Abortion, Every Day (3.4.24)

More anti-abortion studies under fire

Click to skip ahead: In Attacks on Democracy, ballot measure news from Mississippi, Missouri and Arizona. In the States, the Nebraska Supreme Court is hearing a challenge to the state’s abortion ban, and news from North Carolina, Wyoming and Colorado. In the Nation, good and bad news on abortion medication. In Media Muck-Ups, I’m pissed at USA Today. In 2024 news, please someone tell Joe Biden that if he doesn’t have anything nice to say about abortion he shouldn’t say anything at all. In the World, a quick look at the news out of France. In Stats & Studies, we might see more retractions of anti-abortion ‘studies’ soon. Care Denied features a terrific piece from Cecile Richards. And finally, in You Love to See It, over-the-counter birth control is here!

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Attacks on Democracy

Mississippi Republicans have moved forward with legislation that would restore the ballot measure process in the state—but not for abortion rights. That right, they want to give voters the right to bring an issue forward, so long as it’s not an issue they disagree with.

Meanwhile, The Kansas City Star has a big piece on Missouri Republicans’ efforts to quash voters’ voices. If you’re a regular reader, you know that the state GOP has been attacking democracy left and right—pulling out any possible stop they can to prevent voters from having a say on abortion rights.

In fact, Republican Sen. Denny Hoskins says, “Our entire Republican majority, 24 state senators, decided that this was our No 1. priority.” (Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo says, “That should tell you all you need to know about the Republican Party in the state of Missouri.”)

Missouri Republicans’ latest move is an attempt to change ballot measure rules—a shift that would essentially give conservative rural districts the power to reject amendments even when they’re supported by the overwhelming majority of voters.

Maggie Olivia of Abortion Action Missouri told the Kansas City Star, “They know that they’re not going to win unless they can get away with their dirty tricks.”

Anti-abortion groups in Arizona are also trying to stop voters from having a say—they’re organizing against a pro-choice ballot measure, working to stop the proposed amendment from moving forward. For example, NBC News reports that Arizona Right to Life has a “team of lawyers on retainer waiting to scrutinize each and every signature that’s submitted.” (Remember, conservative groups in multiple states have been claiming that signatures aren’t valid, and are using claims of voter fraud to try to stop ballot measures.)

In the States

The Nebraska Supreme Court will hear arguments tomorrow morning in a challenge against the state’s ban on abortions and gender-affirming care. The suit, brought by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU of Nebraska, argues that the law violates the state constitution’s rule around single-subject laws. Because the law restricts both abortion care and gender-affirming care, it is very clearly not about a single subject!

Nebraska passed the 12-week ban last year, around the same time that North Carolina was considering a similar law and Republicans were making the broad argument that 12-week bans were a reasonable ‘middle ground’. They’re not.

Speaking of North Carolina: Abortion is center stage in the gubernatorial race, where Republican frontrunner Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is a rabid anti-abortion activist. (Seriously, he said he believed the founders of Planned Parenthood were “witches.”) Robinson’s likely opponent will be state Attorney General Josh Stein, who is a vocal abortion rights supporter.

North Carolina already has a 12-week abortion ban, passed by a Republican supermajority after former-Democrat Tricia Cotham switched sides. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper wasn’t able to veto the law—so you can imagine what a Republican, anti-abortion governor would mean for the state. If you had any doubts, consider what Robinson said when caught on a hot mic:

"We’ve got [abortion] down to 12 weeks. The next goal is to get it down to 6, and then just keep moving from there."

An anti-abortion bill moved forward in Wyoming late last week—legislation that seeks to shut down the last remaining abortion clinic in the state. The bill would require abortion clinics (and again, there’s only one) to be within 10 miles of an admitting hospital and to be licensed as an ambulatory surgical center.

This is a familiar tactic in TRAP Laws; when Republicans can’t ban abortion, they try to regulate clinics out of existence under the guise of patient safety. Because remember, while Wyoming passed two abortion bans—one broad ban and another specifically targeting abortion medication—both were blocked by a judge as they’re battled out in court.

