Abortion, Every Day (7.21.23)

Alabama anti-abortion leader arrested for child sexual abuse

In the States

Testimony continued yesterday in the lawsuit against Texas. If you need to catch up: The Center for Reproductive Rights is representing 15 women whose lives were endangered as a result of the state’s ban. They’re not seeking to overturn the law, but to change the ‘exceptions’ for medical emergencies—they’re asking Judge Jessica Mangrum to block those specific parts of the ban.

Texas, meanwhile, wants the judge to dismiss the case outright, arguing that the problem isn’t the state’s ban—but doctors who misread or misunderstood the law. Molly Duane, the lawyer representing the women, rightfully dismissed that claim to The Washington Post, saying that doctors are in an impossible situation:

“Their hands are truly tied by the law. They’re worried if they do provide that care to their patients they will spend the rest of their lives in jail.”

I’ve been writing about this tactic for a while now: the state is trying to blame doctors not just to offload responsibility for current horror stories, but for any future post-Roe deaths. That’s why Texas had disgraced doctor Ingrid Skop, from the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute, testify yesterday. Skop said that the law is clear, that “the fault lies with the physicians,” and that the doctors “should have known they could intervene.” Skop and her organization have been deliberately laying the groundwork to blame doctors ever since Roe was overturned: it’s a despicable move.

In addition to testimony from (actual) doctors about how confusing Texas’ law is, we also heard from a Dallas-based OBGYN, Dr. Austin Dennard, who was denied an abortion despite a fatal fetal abnormality. As has been the case with the other women who spoke about their experiences, Dr. Dennard became emotional as she testified:

“It’s really hard to describe in words what that feels like. I felt like my pregnancy was not my own—that it belonged to the state, because I no longer had a choice of what I could do. I felt abandoned.”

Incredibly, attorneys for Texas asked Dr. Dennard the same bizarre question they asked the other women who shared their stories: If any state officials specifically told her that she couldn’t have an abortion. This Adam Serwer quote never fails to be right: the cruelty is the point.

PBS NewsHour has a short segment on the suit below, if you’re interested:

This is…something. In 2018, Alabama passed an anti-abortion constitutional amendment that recognized the “rights of unborn children.” This week, the architect of that amendment was arrested for sexual abuse of a child under 12. Cole Wagner was the executive director of Alliance for a Pro-Life Alabama—a coalition of groups and campaign that successfully got the amendment passed. In 2018, he told the Montgomery Advertiser that his work on the campaign was “to stand in defense of our citizens who can’t yet defend themselves.” Disgusting. By the way, you may remember that around this time last year, the political director of Texas Right to Life was arrested on similar charges—solicitation of a minor.

Some good news out of Ohio, where voters are gearing up for the special election next month that could raise the standards on ballot measures, making it harder for a pro-choice measure to pass: A new poll shows that the majority of Ohio voters do not support Issue 1, which would raise the standard for ballot measures from a simple majority to 60%. A USA Today/Suffolk University poll shows that 57% of those surveyed were opposed to changing the standards, 27% were in favor, and about 17% were undecided.

Ohio’s abortion rights ballot measure actually took another step closer to getting in front of voters this week: The Dayton Daily News reports that local boards of elections finished validating the petition signatures and sent them off to the office of Secretary of State Frank LaRose for final verification.

Meanwhile, anti-abortion groups in the state continue pushing their campaign to convince voters that the pro-choice amendment would allow gender-affirming surgery to minors. Protect Women Ohio’s bigoted ads are getting national attention these days, especially from conservative media outlets who are just loving the strategy. (Yesterday, for example, Fox News touted the organization as a concerned ‘parents’ group’ that’s simply issuing warnings about the measure.) The newest ads feature tweets from pro-choice groups in support of trans rights; Protect Women Ohio is using them to claim that advocates “say themselves” that abortion protections include gender affirming care. In short, it’s a shit show. But I’m holding on to that poll for hope.

