Abortion, Every Day (9.20.23)

Wisconsin Republicans want to outlaw state employees TALKING about abortion

Don’t miss Part II of “The GOP’s Plan to Ban Birth Control,” on Republicans’ multi-million dollar contraception gag rule:

The GOP’s Plan to Ban Birth Control (Part II)

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In the States

Planned Parenthood clinics in Wisconsin are completely booked after resuming abortion care this week. The organization told the Associated Press that within just 24 hours of announcing that they’d be resuming care, their appointments were filled. As a reminder, the abortion ban in Wisconsin has not been repealed—but a recent ruling (which I outlined a bit last week) gave abortion providers the legal confidence to begin offering abortions again after more than a year.

In response to Planned Parenthood’s decision to resume care, Republicans and anti-abortion activists in the state are pushing for legislation that would ban state employees from talking about abortion. Wisconsin Sen. Andre Jacque said yesterday that his bill “is especially timely in light of last week’s announcement by Planned Parenthood,” and claimed that it would “ensure taxpayer dollars are not utilized to subsidize abortions.”

But here’s the thing: Wisconsin law already prohibits state money from being used to subsidize abortions! So the legislation is just about creating a gag rule to stop public employees from talking about abortion. From Democratic Sen. Kelda Roys:

“The goal is to silence and intimidate people, so that we’re afraid to talk to each other and afraid to share information about abortion. That climate of fear is the only way that antichoicers can achieve power because they do not have the trust and support of the majority society.”

Speaking of conservatives not trusting the majority: in Ohio, Republicans were handed a win this week in their fight to stop voters from restoring abortion rights. The state Supreme Court allowed Republicans to keep inflammatory language in a ballot summary for the pro-choice amendment headed to voters this November. As you may remember, the state ballot board approved language for the ballot summary last month that very transparently seeks to mislead voters.

Still, the Court ruled that the summary can include language like calling a fetus an ‘unborn child’, and doesn’t have to include the fact that the amendment doesn’t only guarantee abortion rights—but access to birth control, miscarriage care and fertility treatments. (The summary only mentions abortion, wonder why.) Lauren Blauvelt, a spokesperson for Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights, said, “This should have been simple, but the Ohio ballot board tried to mislead voters yet again.”

Some good news to make us feel better: NBC News reports that pro-choice activists in Ohio have been surprised at just how much support they’re getting from deep red areas of the state. I am going to be just thrilled if Ohio reproductive rights activists are able to pull this off in the face of so many ridiculous hurdles. It will really go to show just how strongly voters want abortion to be legal. Fingers and toes crossed.

Meanwhile, conservative Catholic groups are upset that abortion rights proponents dared to run an ad for the measure that showed someone praying in Church. Yes, seriously.

Also in the state, the Democratic group, Progress Action Fund, is targeting Ohio and Pennsylvania voters with the following ad about a 12 year-old rape victim. (The spot is called, appropriately, “Republicans Watching Your Daughter”)

Make sure this to read this incredibly important piece about the “fine print” in North Carolina’s abortion law. As you know, Republicans are trying very hard to come across as ‘reasonable’ by claiming to support birth control. So when North Carolina passed its abortion ban, Republicans there told voters that the law was “commonsense,” and pointed to expanded contraception access as proof.

But as two North Carolina professors wrote in an op-ed this week, the bill’s only mention of contraception is the funding for local health centers “to purchase and make available long-acting reversible contraceptives for underserved, uninsured, or medically indigent patients.” Justina Licata and Lisa Levenstein point out that the specification for “long-acting” contraceptives—as opposed to other kinds of birth control, like the pill—is not accidental:

“Over the past thirty years, physicians and policy makers have relied on LARCS to enact coercive temporary sterilization policies and practices targeted at low-income women. The rhetoric that has accompanied such policies often portrays these women taking advantage of the welfare system and as incapable and unworthy of making their own reproductive choices. 

