Conservatives Are Seeking Men to Sue Over Their Partners' Abortions

11.20.24

Click to skip ahead: Let’s make it clear—No ‘Compromise’ on Abortion. In the States, news from Texas, Wyoming, Idaho, Kentucky, Michigan and more. Keep An Eye On looks at a bill that would allow Trump to attack any nonprofit he deems “terrorist supporting.” In the Nation, the anti-abortion movement and their love of abusive men. In the Care Crisis, more American women are ordering abortion medication—and you should too. Stats & Studies takes a look at the split vote among young people. And a reminder about tomorrow’s video live-stream in AED Chats.

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No ‘Compromise’ on Abortion

With Donald Trump poised to take office and the anti-abortion movement feeling more emboldened than ever, it’s only a matter of time before political pundits start suggesting that Democrats give a little on abortion rights. We can all feel it coming. Feminist writer Rebecca Traister reminds us how Democrats blamed abortion for John Kerry’s loss in 2004, and Reproductive Freedom for All president Mini Timmaraju flagged some murmurings in POLITICO just a few days ago:

“What I’m concerned about in the morning-after punditry is throwing reproductive freedom under the bus when we saw abortion win on the ballot in some really tough places. I’ve already heard a couple of talkers and pundits question whether focusing on abortion was the right strategy.”

That’s why I’m grateful to Rachel Cohen at Vox for this piece asking abortion rights activists whether we should “compromise” with Republicans on the issue. The overwhelming answer? Absolutely not.

You know where I stand: It’s vital that we don’t give an inch. Not only because it’s the only moral choice—it’s also the smartest political strategy. Let me explain.

Too often, abortion incrementalism is painted as the more pragmatic approach. The idea is that we should reduce harm and fight for whatever access we can practically get in the moment. But all that assumes Republicans are operating in good faith, and that our ‘compromise’ will actually result in more patients being able to get care. I just don’t see that happening.

Cohen lays out a potential path, for example, where Democrats agree to codify abortion protections for rape victims and those with fatal fetal abnormalities as a step towards greater access. But if post-Roe America has shown us anything, it’s that exceptions don’t really exist. Their only purpose is to make Republicans seem less monstrous. (I have a whole chapter about this in my book!)

Anti-abortion politicians are only interested in exceptions as a PR tool to feign softening on the issue. When they sit down to write these policies, the goal isn’t to increase access—but to exclude as many people as possible. Take rape exceptions: Everyone knows victims overwhelmingly don’t report to the police, so what do Republicans do? They make reporting a requirement to care!

Even if patients are able to jump through the onerous hoops set out by their state, their ability to get an abortion depends on whether or not they can find a provider. Mississippi has a rape exception, for example, but a study found that there wasn’t one doctor in the state willing to provide a rape victim an abortion. Cohen points out something similar about Louisiana:

“In Louisiana, which has exceptions for protecting life, health, and fatal fetal conditions, almost no legal abortions have been reported since its ban took effect. Doctors say ambiguous laws and criminal penalties make them unwilling to test the rules.”

What’s more, a study published this summer in The New England Journal of Medicine found that states with exceptions for sexual violence victims don’t have any more abortion patients than those without the so-called exemptions. In other words, those exceptions aren’t working.

Let’s say by some miracle, exceptions did work. Not only would this kind of ‘compromise’ mean leaving behind the vast majority of people who need care, it would also require we accept conservatives’ cruel framing that says some women are more deserving of healthcare than others.

No thanks. Not ever—but especially not now, when we’re winning on the issue. Abortion is toxic to Republicans; why would we water down our most potent political weapon?

“We have no interest in shrinking our vision, but the politicians who will soon govern a majority pro-abortion country would do well to expand theirs.” - Kimberly Inez McGuire, executive director of Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity

In the States

Democrats in Texas are pushing for exceptions to the state’s abortion ban in the wake of ProPublica’s investigation into the deaths of Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain.

The bills, filed in the Texas House and Senate, would create exceptions for fatal fetal abnormalities, women’s health, and abortions performed to protect a person’s future fertility.

The House version of the bill was filed by Texas Rep. Donna Howard, who expressed “sadness and disbelief that we are at a point where we are allowing women to die because we haven’t been able to clarify the law.”

