The Week in Abortion

The Cruelty is the Point

The biggest abortion rights story this week came out of Texas, where fifteen women have sued the state after being denied abortions despite risks to their health and lives. The suit, brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights, seeks to change the state law around pregnancy complications and health conditions. The testimony was a total nightmare.

One woman, Samantha Casiano—who was forced to give birth despite the fact that her baby had anencephaly and was missing parts of her brain and skull—ended up vomiting while recounting her experience. She said that talking about what happened “just makes my body remember and it just reacts.” And Ashley Brandt, who had to leave the state for abortion care after one of her twins was diagnosed with a fatal condition, said she no longer feels safe to have children in Texas. “I knew it was very clear my health didn't matter,” she said, “but my daughter's health didn't really matter [either].” 

What added to the horror was how shockingly cruel lawyers for the state were to the women testifying. One lawyer representing Texas, Cindy Fletcher, for example, said, “Plaintiffs simply do not like Texas' restrictions on abortion.” Simply do not like? And Assistant Attorney General Amy Pletscher not only frequently interjected as the women spoke about their experiences, she also asked each one individually if Attorney General Ken Paxton had personally denied them an abortion.

Plaintiff Amanda Zurawski, who nearly died after being denied an abortion, said, “I survived sepsis and I don't think today was much less traumatic than that.”

I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but even if just for strategy’s sake: How can you argue that the state’s ban isn’t cruel while treating people like that?

Speaking of abject cruelty: disgraced anti-abortion doctor Ingrid Skop testified that that women should be forced to carry doomed pregnancies because “it's heartbreaking, but it's beautiful too.” Skop, who works for the anti-choice Charlotte Lozier Institute, continued that, “Life doesn’t always give us what we want, but sometimes these situations can be supported and actually, you know, result in good for many people.” Absolute ghoul.

Ballot Measure Updates

If you’ve been reading Abortion, Every Day for a while, you know that ballot measures are one of the most powerful tactics we have right now to restore and protect abortion rights. Americans are overwhelmingly pro-choice, so when the issue is put to voters directly—abortion rights win. Republicans know it, too, especially after pro-choice victories in places like Kansas and Kentucky. That’s why they’ve been pulling out every possible measure to stop voters from having a direct say. Here’s the latest in their attacks, our wins, and progress made:

Missouri’s Supreme Court ruled this week against state Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who has been illegally preventing abortion rights proponents from collecting signatures. Petitioners weren’t allowed to start their work until Bailey signed off on an estimate of how much restoring abortion rights would cost the state. The AG not only refused to do so, he pressured the state auditor to change his estimate from $51,000 to $51 billion.

The ACLU sued, arguing that Bailey was unlawfully using the power of his office to stymie the measure because he opposes abortion; thankfully the state Supreme Court agreed (and were pissed). They ordered Bailey do his fucking job within 24 hours—which means pro-choice activists can finally start collecting signatures.

That said, Missouri pro-choicers still have another hurdle related to the ballot initiative: An inflammatory ballot summary crafted by Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (and approved by Bailey). The summary—which is what Missourians see when they go cast a vote on the measure—says that the proposed amendment 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 ACLU is suing, pointing out that Ashcroft is violating the state law that requires the summary language is “neither intentionally argumentative nor likely to create prejudice either for or against the proposed measure.”

In Ohio, we’re just a few weeks away from the August special election that could determine whether ballot measure standards are raised. Right now, measures need a simple majority to pass; Issue 1 would require 60% of the vote and make it more difficult for groups to get an issue on the ballot to begin with by mandating that signatures come from every single county in the state. (If that happened, even if the vast majority of voters agreed on an issue, a single conservative county could stop a measure from progressing.)

The good news is that a poll this week showed that 57% of Ohio voters do not support Issue 1. (27% were in favor and about 17% were undecided.) The bad news is that anti-abortion groups in the state are continuing to spread misinformation and anti-trans bigotry—both in support of Issue 1 and in opposition to the pro-choice ballot measure. The groups are trying to convince voters that the measure would allow children to get gender-affirming surgery without parental consent.

In fact, many of their ads don’t even mention abortion, because they know how popular abortion rights are. Instead, they’re including scare tactics and straight up hatred. One ad, for example, shows an image of a drag queen, stating that supporting Issue 1 will “keep this madness out of Ohio classrooms.” NBC News reports that the anti-abortion group Protect Women Ohio has committed $25 million for ads that will run through the November election.