Finally, Aspen Public Radio looks at the ballot measure effort in Colorado, where pro-choice activists are seeking to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution—which would offer more protections and lift a prohibition on using state dollars for abortion care.

Quick hits:

• More on California’s move to expand the reproductive health workforce;

• And Texas Republicans claim that IVF is already protected in the state.

In the Nation

In case you missed it: CVS and Walgreens announced late last week that they’re going to start dispensing mifepristone, one of the drugs used to end a pregnancy. The retail pharmacy chains said they had gotten the certification required by the FDA and would begin to dispense the medication gradually, starting in states where doing so is legal. Which is great! But…

Representatives from the chains also said that they wouldn’t be dispensing mifepristone in states where the law was “unclear.” I’m super curious what ‘unclear’ means in this case. (You may recall that around this time last year, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach successfully pressured Walgreens out of dispensing abortion medication in the state even though the medication is legal.)

I understand the companies have to protect their staff and pharmacists from legal repercussions, of course—but here’s hoping they don’t just do the bare minimum. The other not terrific news is that the pharmacies noted that they would not be dispensing the drug by mail. Obviously, medication-by-mail has become a huge focus since Roe was overturned, with Republicans attacking telehealth and mifepristone.

Speaking of just that: Susan Rinkunas in Jezebel flags that Republican lawmakers filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court mifepristone case, using the Comstock Act. What’s just as incredible is that the legislators didn’t cite the Act by name, but instead referred to it by its federal statute number (18 U.S.C. 1461 and 1462). You can guess why—Republicans don’t want voters to know what they’re up to, and exactly what Comstock could do. From Rinkunas:

“Read broadly, it could be used to not only ban medication abortion, but by prohibiting shipments of medical supplies used in clinics, it could outright ban abortion procedures in all 50 states. Yes, even ones with laws that protect abortion.”

For more on the Comstock Act, read Abortion, Every Day’s explainer here. For a list of Republicans and conservative groups who signed onto amicus briefs supporting the mifepristone attack, click here.

Quick hits:

• Vox has a fetal personhood explainer;

• The editorial board at the Los Angeles Times writes that IVF will never be protected under fetal personhood laws;

• Salon on the rise of younger men getting vasectomies;

• And The New Republic on why Republicans’ IVF fight has nothing to do with ‘babies’.

Media Muck-ups

Why in the world is USA Today using the term ‘chemical abortions’? For some inexplicable reason, the publication uses the nonsense anti-abortion term in both the headline and reporting of a piece about Wyoming abortion restrictions.

To be clear: there is no such thing as ‘chemical’ abortion. There is, however, medication abortion. ‘Chemical’ abortion is not a medical or scientific term; it’s a political phrase that’s been deliberately crafted conservative groups seeking to make abortion medication seem dangerous or poisonous.

It’s bad enough that publications repeat the term when quoting anti-abortion legislators and activists—but that, at least, is defensible. What’s not defensible is media outlets using ‘chemical abortion’ as if it’s a credible medical term. Shameful stuff.

2024

I feel bad for whoever is in charge of reproductive rights messaging at the White House. Imagine putting in all this work to make abortion the top campaign issue—carefully crafting messages and speeches—just to have Joe Biden muck it up time and again. I mean really, can’t someone reign him in??

From his 30-second spiritless defense of abortion rights in last year’s State of the Union address and saying he’s not “big on” abortion, to reiterating (twice!) that he doesn’t support “abortion on demand”—whenever the president has the chance to talk about abortion, it’s as if he goes out of his way to be as middling and offensive as possible.

Biden’s latest comments to The New Yorker this week, however, may take the cake. When asked about how he would protect abortion rights in a second term, the president talked about restoring Roe and said this: “I’ve never been supportive of, you know, ‘It’s my body, I can do what I want with it.’”

Biden continued, “But I have been supportive of the notion that this is probably the most rational allocation of responsibility that all the major religions have signed on and debated over the last thousand years.”

