Texas Professors Want to Punish Students Who Get Abortions

5.29.24

Click to skip ahead: In GOP Desperation, Republicans are claiming that mifepristone hurts the environment. In the States, Tennessee’s governor signed an anti-abortion travel ban, and Texas professors want students to prove their abortions are ‘necessary’. In the Nation, Senate Dems are holding a hearing on abortion, and big spending on abortion rights in battleground races. In Keep An Eye On, antis are leaning on ‘free speech’ to harass and lie to women. In What Conservatives Are Saying, anti-abortion groups are co-opting language about disability rights. Finally, in You Love to See It, Melinda Gates is giving away a billion dollars to repro rights.

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GOP Desperation

I can’t believe that this is what it’s come to. Do you remember the utterly ridiculous claim from Students for Life that mifepristone is poisoning the environment via wastewater? Well, it appears that congressional Republicans, led by Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Josh Brecheen, have adopted that argument in an effort to do away with abortion medication. This would be embarrassing if it wasn’t so scary. (Actually, it’s still pretty embarrassing.) From their letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Michael Regan:

“Given the steadily increasing rate of at-home chemical abortions, it is vital that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ensure mifepristone, the drug’s active metabolites in blood and placenta tissue, and the fetal remains of unborn children—all of which are unbelievably being flushed into America’s wastewater system—do not pose a threat to the health and safety of humans and wildlife.”

A few things: First of all, the language in this letter is near identical to the ‘studies’, press releases and claims that Students for Life has been making since 2022. I wouldn’t be surprised if the group—which wants to ban both abortion and birth control—drafted the letter for Senators. In fact, I would love for someone to ask Republicans if that’s the case.

Secondly, we know that these groups and lawmakers don’t actually care about the environment. But they do care about reaching young voters. Students for Life and other anti-abortion groups decided to focus in on this wastewater nonsense after their polling found that young people (who are the most pro-choice demographic in the country) care deeply about the environment. They can’t win young folks over with their anti-abortion values, so they’re trying this.

Finally, this letter hints at something much more disturbing—a tactic I warned about back in 2022. The GOP Senators are incredulous that fetal remains are being flushed, repeating the false anti-abortion claim that such tissue is a danger to the environment. When Students for Life petitioned the FDA using this argument, they wanted the agency to require abortion patients to treat fetal tissue like medical waste—bagging it up and bringing it back to their healthcare provider.

But anyone who has had an early abortion or miscarriage knows that it’s difficult if not impossible to distinguish embryonic tissue from general bleeding. This is about punishment and humiliation. One of the reasons women are more likely to choose abortion medication over procedural abortion is so they can end their pregnancies at home where they feel more comfortable. Anti-abortion groups want to take away that comfort and privacy and shame patients instead—forcing them to collect and turn in any and all of their bleeding. It’s obscene. And Republicans just got onboard.

In the States

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed an anti-abortion travel ban yesterday, a law that will criminalize adults who help teens end their pregnancies. The law, which goes into effect on July 1, is near-identical to the one that’s been blocked in Idaho for violating the first amendment. That’s because what Republicans call ‘anti-trafficking’ legislation doesn’t just make it illegal to take a minor out of the state for an abortion—but criminalizes helping a teen get an abortion in any way.

Under Tennessee’s law, for example, an aunt who lends her niece gas money to leave the state could be labeled a trafficker, as could a grandmother who texts her granddaughter the url to an out-of-state clinic. The true target of this law, however, is abortion funds—the groups that have been helping patients leave their anti-choice states or obtain abortion medication.

What’s most frustrating about these laws is that conservatives are proposing them under the guise of protecting children. Yet in the same session that Tennessee Republicans advanced the so-called ‘anti-trafficking’ legislation, they also voted to force raped children 12-years-old and under to carry pregnancies to term. So much for ‘protection’.

Speaking of Republicans not giving a shit about sexual violence victims, Hadley Duvall in Kentucky is still fighting to convince legislators to add a rape and incest exception to the state’s abortion ban. Duvall, who was raped and impregnated as a child by her stepfather, shared her story in a campaign ad for Gov. Andy Beshear—a spot largely credited with winning Beshear reelection.