Kellie Copeland from Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom told NBC, “These groups have had 50 years to make their argument for extreme bans on abortion, but people aren’t buying it. That’s why they’re spending millions to spread these lies to Ohioans.”

We do have some good news on the ballot measure front, though: Pro-choice activists in Florida have collected more than half the signatures they need to get abortion rights on the ballot! A huge thanks to Floridians Protecting Freedom for all of their hard work. (Especially considering that local anti-abortion groups have been tracking where petitioners are collecting signatures in order to find and harass them.)

In the States

• In Nebraska, there was a court hearing this week in the legal challenge against the state’s recently-passed abortion ban. Abortion rights advocates are asking a judge to block the ban, arguing that it violates the “single-subject” clause in the state constitution. (Remember that Republicans lumped the ban in with anti-trans legislation.)

• As the challenge to Iowa’s abortion ban makes its way through the courts, the Iowa Board of Medicine says they’ll begin their process of adopting rules about the penalties for abortion during the board’s next meeting. When Republicans passed the ban, they did so without including any guidelines for what the criminal or civil penalties would be for doctors who provide abortions.

• Indiana abortion providers and proponents are preparing for the total abortion ban, which will go into effect on August 1. The law will have an impact beyond just the state because Indiana has been an abortion safe haven in the region.

• The man who successfully led the charge to protect the “rights of unborn children” in Alabama’s state constitution was arrested for sexual abuse of a child under 12.

In better news…

• Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed expanded abortion access into law. Abortion is now legal past 24 weeks with a doctor’s recommendation.

• California continues to expand abortion rights and protections with two new bills making their way through the state legislature: One would prohibit insurance companies from discriminating against a doctor who might have been sanctioned for performing abortions in another state. The other would allow physician assistants to perform abortions, a move that will lessen the load for abortion providers who have been inundated with out-of-state patients.

• Pennsylvania Democrats have also proposed a new set of abortion rights protections, including legislation to prevent law enforcement and courts from cooperating with out-of-state prosecutions or civil cases related to abortion, and a mandate that insurance companies and health licensure boards not take “adverse action” against patients or providers.

• In Oregon, a new $5 million fund has been established to expand abortion access in marginalized communities.

• Finally, Massachusetts colleges are installing vending machines stocked with emergency contraception on their campuses.

Criminalizing Care

The biggest theme this week in abortion rights, unfortunately, was the criminalization of care: The Nebraska teenager who self-managed her abortion get sentenced to 90 days in jail; her mother, who helped the teen obtain abortion medication, has pled guilty to breaking the state’s abortion law and faces five years in prison.

Abortion, Every Day surfaced this story last August, and since then it’s become a stark example of how digital data can be used to prosecute abortion cases. Outside of the obvious horror of prosecuting people for abortion, what’s been so distressing about this case is the mainstream media coverage. As I wrote last week, article after article has used the Facebook messages obtained by police to paint the then-17 year-old as callus and uncaring—a common theme in mainstream coverage of abortion issues.

The most egregious example is that news outlets quoted the teen as saying that she “can’t wait to get the ‘thing’ out of her body.” In fact, she never wrote anything of the sort; the quote was actually a police officer’s interpretation of the teenager’s Facebook conversation.

The thing I can’t stop thinking about, though, is the way abortion bans and restrictions encourage communities to turn on each other: the police in Nebraska were tipped off by a ‘friend’ of the family. This is something I’m going to be writing about a lot more often, because it’s such an insidious piece of the conservative enforcement strategy on abortion laws. You have to have a lot of nerve to call yourself the party of family values while incentivizing families and friends ratting each other out!

And here’s the thing: the point of anti-abortion snitch culture is to make patients feel not just fearful, but completely isolated. Republicans want Americans seeking abortions to feel as if they don’t have anywhere safe to go. For example, the other criminalization tactic I reported on this week is how conservatives are pushing for doctors to be mandated reporters for abortion. In the same way that teachers are mandated to report child abuse, or therapists are mandated to report if a patient plans on hurting someone, anti-abortion activists want doctors to be legally required to turn in patients considering abortions. Get the full story here, but I truly believe this is going to be a strategy we see more of—this was just their way of floating the idea.

