In the states…
Oklahoma Republicans are seemingly becoming more open to programs to financially support the women they’re forcing into motherhood, like Medicaid expansion and paid family leave (I’ll believe it when I see it). That said, I don’t love that this is being framed as some sort of benevolent move by conservatives, rather than what it really is: A necessary PR move for lawmakers who are enacting unwanted and unpopular bans on health care.
Speaking of lawmakers pulling bullshit that has nothing to do with helping women: An Arizona Republican has proposed a whole slew of bills he says will protect pregnant women—but will actually just enshrine fetal personhood into legislation. Rep. Matt Gress has proposed bills to allow women to collect child support starting at the point they get a positive pregnancy test, to allow them to drive in the HOV lane, and would let a pregnant person to collect child tax credits. Gress is playing stupid when asked about fetal personhood, claiming that he doesn’t know what they couldn’t possibly mean. From Democratic Rep. Analise Ortiz:
“It has been a very clear strategy of the anti-abortion movement to disguise their real attempts to ban abortion outright with these bills that seem non-nefarious in the surface, but when you dig a little deeper and you understand the history and the intricacy of this movement, it starts to become very clear what they’re trying to do.”
Thank you! We all know what he’s up to.
A new Ohio study shows that abortion restrictions and regulations on clinics in the state “have become exceedingly difficult to comply with”—and that deliberately-enacted hurdles have made it near-impossible for some providers to give the (legal!) care that patients in the state are entitled to. Which, of course, has always been the point.
Connecticut is seeing more and more out-of-state patients seeking abortion care: Planned Parenthood of Southern New England says that since Roe was overturned, they’ve seen a 68% increase in patients coming from states as far away as Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas. As a result, Connecticut Rep. Matt Blumenthal will propose legislation to approve funding for transportation, lodging, and more for patients who are traveling into the state.
And a reminder out of New York about who anti-abortion activists really are:
This is interesting, from the Dakota Free Press: South Dakota Republican Rep. Rebecca Reimer says she wants to codify the idea that women won’t be prosecuted for abortions. But reporter Cory Allen Heidelberger points out that the language of her bill—comprised of just one sentence—doesn’t do anything of the sort.
HB 1220 reads, “A female who is subjected to an unlawful abortion…may not be held criminally liable for the abortion.” In addition to how the passive voices erases any agency from women’s personal healthcare decisions, Heidelberger notes that the bill’s language wouldn’t protect women from being arrested for abortions that they are not ‘subject to’, but actively participate in: Like taking abortion medication, for example.
Meanwhile, I’ve told you about Utah Republican Rep. Kera Birkeland’s bill trying to implement restrictions that would require rape victims to report their rapes before being allowed to obtain an abortion—and how her own sister, a rape survivor, is speaking publicly against her. You can watch a local TV segment about it here, but I really appreciated this quote from Birkeland’s sister, Samantha Hansen, who said, “My sister is trying to force women to heal the way she thinks they should heal.” (Also notable is how much more articulate Hansen is than her sister, the actual legislator—just saying maybe the wrong sister is in office!)
Executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes Nevada, Lindsey Harmon, has an op-ed out this week where she writes that “the devastating loss of our reproductive health care rights is the result of a small, vocal minority who seek to criminalize providers and prevent anyone who can become pregnant from seeking basic health care.” Harmon says now more than ever, Nevada needs leaders “who are willing to think boldly and take tangible steps toward making sure the right to an abortion is unassailable.”
Florida high schoolers are not thrilled over the state’s new decision to require female student athletes to hand over their menstrual history—private health information that will be given to school administrators instead of kept with their doctors, as is standard in other states. Sixteen year old Ruby Robbins, who plays volleyball at Miami Beach High, says, “I think it is kind of disturbing and an invasion of privacy.” Indeed. And I loved this exchange about the rule between two softball players, caught by a reporter:
“‘I don’t think it’s their place to know what happens to me,’ the softball player said.
‘Why do they want to do it?’ asked her friend.
‘Because they’re transphobic,’ the softball player responded.
‘Oh, they could’ve just said that,’ her friend said.
The kids get it. And just a reminder that this Florida story went viral in large part thanks to the coverage here at Abortion, Every Day. (In case you were looking for another reason to support the work and sign up for a paid subscription!)
Quick hits:
Legislation in New Mexico would stop local governments from banning abortion in spite of state law;
Idaho Republicans are hammering Biden for trying to increase access to abortion medication;
An anti-abortion group has been ordered to pay nearly $1 million in fines to Planned Parenthood in Washington, after harassing the organization, its staff and patients, and for interfering in patient care;
And a Michigan man who pled guilty to one count of arson after setting fire to a Kalamazoo Planned Parenthood has been sentenced to five years in prison.
