What Banning Abortion Travel Looks Like
6.20.24
Click to skip ahead: How They Ban Travel looks at how travel restrictions for those on probation and parole could be applied more broadly. In Comstock News, Dems are finally moving to repeal. Ballot Measure Updates from South Dakota, New York and Arkansas. In the Nation, a ruling against the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and a SCOTUS update. A reminder of what’s at stake in 2024. In Care Denied, a Catholic hospital system is allowing ‘medically-necessary’ abortions in its hospitals. Finally, in Attacks on Data, Texas may stop working with CDC on maternal death count.
How They Ban Travel
I cannot stress enough how important this piece by reporter Candice Norwood at The 19th is. Reporting on a policy briefing from the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI), Norwood writes about what traveling out-of-state for an abortion looks like for someone on parole or probation. The short version is that they need government approval to leave their state—navigating a maze of logistical and financial barriers that make it impossible to get timely care, assuming they can get care at all.
PPI researcher director Wendy Sawyer tells Nowrood they “have to literally go and ask permission from their probation parole officers, or from the court, to cross state lines,” and that “you have to give really detailed information about what your travel plan is.”
In addition to The 19th’s terrific article, I highly recommend reading PPI’s brief itself. It details how even those who get permission to travel will have to deal with serious delays due to fees and logistical coordination. For something like abortion—where how far along you are in pregnancy can determine where you can legally get care or what kind of abortion you can obtain—the difference of a few days means everything.
In effect, this is a travel ban on some of the most vulnerable women in the country. And as is the case with so many other abortion-related issues that disproportionately impact marginalized communities—like criminalization or ‘anti-trafficking’ mandates—what happens to one group today comes for the rest of us tomorrow.
Reading through PPI’s brief and Norwood’s article, I realized that the system in place for those on parole or probation is pretty much exactly how Republicans would implement travel restrictions for any pregnant person: Permission slips and state notifications, bureaucratic red tape that keeps people from getting timely care.
If that sounds like a reach to you, please remember that it was less than a year ago that Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall argued in a legal brief that states have the right to restrict pregnant women’s travel.
He claimed that because the government has a “legitimate interest” in “preserving unborn life,” the state “can burden interstate travel when that burden is reasonable.” (Emphasis his.) What’s a ‘reasonable’ burden on travel? Marshall points to travel restrictions and notification mandates for sex offenders.
Sound familiar?
What also stuck out to me was that some states require those on parole or probation to submit information on where they’re going, when, and—most importantly—why. That kind of reporting is similar to what we’re already seeing from the anti-abortion movement, which is obsessed with data collection and undermining patient privacy.
All of which is to say: We don’t need to imagine what travel bans would look like, because they’re already here. It’s just a matter of how much people care about who is being targeted first.
Comstock News
Better late than never? Democrats are finally moving to repeal the Comstock Act, the zombie law conservatives plan to use to enact a backdoor national abortion ban. This is something abortion rights advocates have been screaming about since Roe was overturned: The Comstock Act, which prohibits ‘obscene’ materials from being sent through the mail, could be used by a Republican White House to ban abortion medication and supplies from being shipped anywhere in the country.
Sen. Tina Smith, who is introduced legislation today, said a Donald Trump presidency could “misapply this 150-year-old Comstock law to deny American women their rights, even in states where abortion rights are protected by state law.”
You may remember that a couple of months ago, NOTUS revealed that some mainstream abortion rights groups had asked Democrats not to take action on Comstock right away. Sources told me at the time that legislative teams at groups like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU were concerned that legislation to repeal Comstock would interfere with their message that this is an essentially dead law.
As I wrote then, that argument doesn’t really hold water once you have SCOTUS justices name-checking Comstock. Conservatives have also been very explicit about their Comstock hopes: it features in their ‘Project 2025’ plan for a Donald Trump presidency, and anti-abortion activists have been trying to use it in local ordinances.
It’s vital that we make sure voters know the danger Comstock poses. A Navigator poll this month showed that 7 in 10 Americans have heard “nothing” about the Comstock Act, but that once informed, 2 in 3 supported changing the law so it no longer applied to abortion.