Lawmakers and physicians have directed low-income women to LARCs rather than other forms of birth control because LARCs are highly effective and provider-controlled, meaning a healthcare practitioner or the government can override a patient’s decision to stop using the drug.”

In short: When Republicans do ‘support’ contraception, it’s only in circumstances that allow them to continue to control women’s bodies.

Virginia’s election is increasingly being seen as a referendum on abortion: Gov. Glenn Youngkin is pushing for a 15-week ban while Democrats campaign on their pro-choice bonafides. And while Republicans in the state tell the Associated Press that Democrats are overly focused on abortion, the folks who are knocking on doors report that that’s exactly what voters are thinking about. Also, please take note of this quote from Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) about the GOP’s insistence that a 15-week ban is a compromise:

“That’s their new thing. They want to be ‘compassionate.’ It's garbage. It’s wild to me that they think anyone will buy that they are compassionate on this issue at all, or that they really, truly believe a 15-week ban is perceived as a compassionate compromise.”

Abso-fucking-lutely.

Finally, in the wake of Abortion, Every Day’s report that Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron pledged to criminalize birth control, the Republican attorney general is now trying to soften his position on abortion—claiming that he would support exceptions for rape and incest. Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s campaign has responded by accusing Cameron of trying to hide long-held—and publicly stated—extreme views. Beshear’s campaign also put out an ad this week featuring a young woman who was raped by her stepfather as a child. “This is to you, Daniel Cameron,” she says. “To tell a 12 year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable.”

Quick hits:

• The five women senators who filibustered a near-total abortion ban in South Carolina are being awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award this year;

• The Dallas Morning News with an op-ed about politically-driven Texas brain drain;

• More coverage of the role abortion rights is playing in the Louisiana gubernatorial race;

• And more info on Florida Sen. Lauren Book’s bill to ensure abortion patients aren’t criminalized.

In the Nation

While Mike Pence says Sen. Tommy Tuberville is right to be holding up hundreds of military nominations and promotions in ‘protest’ of the Pentagon’s abortion policy, a retired U.S. Navy admiral writes in Bloomberg that “Tuberville’s approach is undermining the entire military.”

This is neat: As you may have noticed from a quote earlier in the newsletter, NARAL Pro-Choice America has changed its name to Reproductive Freedom for All. The organization’s president, Mini Timmaraju, in The New York Times:

“NARAL is incredibly resonant for the political world, but we’re not necessarily in the business anymore of just winning political opinion within elected officials and policymakers…We are now in a much bigger fight for the heart and soul of the American people and those are folks who are brand-new to the abortion debate.”

Congratulations to Reproductive Freedom for All! (RFA? RF4A? The possibilities are endless!)

Finally, the makers of Plan B—one of the brands of emergency contraception—have donated over 325,000 doses of the medication to community organizations across the country. Love to see it.

Quick hits:

• Republicans on House Veterans Affairs Committee are threatening to subpoena the Department of Veterans Affairs for data on how many abortions they’ve performed;

• The Washington Post on the amazing new billboards from Shout Your Abortion.

• A Texas Republican is trying to repeal the FACE Act;

• And Ms. magazine on the importance of ensuring that people know their options for abortion care—especially in states with bans.

Care Denied

Another nightmare story of vital abortion care being denied, this time out of Oklahoma. Oklahoma Watch spoke to Magon Hoffman—a 31-year old woman who found out her life was being endangered by her pregnancy. At 14 weeks, Hoffman was diagnosed with a blood clot that her doctor said would put her at risk of going into shock or organ failure if it got any larger. They told her to wait and hope that it resolved itself. At her 20 week ultrasound, Hoffman found out that her daughter was missing her skull and almost all of her brain.

“There was zero chance, not even a 0.1% possibility, that the baby would survive, Hoffman remembers her doctor saying. Her daughter would die almost immediately after birth.

…Hoffman’s doctor told her she could not get the procedure in Oklahoma even though her life was in jeopardy and the fetus had no chance of survival.”