So he doesn’t subscribe to the idea that women’s bodies are their own—but is willing to support abortion rights in as much as major religions agree? And who runs major religions, pray tell?

Again, I know there are terrific people over there working on this issue—and I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be to do that work just to have Biden say something like this. But this is not how we win on abortion.

In the World

While the U.S. increases restrictions and bans on abortion, other countries are moving forward with protections. Today, legislators in France voted to enshrine abortion in the country’s constitution. (The New York Times says the country is the first to do so, but ABC News reports that the former Yugoslavia protected abortion in their constitution in 1974.)

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said, “We are sending the message to all women: Your body belongs to you.” More from Attal:

“We are haunted by the suffering and memory of so many women who were not free. We owe a moral debt [to all the women who] suffered in their flesh…To enshrine this right in our constitution is to close the door on the tragedy of the past and its trail of suffering and pain. It will further prevent reactionaries from attacking women. Let’s not forget that the train of oppression can happen again. Let’s act to ensure that it doesn’t, that it never comes this day.”

The new amendment says that abortion is a “guaranteed freedom,” and that government can’t interfere in the current laws up to 14 weeks into pregnancies. Now, obviously this is good news—that said, a 14-week restriction is not the same thing as a guaranteed right to abortion! (Just ask the people who haven’t been able to access care.)

Stats & Studies

Remember how two major anti-abortion studies were retracted by their publisher? Well, we may see some more of that soon. Last week in the British Medical Journal, a group of 17 distinguished researchers, scholars, and physicians called for the retraction or correction of four more anti-abortion studies.

The four studies, all written by anti-abortion activists, falsely connect abortion to mental health issues like depression and anxiety. Sofia Resnick of States Newsroom has a terrific report on the BMJ piece that calls for the retraction of the pieces, where spoke to lead author Julia H. Littell.

Littell, a professor at the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College, says that a lot of the damage from the ‘studies’ is already done, but it’s still vital that the record is corrected:

“How that’s going to play out in courts is a whole different story. It’s quite possible that some expert witnesses, and maybe even judges, will continue to cite these papers, even if they are retracted. But we think it’s really important to get this corrected, so that the downstream effects on medicine and public policy aren’t dire.”

And that’s the rub—these are the studies that anti-abortion lawmakers and judges are using to defend their attacks on reproductive rights! There’s a reason, after all, that the anti-abortion movement is putting so much effort into creating fake ‘research organizations’ and drumming up fake statistics. They know they they don’t have a scientific leg to stand on, so they’re working to create their own.

The other thing I really appreciated about Resnick’s piece is that she highlights the hard work involved in trying to get these studies corrected or retracted. Credible researchers are often doing this on their own time and dime. And as BMJ co-author Chelsea Polis said, the work is “unappreciated, generally unrewarding, [and] sometimes dangerous.” (Stay tuned for more on how you can help support efforts to debunk anti-abortion studies.)

Care Denied

Please take the time to read this incredible TIME magazine column from former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richard. Cecile looks at how Louisiana is a microcosm for the broader abortion rights fight—from a ban being passed against voters’ wishes to the massive hurdles to access. What sticks out the most in her piece, though, is the amazing activism happening on the ground:

“Everywhere I go, people are sharing their own stories, and doing brave, important work in incredibly tough circumstances. Because when the alternative is giving up on entire swaths of the country, there’s really no alternative. ‘It’s like walking through the mud,’ one clinic staff member told me. ‘It isn’t easy, but you just have to keep going.’”

What a quote. Definitely read the whole piece.

You Love to See It

We could all use some good news, and this definitely qualifies: the first over-the-counter birth control pill will be available later this month. ‘

That means people can buy the contraception without a prescription, as easily as they would any other drugstore medication. The manufacturer of Opill is suggesting a $20 a month or $50 every three months price-tag. NPR has more on the drug here.

This is great and long overdue news—especially because it comes at the same time that Republicans are launching a quiet war on birth control.