In the states…
The state Supreme Court in North Dakota has ordered a lower court judge to reconsider his ruling banning the state’s abortion ban from being enforced while the law is battled out in the courts. Also in North Dakota, in the debate yesterday for the state’s sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, independent candidate Cara Mund took GOP Rep. Kelly Armstrong to task over his abortion stance. (Honestly, if you watch this portion of the debate, she absolutely fucking destroyed him.)
After Mund, who is running on abortion rights, pointed out that she was the only woman on the stage and the only person representing women’s voices, Armstrong went off the rails. He said, in the most annoyed tone possible, “I have an incredibly successful wife with two law degrees; I have a 14 year old daughter, to say that I’m not allowed to weigh in on these positions…is now how our democracy works.” I’m not sure how pointing out that you have women in your life that you’d gladly strip of their rights is useful, but go off I guess??
Georgia’s Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker continues to maintain that the woman who came forward about Walker paying for her abortion is lying. It’s unclear how much of a difference his obvious bullshit will make with voters, but we do know Republican politicians really don’t care: In an interview with CNN yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “we’re going to stick with Walker and all the effort we put in.”
I’ve written before about how several clinics are moving to Carbondale in southern Illinois, because of the town’s proximity to anti-abortion states. The CHOICES Center for Reproductive Health has been targeted by protesters there recently—something that’s likely to be an issue in other small towns as clinics move into more conservative areas. (Also in Illinois, anti-abortion groups are pushing to get a parental notification law re-instated.)
The Washington Post has more on the Montana state Supreme Court race that I mentioned yesterday, and just how important that seat is for abortion rights; The 19th looks at the fight over a ballot measure in Kentucky that says the state constitution doesn’t protect the right to abortion (essentially the same kind of measure that voters in Kansas rejected); and Arizona doctors can continue to provide abortions while the court case over the state abortion ban continues (providers started to see patients again this week).
An OBGYN resident in Ohio has written an op-ed about how abortion bans impact physician training.
Recently, I cared for a patient with a highly desired pregnancy, whose water broke at 17 weeks and she developed a life-threatening infection in her uterus. She needed an abortion to save her life. My training, up until now, had included providing abortion care to a wide variety of patients. Performing this patient’s life-saving abortion, I found myself wondering if the trainees that follow me will know how to safely perform the procedure, even when it is medically indicated and legally permitted.
This is the quote from Dr. Sarah Garber, though, that stopped me in my tracks: “[A]s a doctor and a surgeon, you cannot provide a procedure you were not trained to perform.”
Medical professionals and hospitals in Wisconsin are also worried about recruiting new doctors because of the state’s abortion ban—both because of physicians’ fears that they won’t be able to provide adequate care, and worries that if they get pregnant, they won’t be able to receive adequate care.
Also in Wisconsin, Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes is focusing heavily on abortion rights (you may remember he gave one of the better answers I’ve heard from a Democrat on legal limitations). Meanwhile, his Republican opponent Sen. Ron Johnson is all over the fucking place. Johnson has supported a national ban on abortion, but now—confronted with how unpopular abortion bans are—he’s trying to claim that he wouldn’t support federal legislation banning abortion. Here’s where it gets really weird. Jezebel has audio of Johnson answering questions about abortion and talking about a science museum display of embryos and fetuses at all stages of development—and how he’d support abortion being on a state ballot so long as voters went to go look at said display of jarred fetuses. You guys, I am so fucking tired.
In Texas, gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke says he’d be open to compromise with Republicans if it meant making abortion more accessible than it is now. And just a reminder that the (very tight) race for Attorney General in Texas is incredibly important and that Democrat Rochelle Garza would protect abortion rights:
“I’m in this for my daughter, I have a six-month-old little girl. I knew I was pregnant when I decided to run. I was nine weeks pregnant when the six-week abortion ban went into effect. I saw the writing on the wall…and I felt like I needed to step up.”
Cosmopolitan also looks at the race for Attorney General in Michigan, and how the race will impact abortion rights.
