Abortion, Every Day (2.9.24)

West Virginia & South Dakota target women with nonviable pregnancies

Click to skip ahead: In the States, Texas hypocrisy & good news out of Wyoming. Calculated Cruelty looks at the latest legislation targeting women with nonviable pregnancies. In Keep An Eye On, I’m worried about how Republicans will use ‘voter fraud’ claims to stop ballot measures. In the Nation, a short documentary on young anti-abortion activists. Finally, some more thoughts on Joe Biden’s abortion comments in 2024.

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In the States

I’m still reeling over the fact that a Missouri Senator and gubernatorial candidate thinks 1 year-olds can get pregnant—and that no one is talking about it?? I don’t understand how something like this isn’t a top story. Have we just passively accepted the idea that the men who legislate our bodies don’t know shit about them?

A Texas man has been sentenced to 6 months in jail for continually drugging his wife’s drinks with abortion medication. Something worth remembering: if his wife had willingly sought out an abortion, her doctor would face life in prison. But when it comes to domestic and reproductive abuse, there’s suddenly not so much concern. It’s almost as if this was never about ‘life’ at all, but deep-rooted misogyny.

Something to watch out for that I’ve been warning about for a while: The anti-abortion movement uses cases like this to claim that abortion medication isn’t safe, and that the pills allow abusers to target women. That’s why it’s important to remind folks that these groups have never cared about violence against women: They often lobby against policies like the Violence Against Women Act, and they don’t speak up about reproductive coercion.

For example, abusive men will often force their partners into pregnancy either by destroying their birth control methods, refusing to use birth control, or making them keep a pregnancy they don’t want. But you never hear the anti-abortion movement bring that up because it would remind Americans how much they have in common with domestic abusers.

A South Carolina lawmaker has introduced a bill that would compensate women who were denied abortion care. ABC News reports that the South Carolina Pro Birth Accountability Act would require the state to provide women who’ve been denied abortions with “reasonable living, legal, medical, psychological, and psychiatric expenses that are directly related to prenatal, intrapartal, and postpartal period.”

State Sen. Mia McLeod, who sponsored the bill, says, “Now that we have the six-week abortion ban, I thought it only fitting and appropriate for the state to help cover the escalating costs of prenatal and postnatal care, from conception to college.” Good for her.

The bill would also force the state to provide for funeral costs should the newborn or pregnant woman die, medical expenses if a woman became disabled as a result of carrying a pregnancy to term, and costs associated with caring for a disabled child should a woman be forced to carry a fetus with abnormalities to term.

The legislation is being considered by a South Carolina Senate subcommittee. Obviously it’s not likely to go anywhere, but it’s important that lawmakers are reminding voters what, exactly, Republicans are forcing women into.

In better news…

Wyoming has regained an abortion provider this week, just a few months after doctors were forced to shutter their Jackson clinic. That closure left Wyoming with just one abortion clinic, but Wyoming Public Radio reports that Dr. Katie Noyes will now be offering abortion medication at St. John’s Family Medicine.

Previously, the hospital’s legal team prohibited Dr. Noyes from prescribing the pills. But she pushed the institute to reconsider, telling them the pills were “100 percent legal” given a judge’s block on the state’s ban on abortion medication. Thankfully, they listened. While there still aren’t nearly enough providers in the state, I’ll take my wins where I can.

Quick hits:

• The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel does a fact-check on Wisconsin Republicans’ claims that the state’s 20-week ban is out-of-step with the international community;

• Local Tennessee news covers the failed attempt to add rape and incest ‘exceptions’ to the state’s abortion ban;

• The new head of Nebraska’s Health and Human Services Department is facing questions about his extreme social media activity around LGBTQ people, abortion and race;

• And a bill allowing for 6-months worth of birth control prescriptions through insurance companies passed the Idaho Senate.

Calculated Cruelty

This is important: You all know I’ve been following efforts by the anti-abortion movement to pressure and force women to carry nonviable pregnancies to term. This bill in West Virginia is exactly the kind of legislation we need to be watching out for. The bill purports to be about “informed consent,” and giving women the information they need to make an educated decision about abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormalities. What it’s really doing, though, is forcing doctors to give women false and misleading information about their pregnancies.

The legislation would require the creation of a website and printed materials, for example, that doctors would have to show women. And while the language of the bill makes it all sound medically above board, we’ve seen what this looks like in action elsewhere. Remember, in Indiana, women are given a brochure with ‘resources’ on prenatal counseling and perinatal hospice care—but the actual groups listed are all crisis pregnancy centers and anti-abortion groups.

South Dakota Republicans have also proposed legislation targeting women who’ve been given devastating diagnoses. In this case, the bill requires the state to show women a video to help her decide about the “best course of treatment.” The legislation would require the state health department to “consult with the attorney general and stakeholders having medical and legal expertise” in the creation of the video, which I promise you means bringing on anti-abortion groups to come up with bullshit about how wonderful it is to carry a doomed pregnancy to term.

I’ll have more on these pieces of legislation and more next week, because there’s a lot there.

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For more on the GOP’s plan to force women to carry nonviable pregnancies to term, read below. (Part II here.)

Calculated Cruelty

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Keep An Eye On

If you’re a regular reader, you know that Republicans have been working overtime to stop voters from having a direct say on abortion rights. Abortion, Every Day has covered everything from false ballot summary language pushed through by anti-abortion politicians, to efforts to raise the standards on ballot measures that would make it near-impossible for a citizen initiative to advance. But there’s something else I’m worried about, too.

This week, I’ve seen a few stories about two people in Florida who’ve been charged with submitting fake signatures for the state’s abortion rights ballot measure. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) issued a press release about the arrests, alleging that the pair “submitted 133 invalid constitutional amendment petitions in multiple counties.”