In the nation…
The most important thing happening this week is that we may get a decision from that Trump-appointed Texas judge on abortion medication. A reminder: The same anti-abortion group that brought forward the case that ended up overturning Roe is suing the FDA to get them to reverse their approval for abortion medication—which means the medication would be banned in every state, not just anti-abortion states. The lawsuit itself has been widely mocked by legal experts as wholly ridiculous, but the problem is that the judge hearing the case, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, is pretty ridiculous himself. And so reproductive rights advocates are getting increasingly worried about the case’s outcome.
The other thing that’s worrying experts, like Liz Wagner, a lawyer at the Center for Reproductive Rights, is that Democrats don’t seem to understand the urgency around the case. Wagner says that in a recent briefing with congressional staff, those at the meeting couldn’t grasp how the case would threaten abortion access in pro-choice states: “We were getting comments like, ‘But these states protect the right to have an abortion.’” Wagner and her colleague had to “repeatedly explain that the right to abortion was not a right to a specific method of abortion.”
Over half of the abortions in America are done via abortion medication (a combination of two pills)—so taking mifepristone off the market would mean that women would be forced into having surgical abortions, or that they would have to use a misoprostol-only protocol for medication abortions.
Over at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern lay out just how worried we should be. (The answer is very worried):
“Overturning Roe was not the terminal point in the decades-long journey to limit reproductive rights; it’s barely even the start. Maybe this is the moment in which we ask ourselves why so many of us are still surprised; why we are still caught off guard when a court arms alleged domestic abusers, or limits access to birth control, or—stay tuned—criminalizes medication abortion everywhere. The crisis here is not just that a federal judge could imminently ban an abortion drug that’s been used safely for 23 years. It’s that the chaos wrought by Dobbs means anything is possible, and no one—not even in the deepest blue states—can go to bed with any certainty that they will wake up with their rights intact.”
Meanwhile, we’re already getting a look at what restricting abortion medication looks like: Over at Vox, Dr. Linda Prine—who founded the Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline—describes what it’s like to talk to patients in anti-abortion states who are ordering abortion medication, and having to use it later than is recommended because of hurdles accessing the pills:
“They’re using them whenever they can get them. And sometimes that is quite a bit later. Sometimes it’s 14 weeks, 18 weeks. And so we get calls from people completely freaked out, crying, sobbing. I think for us, the trauma and the horror of the Dobbs decision is that people are having to go through something that they should not have to be experiencing.”
Prine also says that one of scarier things that the hotline sees is how women are afraid to go to the emergency room. Thankfully, she says, most of the time they don’t need it—so doctors are able to talk them through everything. But they also try to relay that if they do decide to seek care, it’s impossible for anyone in the emergency room to know that they took abortion pills (as opposed to just having a miscarriage): “So letting them know how to preserve their privacy in the medical setting, when it’s become a potentially dangerous place to go, has been really important.”
Quick hits:
The Washington Post has a piece looking at the anti-choice strategy of banning abortion town-by-town in pro-choice states;
The Associated Press on how Republicans are funneling taxpayer money to crisis pregnancy centers;
And at Fortune, a doctor shares her miscarriage story and explains how the kind of care she received isn’t necessarily available to those in anti-choice states.
Listen up…
Maine Public Radio has a segment on later abortion—I haven’t listened to it yet, but the discussion is based on Gov. Janet Mills’ moves to expand abortion access in the state beyond 24 weeks with a doctor’s approval.
What conservatives are saying…
They’re still pissed off about the Associated Press changing their language guidelines around abortion reporting. This time, it’s because the AP’s new guidance directs reporters not to use the term ‘crisis pregnancy centers’, but ‘anti-abortion centers’—which, let’s face it, is more accurate. (Though I do worry about this slightly, because ‘crisis pregnancy center’ has become a well-known term for the fake clinics—and is widely recognized.)
Keep an eye on…
Conservative media trying to convince people that crisis pregnancy centers are good, actually:
Right now, those on the right are trying to use a new study in Contraception to argue that crisis pregnancy centers “offer better service than abortion facilities.” They’re super excited about this study because it’s not published in a conservative academic journal or by anti-choice researchers—which anti-choicers are hoping will lend their claims more credibility. But here’s the thing: All the study shows is that it’s easier to get “early pregnancy confirmation” at a crisis pregnancy center, because they have less wait times and offer free pregnancy tests.
There is nothing in the study about CPCs offering better medical care—because they don’t offer medical care at all. The research is simply about how much easier it is to get a pregnancy confirmation at an anti-abortion center because, as we all know, they are desperate to get women in there.
In fact, the conclusion of the study seems to indicate that part of the reason the research was done was to demonstrate that actual medical facilities need to up their game in offering early pregnancy confirmation so that patients don’t end up at fake clinics:
“Our findings demonstrating that pregnancy confirmation is more accessible at crisis pregnancy centers than at abortion facilities are predicted to be exacerbated in the wake of abortion clinic closures following the Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court decision. This highlights the need for improved funding and support for pregnancy confirmation service delivery in medical settings, including abortion facilities.”
In any case, just another reminder not to trust anything conservatives say about abortion—and that we need to look into any and all of their claims.
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