I reported yesterday that the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that Attorney General Andrew Bailey has to sign off on the state auditor’s cost estimate for a pro-choice ballot measure. His delay tactics have meant that abortion rights advocates in the state have been unable to begin gathering the over 100,000 signatures they need to get the issue in front of voters. Luz María Henríquez, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, told The New York Times, “it is clear that some who hold office will not hesitate to trample the constitution if it advances their personal interests and political beliefs.”

The ruling requires Bailey to sign off on the estimate today, and then the measure goes to Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft for certification of the estimate and a ballot summary. As you may remember, the ACLU is suing Ashcroft over the ballot summary—which voters will read to get a sense of what they’re voting for or against—because it says that the measure would “allow for dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions, from conception to live birth, without requiring a medical license or potentially being subject to medical malpractice.” ?!!

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a piece on some of the post-Roe laws Georgia is passing to help women deal with the consequences of the state’s abortion ban—like expanded postpartum Medicaid coverage. But just a reminder that a lot of the policies Republicans are pushing as their ‘pro-family’ compromises—like ‘streamlining’ adoption processes—are anything but. Most of the policies that anti-choice states say will help women simply amount to increased funding for anti-abortion centers.

Two bills that would expand abortion rights and protections in California are making their way through the state legislature: SB 487 would prohibit insurance plans and companies from discriminating against a doctor who might have been sanctioned for performing abortions in another state; and SB 385 would broaden what kind of medical providers can perform and prescribe abortions. California recently expanded abortion providers to include nurse practitioners and certified nurse-midwives—this bill would apply the same training standards and allowances to physician assistants, as well.

Speaking of California: The Republican mayor of Stockton, Kevin Lincoln—who is running for Congress—was seriously unprepared to answer a question about abortion during a recent interview. In fact, he botched it so badly that the interviewer consoled him, telling him it was going to be okay. YIKES.

Finally, the Nebraska teenager who self-managed her abortion was sentenced to 90 days in jail this week. Her mother, who helped her obtain abortion medication, has pled guilty to breaking the state’s abortion law and faces five years in prison. I just want to flag something I wrote about the case last week: how mainstream reporting can feed into anti-abortion stereotypes. (One of the most inflammatory quotes attributed to the teen, for example, was actually a cop’s interpretation of her Facebook messages.) It’s more important than ever that we’re demanding publications get it right.

Quick hits:

• Axios has more on how the jump in infant deaths in Texas is related to the state’s abortion ban;

• The number of abortions in Wyoming doubled over the last year;

• More info on Maine’s recently-passed law expanding abortion rights past 24 weeks with a doctor’s recommendation;

• Boston University in Massachusetts has installed emergency contraception vending machines on campus;

• And in New Hampshire, former state Senate President Chuck Morse, who opposes abortion, is seeking the Republican nomination for governor to replace Gov. Chris Sununu (who isn’t running for another term).

In the Nation

The New York Times reports that Republicans who voted in support of reversing the Pentagon’s abortion policy are worried that the move could leave their seats vulnerable:

“It raised the question of whether, in scoring the short-term victory of keeping his party united behind the annual defense bill—which passed on a near-party-line vote on Friday—Speaker Kevin McCarthy may have embraced a strategy that could ultimately cost his party the House majority.”

Democrats wasted no time in going after U.S. Representative Jen Kiggans of Virginia, for example—who the NYT calls “a top target”—for calling abortion “elective surgery.” And in Oregon, U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer is being called out for her vote after pledging just last month not to support legislation that restricts taxpayer funding for abortion. Her communications director responded to criticism by saying, “Oregonians have the same health care rights and access as they did before—nothing has changed.”

This whole thing with the Pentagon policy has been a mess from start to finish, but I’m taking it as a good sign that at least some Republicans know they have to worry about voters if they support abortion restrictions.

Quick hits:

• U.S. Sen Tim Kaine spoke out in support of the Pentagon’s abortion policy;

• And the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced a Supreme Court code of conduct (introduced after numerous ethics violations by conservative justices).