Conservative media is already all over the story, and a representative from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America says that the arrests are proof that “pro-abortion interest groups are attempting to lie and cheat their way to the ballot.”

Now, it’s unclear what made the signatures “invalid”—I’m trying to find out more information about whether this was a deliberate effort mislead the state, sloppy work collecting signatures, or something else. What I do know, however, is that the two were arrested as part of a joint effort of the FDLE and the state’s department of “Election Crimes and Security.” And that’s worrying.

This department was created by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022, and was used to target and arrest Black voters as part of a broader intimidation effort. The department arrested and charged people over ‘crimes’ like filling out two registration forms after moving, or voting despite having a past felony conviction—even though the state had moved to allow people with felonies to vote! It was a shit-show.

All of which is to say, I’m skeptical of what this department is up to—and I’m especially worried about the way it could be used to impede direct democracy. What happens when Republican governors’ ‘election police’ start going after petitioners who didn’t fill out forms correctly?

One of Republicans’ biggest problems with abortion rights is just how popular it is. Voters overwhelmingly want abortion to be legal; in Florida, even most Republicans support the pro-choice measure. Maybe conservatives think that arrests like this are their answer.

This is what I predict: We’re going to start to see more arrests, followed by claims from right-wing media and state Republicans that the majority of voters don’t actually support abortion rights. They’ll use accusations of voter fraud—whether they’re true or not—to quash ballot measure efforts before or after voters have a say on abortion rights amendments. I hope I’m wrong, but it’s definitely something worth keeping an eye on.

In the Nation

The Guardian has a short documentary on young anti-abortion activists that’s worth watching if you can stomach it. What’s notable is how the language of the movement has shifted so much over the years: instead of calling women sluts and murderers, young people chanted about women “deserving better” and talked about how women are being lied to about their capability to have children despite hardships.

When The Guardian reporter dug in, though, and asked if abortion should be available when someone’s life is at risk, the answer was simple: No, just pray. (And let’s be real: plenty of them still call us sluts and murderers!)

While you’re watching, though, just remember that young people are the most pro-choice demographic in the country—that’s part of the reason we’re watching anti-choice groups target children while they’re in elementary school.

Quick hits:

• The New Republic on Donald Trump’s lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell, and his radical anti-abortion activism;

• Science on what’s at stake in the mifepristone case;

• And NPR, the Associated Press, and States Newsroom have more the anti-abortion studies that were retracted.

Anti-Choice Strategy: Crisis Pregnancy Centers

I’ve been writing about anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers a lot lately, because they’re such a central part of the Republican post-Roe plan. These are the places, for example, that will enact conservative strategies around pressuring women to carry nonviable pregnancies to term and launching religious ‘maternity homes.’

So I was glad to see this piece in The 19th about how anti-abortion CPCs are sometimes the only place someone can get an affordable ultrasound or pregnancy test. The centers often outnumber legitimate reproductive health clinics—especially in anti-choice states. (Check out the Crisis Pregnancy Center Map for more.) The groups also get millions in state funding with almost no regulation.

From Alisa von Hagel, a professor at the University of Wisconsin who studies the anti-abortion movement:

“In places that have, since Dobbs, basically criminalized or prohibited abortion completely, these centers are now the only—I don’t want to say resource—but the only seemingly available resource for women who are in need of services related to pregnancy, unplanned or otherwise.”

This is where the GOP’s strategy comes in. Republicans’ anti-abortion policies force real doctors and clinics out of the state, then over-fund these religious centers that embed themselves in reproductive and maternal health care deserts. And they’re not just there to dissuade women from having abortions—but from taking birth control.

Crisis pregnancy centers can’t prescribe contraception because they’re not medical centers, but it goes further than that: The groups have policies against recommending or advising on birth control, unless it’s to tell women about how ‘dangerous’ it is. As I wrote in my series on the GOP’s plan to ban birth control, it’s effectively a way for Republicans to enact a contraceptive gag rule. (Texas, for example, passed a law that explicitly prohibits CPCs getting state funding from providing birth control.)

In related news, the National Catholic Register thinks there should be a ‘Take Your Senator to a Crisis Pregnancy Center’ Day, so that lawmakers can see all the good work the groups do. They should take legislators to CPCs! Maybe state Senators can see how the groups used expired disinfectant on transvaginal ultrasound wands. Or the way they put women’s lives in danger by missing ectopic pregnancies.

2024

Susan Rinkunas has a great piece at Slate today about President Joe Biden’s abortion problem. She gets at something that I tried to articulate yesterday: that ‘abortion on demand’ is a good thing, actually.

“Although the phrase was actually used by abortion advocates in the years leading up to Roe, it’s since become a right-wing talking point that is designed to make women seem flighty and careless when they seek abortions. And if we have learned anything in the year-plus since Roe v. Wade was overturned, it’s how wrong this perception is. Women demand abortions because they need them, whether that’s because their pregnancy could kill them, their much-desired baby won’t survive, they have an abusive partner, or they can’t afford more children. Pregnant people are not disposable vessels for potential future lives; they are human beings who deserve to make their own choices and not have their health care controlled by politicians.”

Jeet Heer also wrote about Biden’s abortion comments in The Nation today, noting, “Even after the Dobbs decision, Biden can’t shake a lifetime habit of speaking about pro-choice as if it were a distasteful duty.” It’s a serious problem for Democrats, especially as we inch closer to November.

Finally, if you’re looking for something to listen to, “Consider This” at NPR looks at the role of abortion rights in the 2024 election:

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I’ll have more for you tomorrow in “The Week in Abortion,” including an audio version of the newsletter for paid subscribers. I hope everyone has a terrific weekend, and that you talk to someone about abortion. -Jessica