Center for Reproductive Rights lawyer Molly Duane—who represented Texas women in a suit over the state’s ban—points out that doctors will still likely deny care unless the state stops threatening criminal prosecution:

“Exceptions don’t work in reality, no matter how clear they are. We’ve seen hospitals turn away Texans facing life-threatening ectopic pregnancies, even though providing an abortion in these cases is legal under state law. As long as doctors face the threat of jail time and loss of license, they will be terrified to provide care.”

Even if these bills don’t go anywhere, though, they’re an important tool to show just how extreme the state’s ban is.

Speaking of that extremism, I want to flag a tactic Texas Republicans are using to defend the state’s radical ban. In a Houston Chronicle op-ed claiming the law is “plenty clear,” state Sen. Bryan Hughes cited state health department records showing that since Dobbs, over 100 abortions have been performed to save women’s lives.

I’ve noticed quite a few anti-abortion activists pointing to this particular stat, offering it up as proof that the state does indeed allow life-saving abortions.

First of all, are they seriously bragging that not all the women died? Not exactly a triumph of public health! It’s also important to remember that anti-abortion activists and lawmakers have already weaponized Texas’ health department, particularly around statistics. I published an investigation last year, for example, into how the state was fabricating abortion ‘complication’ reports. We also know that Republicans placed a well-known anti-abortion activist on the state’s maternal mortality review committee. Which is to say: I don’t know that I’d trust any stats coming out of any Texas agency.

Texas is Fabricating Abortion Data

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon announced yesterday that the state will appeal a ruling that permanently blocked the state’s two abortion bans. The appeal will go to the state Supreme Court, where the justices will weigh whether the two laws violate Wyoming’s constitutional amendment protecting people’s right to make their own healthcare decisions.

Wyoming has two abortion bans—one general ban, and a ban that targets abortion medication, specifically. Judge Melissa Owens ruled that both laws "impede the fundamental right to make health care decisions for an entire class of people, pregnant women.”

Republicans will argue to the state Supreme Court that abortion isn’t healthcare because pregnancy isn’t an illness. (Never mind that it can kill you!) As I laid out yesterday, this debate over abortion as healthcare isn’t limited to Wyoming courts—we’ll see this tactic and argument everywhere. Conservatives have long tried to divorce abortion from healthcare, and the effort has ramped up considerably since Roe was overturned.

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood clinics in Kentucky report a huge surge in requests for long-acting and permanent birth control like IUDs and tubal ligations. Rebecca Gibron, CEO of the regional Planned Parenthood, said, “In a landscape where reproductive health care access is increasingly under threat, expanded access to effective contraception options has become even more urgent.”

Finally, testimony continued this week in the legal challenge against Idaho’s abortion ban. The suit, brought by four women who were denied abortions despite having nonviable pregnancies, is seeking to clarify the state ban’s medical exceptions. One doctor testified about a “heavily bleeding” patient with a nonviable pregnancy who visited the ER four times in a week before she was admitted to the hospital.

Dr. Julie Lyons said, “My colleagues are so scared and confused to even mention the word, it's like a hot potato—ass the patient around and hopefully something will happen and declare itself.” Total nightmare. For more background on the case, click here.

Something else to remember: Idaho’s Republican leadership fought all the way up to the Supreme Court for the right to deny women life-saving abortions in hospital emergency rooms.

Quick hits: Michigan Democrats are pushing for expanded access to contraception with legislation that would allow pharmacists to directly prescribe birth control. Reproductive health care providers in Maine are worried about what a Trump presidency will mean for their funding, with a specific concern over Title X. And more on Oregon’s new stockpile of abortion medication.

Keep An Eye On

If you haven’t already heard about the “Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act” (H.R. 9495), prepare yourselves. This Republican-introduced bill would give the U.S. Treasury unilateral authority to strip an organization of its nonprofit status if it’s found to be 'terrorist-supporting.’

What is a “terrorist supporting organization?” Well, under a Trump administration, that depends on the whims of a total sociopath! Mother Jones reports that Democrats are worried that “the incoming administration would use the bill not to stop terrorism, but to kneecap Trump’s political enemies.” And the ACLU published a letter from a coalition of more than 200 organizations—including abortion rights groups—warning that the legislation could “grant the executive branch extraordinary power to investigate, harass, and effectively dismantle any nonprofit organization” that Republicans have in their crosshairs.