“Nobody fought for me, so I will fight for me again, and all the little girls wondering who is fighting for them,” Duvall says.

You know how I feel about ‘exceptions,’ but this certainly seems like the very least lawmakers could do.

An Indiana judge is hearing arguments today about whether abortion should be allowed for health-related reasons—something that’s currently prohibited under the state’s ban. The suit, brought by the ACLU of Indiana and Planned Parenthood, notes that the ban “deprives patients of their constitutional right to obtain abortions to protect them from serious health risks.”

The groups also point out that pregnancy can exacerbate existing health conditions (like high blood pressure) or create new ones. And they argue that pregnancy can make it impossible for those with mental illnesses like schizophrenia or major depressive disorder to take necessary medications. I wish I had more faith that the courts will care.

The ACLU of Indiana has also brought a religious freedom challenge against the state’s abortion ban. I’ll keep you updated on both cases as they advance. In the meantime, read Rebecca Gibron, CEO of the regional Planned Parenthood, at the Indiana Capital Chronicle:

“This climate of fear is crippling health care professionals nationwide, leaving them terrified that fulfilling their oath to care could subject them to vicious political attacks. It’s an assault on medical ethics and the well-being of patients everywhere.”

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If you missed my piece yesterday on the extremist abortion plank in Texas Republicans’ platform, you can read it below:

Texas GOP Platform Endorses Death Penalty for Abortion Patients

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Some wild news out of Texas (I know, not surprising): The New Republic reports that professors at the University of Texas at Austin are suing for the ability to punish students who take time off for abortion. The complaint, brought by America First Legal, needs to be read to be believed. Philosophy professor Daniel Bonevac and business and finance professor John Hatfield sound downright petulant in their declarations, refusing to offer an “excused absence” for students who obtain abortions—whether they’re traveling out-of-state or taking medication there in Texas. But wait, there’s more:

“I will certainly accommodate students who are seeking medically necessary abortions in response to a pregnancy that threatens the student’s life or health. But I will not accommodate a purely elective abortion that serves only to kill an unborn child that was conceived through an act of voluntary and consensual sexual intercourse.”

I would absolutely love to know how these men expect students to ‘prove’ that their abortions were medically necessary or urgent. Will Bonevac and Hatfield pour over young women’s medical records to decide if they really needed that abortion?

Naturally, these men’s disdain doesn’t stop at women’s reproductive rights. They also say they won’t use students’ correct pronouns, writing, “I will not violate the rules of grammar or compromise my educational mission to accommodate a student’s delusional beliefs.” Assholes.

Quick hits:

• Delaware is considering a package of bills to strengthen and expand reproductive rights, including protections for IVF and abortion access at colleges;

• The Amarillo City Council in Texas declined to approve (for now) a voter petition to adopt a travel ban ordinance;

• The New York Times on the abortion rights fight in Florida and how Democrats hope it will drive out voters;

• And California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis has launched a new PAC to mobilize pro-choice voters.

“But there is something to the notion that abortion access might be ‘habit-forming.’ In the Roe era, after all, women began to conceive of themselves as full persons, able to exercise control over their own destinies–as adults, that is, with all the privileges and entitlements of citizenship. They formed a habit of independence, a habit of imagining themselves as people entitled to freedom, equality, self-determination and respect. It is these habits that the Republican party is trying to break them of.”

-Moira Donegan at The Guardian on the new Louisiana law that classifies abortion medication as a controlled substance

In the Nation

Senate Democrats will explore the harm abortion bans have done during a meeting of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Sen. Patty Murray will chair the hearing next week, titled, “The Assault on Women’s Freedoms: How Abortion Bans Have Created a Health Care Nightmare Across America.” Unfortunately, that title sounds exactly right. You’ll be able to watch a live-stream here.

The abortion rights hearing comes at the same time that Senate Democrats plan to force Republicans into a vote on birth control—an issue the GOP has been running from since Dobbs. (For more on contraception read read Part I and Part II of Abortion, Every Day’s series on Republicans’ plan to ban birth control.)

Democrats are launching a $100 million abortion rights campaign targeting swing districts. A memo from the House Majority PAC’s “Reproductive Freedom Accountability Fund” said, “the toxic votes taken by Republicans in blue states will prove to be career killers.” The Washington Post reports that the announcement comes just a week after Republicans’ corresponding group said they’d be spending $141 million on ads in battleground areas.