Hawaii will not be cooperating with anti-abortion prosecutions from others states: Gov. David Ige signed an executive order yesterday to protect abortion providers and residents in the state who might obtain abortions from out-of-state investigations.
An Indiana women’s organization says they’ve seen unprecedented interest from new volunteers after Roe was overturned. Rima Shahid of Women4Change says, “People are fired up.” (Early voting has started in the state, where Democrats are pushing to get folks motivated over abortion.)
And in North Carolina, Walmart has rescinded an earlier policy about misoprostol, and will now allow pharmacists to fill prescriptions of the medication (after pressure by Democrats).
In the nation…
Here’s some good news: A new survey shows that half of Americans are more motivated to vote in the midterms this year, and that abortion is a huge reason why. Among those voters who have been motivated by the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe, three-quarters said they will vote for candidates who protect abortion rights, while just 17 percent said they would vote for anti-abortion candidates.
The New York Times has a piece on abortion and the midterms and this made me livid:
“‘You hear some of these Republican state legislators, and it’s like, for the first time they are thinking about this and realize that this is a complicated issue with lots and lots of circumstances that are not black and white,’ said Christine Matthews, a pollster who has worked for Republicans. ‘A lot of these male legislators are realizing, Oh, this is really hard to legislate.’”
Vanity Fair interviewed women on the frontlines of the fight for abortion rights, including Caitlin Bernard—the Indiana doctor thrust in the national spotlight after providing abortion care to a 10 year-old rape victim from Ohio:
“It was very scary, not knowing exactly what was going to happen; not knowing if this was going to impact my ability to continue working where I work; my ability to continue seeing patients. And certainly I was scared for my personal safety, for the safety of my family.”
We already know that the Republican candidates who claim to be ‘softening’ on abortion are full of shit. Despite all of the deleting of abortion positions on campaign websites or debate equivocating, their goal will always be to ban abortion. Don’t take my word for it, though: Major anti-abortion organizations are assuring their base that Republicans will follow through on limiting abortion, no matter what they say during campaigns. Mallory Carroll, vice president at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, for example, told the National Catholic Reporter this week that candidates are just being politically savvy. If they’re not worried, we should definitely be.
President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Alexis McGill Johnson, told a crowd of corporate executives that they need to speak up on abortion rights yesterday. At Fortune’s 2022 Most Powerful Women Summit, McGill Johnson said, “Now is not the time to stay neutral. It’s time to get off the fence and make sure that we’re using our power.”
An op-ed at Inside Higher Ed warns colleges in pro-choice states that they still could be in legal danger from abortion bans. If a health center helps a student from Texas to obtain an abortion, for example, Texas laws would allow them to be sued. So colleges in pro-choice states need to start thinking about how to proactively protect themselves, their staff and their students.
And as more employers offer coverage for reproductive health, concerns are coming up that corporations will be held legally liable by anti-abortion states—and that employees won’t take advantage of said coverage because of privacy worries and stigma.
Everyday Health has an interview with an abortion doula, who explains what her work entails; the Daily Beast reports how new car technology could put women in danger of abortion-related surveillance; and always read Moira Donegan at The Guardian, this time on how abortion bans have created different tiers of healthcare for men and women:
This is the new state of healthcare in America, where misogynist laws banning abortion have ushered in an era of sex-segregated medical care for all sorts of ailments and conditions. In states where abortion is banned, there are now de facto two standards of medical care: the one that men are entitled to, and the lesser one that women have to make do with.
Listen up…
NPR has a short segment on the disinformation campaign being targeted towards Latina voters, and another one how abortion bans impact doctors training to be OBGYNs.
You love to see it…
This is fantastic news: Reproductive justice activist Loretta Ross is a 2022 MacArthur Fellow (also known as the ‘genius grants’). Ross was a co-founder of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, and one of the women of color who created the reproductive justice framework in the 1990s. (Fun fact: Loretta was also one of the contributors to my anthology, Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World!) Watch Loretta’s MacArthur video above to learn a bit more about her work on the off chance you’re not already familiar.
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