How an abortion case shaped Mike Johnson’s path to the speakership

A staff member at the hospital where Ms. Daniels was being treated urged Ms. Stelly to ask Mr. Benton and Mr. Johnson for help, advising that they were “both Christians, and they are so against abortion clinics,” says madam. Stelly recalled this in an interview. The lawyers soon drove to the hospital to see her, and later took her to church and arranged for her to speak at a political rally.

“The lawyers came into my life and things changed a lot,” she said.

Within weeks of filing the case, Mr. Johnson arranged for Ms. Daniels and Ms. Stelly to be interviewed on Baton Rouge’s Channel 9, with their identities concealed, as in the Delta lawsuit. Louisiana’s capital was a small world: The reporter, Julie Baxter, had worked with Mr. Perkins at some point during his television career. A clinic employee who saw the broadcast then contacted the Benton company, Ms. Stelly said.

“She wanted to quit right away,” Ms. Stelly recalled, but the lawyers “asked her not to give up this moment right away.” Instead, the worker let Ms. Baxter and a photographer into Delta after hours. In a packed follow-up segment, Ms. Baxter broadcast grainy images from Delta: dirty surgical tubing, rusted dilators, a recovery room smeared with dried blood.

Although Ms. Daniels was not identified in the Delta lawsuit, which remains secret, a video posted online shows that she later participated in a follow-up interview with Ms. Baxter, in which her name was mentioned and her face was shown; the hospital lawsuit was also filed under Ms. Daniels’ real name. Attempts to reach her were unsuccessful.

Ms Baxter, who now goes by Julie Baxter Payer, said she “followed the facts as they were.” She added: “The whole issue was: how do you regulate abortions without creating a barrier for women seeking abortions?”