in Louisiana, she might well have ended up in the grave next to her grandmother.

So make no mistake about it. The Louisiana politicians who passed this law, and all the politicians who are considering similar laws elsewhere, are simply lying. They do not care about life. And they do not believe in protecting women.

Melissa and Yotam will be bringing Raphael Caleb to New Orleans for the first time this February for Mardi Gras. On that trip they will also visit the cemetery where Grandma Dena is buried, to view her name etched on her headstone, and to leave a rock on top as a sign of their love and respect. Shame on the Louisiana Governor Landry and legislators for not letting Melissa have that opportunity last August, surrounded by the rest of her family at the end of the traditional Jewish shiva mourning period.

Mark Zimmerman, a New Orleans native, is the recently retired Jewish Trivia columnist for the CCJN and the author of several humorous and informative books “Rashi, Rambam and Ramalamadingdong.”