The poll also reported that most Americans believe if Trump wins, he’ll ban abortion nationwide—including banning abortion medication by mail. That means this is a real opportunity for Joe Biden to talk about Comstock in next week’s presidential debate.
If you just can’t get enough of my abortion analysis, I spoke to Jon Stewart this week about the nightmare that is post-Roe America:
Ballot Measure Updates
We have good news and bad news on ballot measures today, so let’s start with the good news: New York’s Equal Rights Amendment is back on the ballot. Last month, a judge ruled that the ERA—which includes protections for abortion patients—couldn’t be on the ballot because of a procedural error. (Democrats accused Republicans of forum shopping to get the issue in front of an anti-abortion judge.)
But this week, appellate judges restored the proposed amendment to November’s ballot. While the ERA won’t explicitly protect the right to abortion, it bans discrimination against abortion patients—which advocates say will protect abortion rights in effect.
I told you Monday that an anti-abortion group in South Dakota had filed a legal challenge against the pro-choice amendment making its way to voters. Life Defense Fund claims that abortion rights group Dakotans for Health broke “petition circulatory laws.”
South Dakota Searchlight has an explainer on the lawsuit, along with some vital information on the legal nitty gritty that anti-abortion activists are using to keep voters from having a say. This comes on the heels of anti-abortion activists in the state calling voters who signed the petition and pressuring them to withdraw their signatures while pretending to be government officials.
There’s a reason South Dakota conservatives are getting desperate: a recent poll found that the pro-choice measure has a near-20 point lead.
Speaking of Republicans trying to stop voters from having a direct say on abortion rights: In Arkansas, the Republican-led House passed a resolution opposing a pro-choice ballot measure, urging voters not to support the amendment. The bill claims that the Arkansas Abortion Amendment would legalize “abortion on demand,” endanger parental consent laws, and “jeopardize the constitutionality of public health and safety requirements.”
If you want an update on the status of all abortion-related ballot measures, check out Ballotpedia.
In the Nation
The Supreme Court didn’t announce their ruling in the EMTALA case this morning, but there’s a chance they’ll do so tomorrow. Remember, this is the case that will determine whether states can deny women life-saving abortions in hospital emergency rooms—which is a sentence that I can’t believe I have to write.
When a ruling does come down, Abortion, Every Day will have a live-chat going for paid subscribers who want to commiserate, share information or simply not be alone in what I suspect will be a shitty moment. (Maybe I’m wrong! I hope so!) AED will also host a live-chat during the first presidential debate next week, so be on the lookout for emails with those links. Make sure you’re signed up to join the conversation:
This is frustrating: This week, a federal judge ruled that employers in Louisiana and Mississippi don’t have to give abortion patients unpaid time off. The lawsuit is part of a conservative outcry over the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act; Republicans and anti-abortion groups are pissed off that the EEOC said the federal law requires employers to make “reasonable accommodations” for pregnant workers, including those who get abortions.
U.S. District Judge David Joseph, a Donald Trump appointee, ruled that the EEOC participated in “semantic gymnastics,” and that abortion isn’t a “medical condition” that employers have to accommodate. His decision only applies to the two states and anti-abortion groups who brought the suit, but there’s an ongoing challenge seeking to permanently strike down the EEOC’s guidance.
I don’t think I need to tell you how cruel this is. Again, we’re talking about unpaid time off for people who need to recover from a medical procedure. For a reminder of how important this law is for abortion patients, check out this Associated Press piece reporting on Mylissa Farmer: She had to travel to Illinois for a life- and health-saving abortion after being denied care in Missouri and Kansas.
Farmer, who worked as a sales representative, was pressured by her supervisor to return to work throughout her whole ordeal—even though her doctor recommended she take two weeks off to recover. Because Farmer was terrified of being fired, she returned after just two days.
“At these lower paying job levels, I don’t think a lot of people realize you are very easily replaced in these types of situations,” she said.