Quote of the Day

“These laws very intentionally fail to acknowledge the humanity of the people who are affected by them. This dehumanization piece is what I feel is exceptionally cruel. It is the unwillingness to consider the broader conditions that people are living under, the myriad of circumstances that contribute to the decisions that people are often forced to make. We use the word ‘choice’ a lot, but if we actually zoom out and think about the limited choices that people have been given and the dynamics of what they are surviving under, they don’t have much of a choice.”

-Kwajelyn Jackson, executive director of the Feminist Women’s Health Center (FWHC), in an interview with Prism

2024

Remember how earlier this month, Mike Pence said that women should be forced to carry doomed pregnancies to term? Well, his campaign has come out with their ‘defense’—and it’s about as weak as you’d imagine. In fact, the statement actually quietly doubled down on Pence’s stance.

Basically, the Christian Post published a soft-pedaling piece on Pence’s comments, giving a whole lot of column inches to anti-abortion groups claiming that abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormality is akin to executing a terminally ill cancer patient. (Seriously, that was an argument.) In the article, someone from Pence’s team told the publication that the former vice president’s comments were “referring to adverse prenatal diagnosis cases, not situations where the mother's life is at risk, such is the case with ectopic pregnancies.”

Please notice that this spokesperson actually has said nothing about abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormalities. No one accused Pence of saying he wanted women to die of ectopic pregnancies! And Pence didn’t say he objected to abortions in cases of “adverse” diagnoses—but fatal diagnoses. But it’s a nice attempt at a pivot, I suppose.

The good news is that obviously Pence’s campaign understands that his position on abortion is extraordinarily unpopular.

Listen Up

I’m betting a lot of you already know Slate’s Dear Prudence advice column, so you can imagine how stoked I was to talk to Prudie herself, Jenée Desmond-Harris about abortion—specifically, I gave advice on how to talk to your kids about abortion. Dream collab.

Keep An Eye On

Anti-abortion activists feigning concern over violence against women as a way to ban tele-health:

Anti-abortion groups like the Charlotte Lozier Institute have a new strategy: claiming that prescribing abortion medication via tele-health enables abusers, because doctors aren’t able to ask women questions about their safety at home. (Their argument is that an abuser or trafficker could be standing by as a woman is on a Zoom or phone call.)

This is just the worst, and is so exhausting. We know they don’t give a shit about abuse victims. In fact, a common tactic by crisis pregnancy centers is telling abuse victims that they should remain pregnant because it will make men less violent. It doesn’t.

But conservatives know that feigning concern for sexual violence victims is a lot more palatable than the truth: that they want to force women and girls into childbirth. This is why we’ve seen a broader shift over the last twenty years in the anti-abortion movement; groups went from calling women ‘murderers’ to saying we were ‘victims’ of the abortion industry. (I’m talking about public statements from the so-called mainstream anti-abortion movement—plenty of conservatives still call women killers!)

In the last year, the messaging on women-as-victims became even more specific. The movement honed in on ‘trafficking’, saying that abortion clinics ignore signs of sex trafficking when younger women come in for care, that the people who bring minors to another state for abortion are committing ‘abortion trafficking’, and that abortion itself allows traffickers to cover up their tracks.

Then came the characterization of abortion medication, specifically, as a tool of traffickers and rapists: Pills that can be given to unsuspecting victims. In the last month or so, that rhetoric has really ramped up: Anti-abortion websites are highlighting random cases when abusers use abortion pills on young women, for example, and state legislators are arguing against access to the medication because it could “enable sex traffickers and abusive partners.”

All of this has been the lead up to a very specific goal: banning tele-health. Anti-abortion organizations know that prescriptions-by-mail have become a vital part of abortion access in a post-Roe world—so they’re willing to do anything they need to in order to stop it. Even if it means pretending to care about the women and girls they’re desperate to control.