Abortion rights activists are rightly concerned that the Trump administration could use the law to target pro-choice organizations—especially abortion funds. These groups help women in states with bans access abortion medication by mail or travel out of state for procedural abortions, making them a prime target for anti-abortion forces. (Just days ago, I reported on a Texas bill that would allow the state Attorney General to use the RICO Act—typically reserved for organized crime—against abortion funds.)

So I’ll be keeping a close eye on this legislation.

In the Nation

If you’re dying to know about the broad web of Venmo transactions between Matt Gaetz and the women he paid to have sex, The New York Times has you covered. To be perfectly honest, I was trying to ignore Gaetz news for as long as possible—but then I saw this Washington Post piece: Anti-abortion leaders are requesting meetings with the sex predator congressman in order to come up with a plan for prosecuting abortion providers.

Even worse? They’re counting on said sex predator to enforce an obscenity law. (Is your brain broken yet? Mine is.)

That’s right, to no one’s surprise, the plan from the anti-abortion lobby is to revive enforcement of the Comstock Act. The zombie law doesn’t just ban the mailing of abortion pills, but abortion supplies and potentially anything the GOP deems ‘obscene.’ Birth control? HIV medication? Who knows!

Conservatives have long been explicit about wanting to use Comstock to enact a backdoor national abortion ban: They know that 63% of abortions are done using medication, and that some women have been getting around state bans by having the pills shipped to them from doctors in pro-choice states. So if anti-abortion groups can lobby Gaetz (or whoever the confirmed AG is) to target Americans using Comstock, they can put a huge dent in abortion access across the country.

To learn more about Comstock and what the anti-abortion lobby has planned, make sure to read my Project 2025 explainer:

Project 2025 & Abortion

The other big move towards targeting abortion providers and patients will happen in Texas, where Texas Right to Life is “looking for men interested in suing people who helped their female partners get abortions.” In other words, the worst kind of people being the biggest kinds of assholes. You may remember that the first case of this kind centered around an abusive ex-husband who sued his former wife’s friends for helping her to get abortion medication.

WaPo reports that Texas Right to Life has been trying to find men to bring suits by hanging out at “‘abortion recovery groups’ that minister to men.” Like I said: assholes. By the way, if Texas Right to Life sounds familiar, it’s because I reported in 2022 that their political director, Luke Bowen, had been arrested for solicitation of a minor. The group then attempted to scrub their website of any mention of Bowen.

How many sexual predators does it take to ban abortion? Only 2025 will tell!

Care Crisis

American women are gearing up for the new Trump administration—and the possibility of a national abortion ban—by ordering advance provision abortion pills en masse. We already knew that there was a large spike in orders for the medication and emergency contraception, but this blew my mind: Elisa Wells, co-founder of Plan C Pills, told Jezebel that the website went from seeing 500 people visit the site a day to 82,000 on the day after the election. And remember, after Trump was elected Aid Access started getting 10,000 requests a day.

If you don’t have advance provision abortion medication in your medicine cabinet yet, now is the time to remedy that: Aid Access, Plan C Pills, Abortion Finder, I Need An A.

Stats & Studies

An election analysis from Tuft University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) found a disturbing jump towards Trump among young people: Whereas President Joe Biden led Trump by +25 in 2020, Harris only led by +4.

A good deal of that can be attributed to what one youth organizer called “the frat boy vote”—young men who were influenced by a masculinity-obsessed, very online culture dominated by characters like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk.

I’ll save my analysis of young American men for another day, but here’s something interesting: there was a notable voting bloc of young conservatives (men and women) who supported both Trump and abortion rights. In Florida, for example, Gen Z voters backed Amendment 4 by 52%, but Kamala only got 44%.

CIRCLE researchers posit that younger Republicans are breaking from older generations on issues like abortion and climate change—but are still remaining loyal to their party.

AED Chats

Mark your calendars for AED’s next video live-stream conversation! I’ll be chatting with Medical Students for Choice executive director Pamela Merritt tomorrow at 7pm EST. We’ll talk about the OBGYN exodus, abortion training for med students, the election and more. If you’re already a paid subscriber, make sure you have the Substack app and be on the lookout for an email notification. If you haven’t upgraded your subscription yet and want to join the conversation, consider making the jump now!