Meanwhile, Democratic attorneys general met last week to strategize on abortion rights. The Austin American-Statesman followed the AGs as they visited a former abortion clinic in Austin, Texas, hearing from staff and abortion patients who had to travel out-of-state for care.

Arizona AG Kris Mayes, who came under conservative fire after saying she wouldn’t prosecute abortion cases, said, “That's why we're fighting so hard in Arizona, to avoid what's happened in Texas.” The trip, she said, “was like looking into a future that we are fighting hard against.”

Quick hits:

• Doctors are urging the Supreme Court to rule that EMTALA requires states to provide life-saving and stabilizing abortions in hospital emergency rooms;

• The Hill on the federal government’s new website that allows people to submit a complaint if they feel their rights under EMTALA have been violated;

• Mother Jones on what’s at stake this Supreme Court term;

• And The New York Times looks at Democrats ad spending on abortion rights.

Keep An Eye On

I’ve warned before about anti-abortion efforts around free speech—most notably, lawsuits seeking to do away with buffer zones based on the argument that clinic protesters are having their First Amendment rights violated when they can’t get up in the faces of abortion patients and clinic staff.

Now we’re seeing crisis pregnancy centers argue that lying to women is a free speech issue. Just as bad, they’re accusing Democratic leaders—who are trying to stop them from lying—of trying to take away women’s “choices.”

In response to New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit over the groups’ false ‘abortion reversal’ claims, for example, Christa Brown of Heartbeat International wrote at theWashington Examiner that James was “strip[ping] women of this choice.” And Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Gabriella McIntyre said James is “doing everything she can to deny women the freedom to make that choice.”

It’s almost as if anti-abortion groups realize that their position is deeply unpopular and that they’re betting off using pro-choice rhetoric!

What Conservatives Are Saying

One of the more horrific beliefs of anti-abortion activists and lawmakers is that women should be forced to carry doomed pregnancies to term—they don’t care if the fetus isn’t viable. But conservatives also know that this is an extraordinarily unpopular belief, so they try to hide it as much as possible.

Most recently, that’s meant covering up their cruelty with language about protecting “disabled children.” In a March op-ed at The Hill, for example, anti-abortion activists proclaimed, “Disabled Lives Matter.” The piece argued women who end lethal pregnancies are “discriminating against people with disabilities.”

This language has been coming up more and more over the last few months. In the Texas GOP platform, for example, Plank 165 calls for the legislature “to close existing discriminatory loopholes that fail to protect preborn children suspected of having a ‘fetal anomaly’ or disability.” In other words, they want to make doubly sure that people will be forced to carry doomed pregnancies.

Here’s the thing: When anti-abortion activists talk about ‘disability’ in this way, most people don’t know that they’re actually referring to fetuses with fatal conditions. The understandable assumption is that they’re solely talking about survivable disabilities or abnormalities. For journalists and media outlets, it’s vital that they do know the connection, and that they’re explaining that context to readers.

Here’s anti-abortion activist Ingrid Skop, for example, in The New York Times this week:

“Women have been falsely told this is a compassionate option, however, it feeds into the growing trend of disability discrimination and the pressure women face from the medical community to abort children who might have a disability.”

It’s bad enough that Skop was cited as an expert; she’s an extremist hack whose studies have been retracted by their publishers! But the article also didn’t explain what Skop really meant by this—or perhaps the reporter didn’t know. Either is bad.

To learn more about the anti-abortion campaign to force women to carry nonviable pregnancies, read my “Calculated Cruelty” series, which starts here.

You Love to See It

Well this is amazing! Melinda French Gates announced this week in a New York Times op-ed that she’ll be giving away $1 billion to groups working on behalf of women and families—including abortion rights.

“While I have long focused on improving contraceptive access overseas, in the post-Dobbs era, I now feel compelled to support reproductive rights here at home. For too long, a lack of money has forced organizations fighting for women's rights into a defensive posture while the enemies of progress play offense. I want to help even the match.”

Let’s be honest: this couldn’t have come at a better time.