Quick hits:
Karen Finney writes at CNN about Republican attacks on birth control and beyond;
Cosmopolitan highlights queer people’s abortion stories;
Vanity Fair on Lizz Winstead’s new abortion rights documentary, No One Asked You;
And Ms. magazine on the Reproductive Freedom Alliance of pro-choice governors.
2024
In case you need a reminder of what’s at stake this November, check out this quote from Kristi Hamrick, a strategist for the anti-abortion extremist group, Students for Life:
“In a Trump White House, there’d be an immediate clearing of the weaponized HHS, FDA, EPA, that would be day one, and that we would have people who actually prioritize women’s life and health over the abortion industry interests. With the right people in the right agencies, we can have people who are preemptively, proactively protecting women’s lives and health and addressing the harms of these pills.”
I want to be clear about what she’s saying here. Anti-abortion groups know they don’t need a national abortion ban—they just need to change up the heads of key agencies. With a new FDA head, for example, they can repeal access or approval for abortion medication—which accounts for 63% of all abortions. A new DOJ lead would use the Comstock Act to outlaw the shipping of anything related to abortion or birth control. And if you want to know about what she means by the EPA, read at your own risk.
Care Denied
This is interesting: Catholic health system Bon Secours will now allow “medically necessary abortions,” setting it apart from other religious institutions that only allow life-saving abortions. With no firm guidelines on what constitutes a life-threatening pregnancy, doctors in anti-choice states—regardless of their institution—have been struggling to provide their patients necessary care.
A letter from parent company Bon Secours Mercy Health says, “we will back our physicians and clinicians as they do what’s medically necessary and best for our patients.”
A spokesperson for the health system—which manages hospitals in Virginia, Ohio, South Carolina and Kentucky—says, “while the legislative environment is complex, our mission compels us to provide compassionate care for all.”
In January, AED reported on data showing Catholic health systems are fueling the U.S. maternal mortality crisis:
Attacks on Data
If you’re a regular reader, you know I write a lot about the anti-abortion movement’s attacks on data and science—specifically how they’re trying to sow distrust in maternal mortality data. Essentially, they’re preemptively claiming you can believe those numbers because they know abortion bans are killing women.
Well, things are coming to a head in Texas, where the state may stop participating in the federal program to count maternal deaths. Yes, seriously.
Eleanor Klibanoff at The Texas Tribune reports that Texas approved $6 million for the creation of a program that would allow the state to track its own maternal deaths, removing itself from the CDC system that every other state uses.
Related: It was just last month that anti-abortion extremist Ingrid Skop was appointed to the Texas maternal mortality committee. This is a woman whose ‘research’ has been retracted by publishers, who claims abortion is never necessary to save women’s lives, and who believes abortion bans never hurt women.
Most relevant, Skop argues that maternal mortality statistics can’t be trusted because they’re undercounting deaths caused by abortions: She wants maternal death statistics to include women who die by suicide after having an abortion, even when there’s no connection.
So we have one of the nation’s leading anti-abortion activists on the maternal mortality committee, and the state poised to leave the federal program that tracks maternal deaths. What could go wrong?!
Luckily, it’s clear that there are OBGYNs and other experts on the committee who are raising the alarm. Committee chair Dr. Carla Ortique flagged concerns about the state leaving the CDC program this week, suggesting that they stay put—even if that means using federal and state data systems at the same time. (It also appears that the rest of the committee is concerned abut being painted with a broad brush because of Skop’s national profile.)
Concerning the Stop Comstock Act, the companion bill in the House was introduced by Becca Balint of Vt. Cosponsors include Bush, Escobar, Scanlon, Coleman, Blumenauer, DeLauro, Deluzio, DeSaulnier, Cohen, Connolly, Gottheimer, Huffman, Lieu, McCollum, Moulton, Pressley, Ramirez, Raskin, Smith, Stansbury, Sherrill, Ryan, R. Torres, Tlaib, Velázquez. If you see your member of congress on this list, thank them. If not, and they are a Democrat, urge them to cosponsor the Stop Comstock Act. Bill number and text not yet available but should be available shortly.
Every day this gets harder to read. Too many Americans are still sleepwalking. I'm afraid of what it will take to wake them up.