The last bit of criminalization news we saw this week was about the 19 state Attorneys General who want to be able to access the medical records of women who leave their states for abortion care. The short version is that Republicans are upset over an expansion of abortion-related privacy protections in HIPAA, and want the Biden administration to reverse the policy. What’s really going on, though, is that conservative lawmakers and leaders want to ensure that they have every possible route to target abortion patients—even those who leave their states for legal care. Any talking point they have about not wanting to prosecute women for abortion is just that: messaging and nothing more.

In the Nation

The top national abortion story this week was everything going on with the Pentagon’s abortion policy—which, to be honest, I’m finding exhausting. The policy is such a nothingburger, and does the absolute bare minimum of supporting service members who need care. It feels insulting that something so middling has become a national controversy. Which, of course, is the point. If Republicans can make something as simple as giving someone time off to get an abortion controversial, it makes it near-impossible to imagine an actual progressive policy ever being discussed.

Something to watch out for in this story, though: the term ‘abortion tourism’. Republicans are using it more and more, not just around the Pentagon’s abortion policy, but any issue having to do with people traveling out-of-state for abortion care.

One last bit of national news: Republican lawmakers are pushing to prohibit the federal government from using abortion laws as a factor in their decision to buy or lease buildings. U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt of Alabama introduced legislation in part because conservatives are mad that the Space Command headquarters may not to move to his state. U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas introduced a companion bill in the Senate, and Rep. Matt Gaetz inserted a similar amendment to the defense spending bill.

Media Fails

Mainstream publications have been mucking up abortion coverage for years, I know. But in a post-Roe world, it’s more important than ever that we’re holding them to account. In addition to the incredibly irresponsible coverage of the Nebraska teenager who had a cop’s words put in her mouth by nearly every outlet that wrote about her story, we saw two media fails this week from The New York Times.

In an article about the FDA’s approval of over-the-counter birth control pills, for example, the Times looked at how women are feeling about the move—and warned that some women are worried about the medication’s safety. To demonstrate as much, they quoted a woman named Melina Luna Smith, who they identified as running “a nonprofit organization”:

“So you could go pick it up if you’re, like, 12?…So much is happening to your body when you’re young, so I think it’s important to have somebody speaking to that—some medical guidance.”

But Smith doesn’t just run any nonprofit: she’s the founder of a Christian publishing group that “designs Gospel resources for kids and teens to bring the Bible to life.” That’s why her quote sounds like anti-choice talking points. They are anti-choice talking points. Yet she was quoted as if she had no particular stake in the issue.

The media fail that made me want to tear my hair out this week, though, was how the NYT included an anti-abortion organization in an article about groups helping pregnant women post-Roe. To include the organization at all is a big problem: anti-abortion centers have been proven again and again to lie to women, shame them—and even put their lives in danger. But the description of the group, and the watering down of what they actually do, is just beyond ridiculous.

The piece says, for example, that “anti-abortion groups are stepping up efforts to support women preparing for childbirth by providing formula, diapers and counseling,” and reports that a women can take “free parenting classes” to earn credits that are exchangeable for baby supplies.

Here’s the truth: Anti-abortion organizations target vulnerable women and make them take faith-based ‘parenting classes’ in order to earn desperately-needed baby supplies like diapers and formula. The NYT makes no mention of the fact that the classes are religious, nor is there any mention of how these centers refuse to advise women on not just abortion, but birth control.

What makes this so dangerous right now, especially, is that conservatives are making anti-abortion centers a central part of their post-Roe strategy. Republicans are massively increasing the funding to these groups, trying to expand them into ‘maternity homes’, and positioning them as the primary place women should seek care. Now isn’t the time to give them fluffy coverage!

But this is the problem with ‘both sides’ journalism: its notion of objectivity demands that equal space and consideration be given to people and organizations that lie. What’s difficult is that a lot of the time it isn’t even reporters’ fault! They have editors to answer to, and those editors have folks above them asking why an article about abortion didn’t include something ‘from the other side.’ That’s why calling out individual reporters isn’t as important as pressuring publications’ leadership.

All that said, I don’t want to give the impression there isn’t terrific abortion rights journalism happening right now. There is! Some of the best work I’ve seen, for example, has come from local public radio stations. That’s the first place I go to when looking for state-based coverage. Garnet Henderson at Rewire is fantastic, as is Christina Cauterucci at Slate, and all of the folks on the reproductive rights beat at States Newsroom. (In fact, in addition to their in-depth features reporting, they’re publishing a daily newsletter written by reporter Elisha Brown.)

If you have any favorite abortion rights reporters, feel free to leave them in comments.