In the states…
Terrific news: The Indiana Supreme Court ruled yesterday that abortions can continue in the state while it decides whether or not the abortion ban violates the state constitution.
Less great news out of Indiana: Conservative media has glommed onto a story out of the University of Notre Dame, where a professor has the nerve to be pro-choice. The school newspaper reported that the teacher (who I’m not naming without her permission) has supported abortion rights in her tweets and put a sign on her office door reading, “This is a SAFE SPACE to get help and information on ALL Healthcare issues and access—confidentially with care and compassion.” The horror! I’ve seen a few articles about this already, and I can already see it becoming a trend: Conservative outlets attacking teachers who support abortion rights. Definitely something to keep an eye on.
In Florida, at least two children who were victims of incest were forced to leave the state for abortion care. Laura Goodhue, vice president of public policy at the Planned Parenthood there, told Buzzfeed News that the patients had to travel several states away to obtain abortions:
“The cruelty of forcing a very young person, who has already survived a horrible case of violence, to give birth, it just takes away their rights to bodily autonomy, and it is really turning a blind eye to what is happening in our society.”
Meanwhile, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (best known for calling the story of a 10 year-old rape victim a hoax) has appealed a judge’s decision to indefinitely block the state’s 6-week abortion ban.
And of course polls show little movement in Georgia’s Senate race after Herschel Walker was outed as having paid for an ex’s abortion. But the good news is that two-thirds of voters oppose the state’s abortion ban.
In response to a surge of requests for vasectomies in Missouri, Planned Parenthood is is offering the procedure for free in the state for uninsured patients. The organization says they did four times the number of vasectomies this past July as compared to the previous year, and six times the number of sterilizations for women. The Associated Press reports that Planned Parenthood doesn’t have national sterilization numbers yet, but that searches on its website for vasectomy information have increased by 53 percent since Roe was overturned.
In Wisconsin, U.S. Senate candidate Mandela Barnes and Republican Sen. Ron Johnson will debate tonight for the last time, and abortion is expected to play a huge role in the conversation. Also in Wisconsin, public radio there looks at independent voters and abortion, and OBGYN Dr. Shefaali Sharma has written an op-ed about the consequences of abortion bans and why the Republican candidate for governor, Tim Michels, is so dangerous for the state. Related: Leaders from the Wisconsin Medical Society are urging doctors to reach out to politicians and let them know how abortion bans not only impact their care for patients, but on the workforce as physicians decide they don’t want to work in anti-abortion states.
Rep. Allison Nutting-Wong in New Hampshire has written an op-ed about needing an abortion to help her complete a miscarriage just a few months ago. She published the piece in response to her opponent, who said having to travel to another hospital for an abortion “doesn’t mean you have lost your freedom…your choice was narrowed.” From Rep. Nutting-Wong:
Lothrop paints abortion restrictions as mere inconvenience. And to that I say, when you are bleeding to death and have hours to live, traveling at all can mean the difference between life and death.
A new poll out of Virginia shows that nearly 70% of voters believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases, but that when asked about a ban after 15 weeks with rape and incest exceptions, a narrow majority signaled support. We can see something similar in South Dakota, where support for abortion rights is split but an overwhelming number of voters support exceptions for rape and incest. This is exactly why Democrats need to make clear that exceptions aren't real. If voters understood that exceptions aren’t really available, and aren’t really something real people can take advantage of, I think those numbers would change drastically.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that $13.4 million will be awarded to 37 abortion providers to help increase access in the state. “New York State is committed to protecting reproductive rights, and as other states wage a war on abortion access we will continue to be a safe harbor,” Gov. Hochul said. This is great news and we need to see more of this from pro-choice states who are already being inundated with out-of-state patients seeking abortions.
Huntsville, Alabama is debating whether to make abortion investigations the “lowest priority” in an effort to soften the blow of the state’s extreme ban; FiveThirtyEight looks at why Kansas’ governor isn’t talking about abortion in the same way other Democratic candidates are; and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is hitting hard on abortion rights in her reelection campaign: “A woman’s equality and right to make deeply personal health care decisions is on the ballot in New Mexico.”
In the nation…
When I spoke to Chris Hayes about abortion rights last week, one of points I made was that we are only hearing a tiny percentage of the post-Roe horror stories—only those where people feel comfortable enough to go to the media. Yesterday, CNN reported that doctors are being prevented from sharing these stories by their employers’ legal and PR departments. “They’re censoring me,” one doctor said. “It’s shameful and embarrassing to work for an institution that is not supportive of women’s rights.” Another told CNN, who interviewed six doctors from five states, “I feel shackled. I feel muzzled. I feel completely restrained, and I’m outraged.”
In July, I wrote about the GOP’s birth control strategy and one organization’s sly messaging in particular: Independent Women’s Voice (IWV), run by CEO Heather Higgins. I flagged that in a 2015 speech, Higgins bragged about being an expert in “taking a conservative message and packaging it in a way that will be acceptable.” Well, that’s what she’s doing now. The Washington Post reports on internal memos from Higgins and her group showing that their strategy is to downplay the impact of abortion bans as much as possible, even using feminist rhetoric—check out this ad they’re targeting towards women in key states:
A pollster told The Washington Post that Republican women have reservations about the midterms because of abortion rights, and an ad like this one “is trying to give those women permission to vote based on other issues, to not prioritize the abortion issue.” Fuck these people.
PBS has an in-depth piece on self-managed abortion (and the expected increase of it in anti-abortion states); Axios reports on the volunteer pilots at Elevated Access; The 19th gets into how male Democratic candidates are supporting abortion rights; and Teen Vogue has a terrific article about the incredible college activists in anti-abortion states who are fighting for reproductive rights.
And The Atlantic reports something we’ve known for a while: The anti-abortion movement doesn’t care what voters want. The article, written by law professor and author Mary Ziegler, is a must-read.
Also worth a read: Doctors wrote an op-ed for The Chicago Tribune about why a national ban would be so dangerous, and how it could impact the very real complications that can come up in pregnancy.
And after Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote a piece for The Guardian claiming that Democrats were overly focused on abortion rather than the economy (as if the two are unrelated??), Vice President Kamala Harris responded: “We have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.” Agreed.
Al Jazeera has a segment about how abortion bans are impacting women across America:
You love to see it…
Love to see good news out of Kentucky! Reports show that Protect Kentucky Access, the group working to defeat a ballot measure that would change the state constitution to say there is no right to abortion, has raised five times as much money as the anti-abortion group supporting the amendment. Fingers and toes crossed.
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