Somehow, it gets worse. Hoffman was calling around to pro-choice states, but kept running into more hurdles. Kansas, for example, had a waiting list so long that by the time she could be seen, Hoffman would have been over the state’s 22-week limit. She found a place in New Mexico that could treat her, but only after seeing her medical records. But Hoffman’s Oklahoma doctor was banned from consulting with the abortion providers in New Mexico—he wouldn’t be able to call them or send records. So Hoffman, in the midst of dealing with some of the most difficult news of her life, had to explain whatever she could remember about her case, get her own ultrasound images and records, and send them to the doctor in New Mexico herself.

“I felt so judged and so alone. This was one of the hardest moments of my life and Oklahoma really kicked me when I was down.”

Remember, Oklahoma is the state where a study showed that most hospitals don’t know what the abortion law is. Total nightmare shit.

Thankfully, Hoffman was able to finally get her abortion, but only after weeks of pain, suffering, and spending $6,000. I cannot believe this is what we have to be grateful for.

2024

Conservatives and the anti-abortion movement are still pissed off about Trump’s comments blasting Ron DeSantis’ 6-week abortion ban. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp hit back at Trump on Twitter this week. And The New York Times reports that other Republican presidential candidates see this as an opening to attack the former president, who has a wide lead.

Some pundits and activists—like Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins—even threatened to withdraw their support over Trump’s comments.

You know how nervous I am that Donald Trump’s messaging on abortion will be successful. I’ve been writing for months that he knows that abortion bans are incredibly unpopular, and has the ability to lay claim to the ‘success’ of overturning Roe while criticizing extreme bans.

Today, POLITICO reports that I’m not the only one who’s worried. After Trump’s “Meet the Press” interview, the Biden campaign was concerned that the former president could “weasel himself into a more moderate position on an issue proven to be a vulnerability for the Republican Party.” And given the absolutely fucked (yet somehow entirely predictable) media coverage of the interview—which framed Trump as wanting to “bring the country together” on abortion—that tactic just might work.

POLITICO writes that once the Biden campaign saw how the media was framing the interview, they reached out to surrogates to ask them to call out “this extremely irresponsible coverage.” As they should! Because let’s be real: if Trump is able to convince people he’s somehow more pro-choice than the other candidates, that will be squarely on the media’s shoulders. Remember, this interview that was framed as Trump trying to find a ‘compromise’ is the same one where he that abortion providers “kill the baby after birth” seven different times.

If you want the best piece I’ve seen so far on Trump and abortion this week, read Adam Serwer at The Atlantic:

“If you cannot get an abortion, if you fear leaving your state to get an abortion, if you are afraid to text your loved ones or type abortion into a search bar, if you are scared to ask a friend or loved one to help you get an abortion, if you know someone coerced into remaining in an abusive relationship because they fear prosecution, if you cannot find an obstetrician in your state, if you have a relative who was left at the edge of death by doctors afraid to risk prosecution by violating an abortion ban—you have Donald Trump to thank.”

Quick hits:

• The Gazette on what the presidential candidates said on abortion this week that the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition;

• Yahoo News on why Trump’s record makes his attempts to sound moderate on abortion pretty far-fetched;

• And USA Today on how DeSantis is trying to appeal to evangelicals by touting his 6-week abortion ban.

Criminalizing Pregnancy

The fantastic organization Pregnancy Justice just released a new report on the criminalization of pregnancy, and I cannot overstate how important it is. The group documented nearly 1,400 cases of pregnancy criminalization since 2006, and found that the rate of arrests, investigations and prosecutions of pregnant people has been accelerating rapidly.

You will not be shocked to find out that criminalization during pregnancy disproportionately impacts poor white and Black people living in the South, and that most cases they documented came from just five states: Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee. (States that have what the group calls “backdoor” personhood laws.)

Lourdes A. Rivera, president of Pregnancy Justice, says “pregnant people are increasingly targeted for criminalization in ways that do not exist for people who are not pregnant, with dire consequences for themselves and their families.” I’ll have more on the report this week, but you can read the whole thing for yourselves here.