Abortion, Every Day (10.13.23)

Alabama arrested a woman to "protect" her fetus. Then they made her give birth in a jail shower

To skip ahead in the newsletter: In the States, all eyes are on Ohio, and more on how Virginia Republicans are redefining ‘ban’. In the Nation, legislation sponsored by Democrats that could censor pro-choice websites. Another horror story out of Alabama in Care Denied. And in 2024 news, some updates on Trump, Haley & DeSantis.

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In the States

All eyes are on Ohio as early voting began this week on whether or not to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. (Read the proposed amendment here.)

What happens with the measure in Ohio will have a major national impact. If voters approve Issue 1, it will continue abortion rights’ winning streak with ballot measures, and further solidify that Americans really, really don’t like Republican bans. Conservatives are hoping, though, that their strategy focusing on ‘parental rights’ and anti-trans scare tactics will be successful—and that they can replicate those talking points in other states. (For a fact-check on conservative claims about the Ohio measure, click here.)

Peter Range, CEO of Ohio Right to Life, told POLITICO, “It’s important to win here so that we can demonstrate to the rest of the nation how you win ballot initiatives.” And March for Life President Jeanne Mancini said with more abortion-rights ballot measure fights coming in 2024, national groups are paying close attention to Ohio: “It could easily set the standard.”

If Republicans manage to defeat Issue 1, it also will strengthen their resolve to continue the blatant attacks on democracy—which we saw a hell of a lot of over the last few months in Ohio. (Whether it was suing to keep the amendment away from voters, trying to raise the standards on ballot measures, or pushing through inflammatory ballot summary language.)

And while pro-choicers keep winning when abortion is put directly to voters, POLITICO says conservatives are feeling more positive about Ohio because it’s the only abortion-related amendment on the ballot this year:

“[M]eaning national anti-abortion groups like Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Students for Life can focus their resources. Ohio conservatives also had more time to plan and fundraise than their counterparts in Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan and Montana last year who had to scramble to mount a campaign in the few months after Roe v. Wade was overturned.”

Ohio Democrats, however, say that they’ve knocked on nearly 100,000 doors and made more than 100,000 phone calls since they defeated Republicans’ effort to raise the standard on ballot measures in August. And while the Associated Press reports that while we don’t have early voting numbers yet, there have been far more absentee ballot requests this year than in Ohio’s last off-year election in 2021.

Pro-choice activists also report seeing an incredible amount of enthusiasm and support for the amendment, and polls show that nearly 60% of voters in the state support the measure—including a third of Republicans. One Republican told the AP, for example, why he supports Issue 1:

“I’m fairly conservative, but I’m also married and have daughters and granddaughters. Women’s body, women’s choice.”

Some extra credit reading: the Akron Beacon Journal has a good piece looking at what would happen if Issue 1 is successful, and if it fails to pass. The Ohio Capital Journal points out that the amendment would also protect access to contraception—and why that’s so important. (In addition to Republicans war on birth control, Ohio’s shoddy sex education means that young people aren’t getting the information and access they need on contraception.)

Also in Ohio: The state Supreme Court will decide whether abortion providers have the standing to bring a challenge forward against the state’s abortion ban on behalf of their patients; and The Columbus Dispatch has a piece on where Ohio Senate candidates stand on abortion rights.

More in ballot measure news, this time from Florida: The Miami Herald profiled the group behind the pro-choice amendment, Floridians Protecting Freedom. While the organization has been massively successful in fundraising and collecting signatures—they’ve raised nearly $9 million and gotten 700,000 voters to sign on in support of the amendment—there’s still concern that the state Supreme Court won’t allow the measure to move forward. (As I reported earlier this week, the Court is stacked with Ron DeSantis-appointees, and now the Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody has filed a challenge with the Court against the measure.)

NBC News also reports that pro-choice activists in the state feel abandoned by national Democrats: Most of the funding for the group is coming from in-state donors, even though Florida is a vital abortion access point for the entire South. Greg Goddard, a Democratic fundraiser in the state, told NBC, “If the national donors are going to abandon Florida, then they are abandoning 80,000 patients a year who access abortion in the number two provider in the country.”

In fact, abortions are up by 25% in Florida as people come from around the region to seek care. This influx of patients is happening at the same time that clinics across the state are being bankrupted by Republican-created fines. (After a 24-hour waiting period was upheld by a judge in 2022, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) neglected to tell clinics about the change and started fining them tens of thousands of dollars for not adhering to it.)

As the ballot measure fight continues on and clinics struggle to survive, the state Supreme Court will decide on a challenge against a 15-week abortion ban—a ruling that will determine the future of a more recently-passed 6-week ban. All of which is to say: there’s a whole lot happening in Florida that will impact a whole lot of people. I’ll be paying close attention.

Speaking of states with national implications: Let’s talk about Virginia. Republicans there continue to claim that abortion bans aren’t bans. I shared this ad with you last week from state Sen. Siobhan Dunnavan, who supports a 15-week abortion ban but says “it’s not a ban.” Now this week, Gov. Glenn Youngkin released an ad that claims “there is no ban.”

If this strategy works in Virginia, they’re going to try it everywhere. As I’ve reported before, anti-abortion groups see Republicans’ tactics in Virginia as a model for how lawmakers in other states should talk about abortion. (Namely, the way they’re being aggressive on it.)

In Michigan, a single Democrat is still holding up the Reproductive Health Act from passing. The Detroit Free Press reports on state Rep. Karen Whitsett’s hold-up of the legislation, and how Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is traveling across the state to try to build up support for the RHA in the meantime.

New Jersey Republican Sen. Ed Durr apparently wrote on Facebook in 2020, “A woman does have a choice! Keep her legs closed.” Charming! He also liked a post that called for “spaying women like dogs.” Other Republicans in the state are trying to distance themselves from Durr and his statements. Also in New Jersey, Democratic state Sen. Andrew Zwicker writes that abortion is absolutely on the ballot in the state: “This election could mean the difference between New Jersey remaining a guiding light on abortion rights or turning into another Texas or Florida.”

I told you this week that Wisconsin Republicans seem to be moving away from efforts to impeach newly-seated state Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz—but they haven’t ruled it out altogether and refuse to say explicitly what their plan is. So in response, more than 250 medical professionals across the state have signed a letter calling on Wisconsin Republicans to stop the threats against the pro-choice judge:

“This is anti-democratic. It’s not what voters want, and it’s not what the hundreds of medical professionals who are speaking out want.”

In more positive news, I’m so glad to see Allie Phillips, the Tennessee woman running for office after being denied an abortion, getting some national attention. TIME has a profile of Phillips this week, who spoke about what inspired her to run: When Phillips decided to sue Tennessee over the state’s ban, she asked for a meeting with her state representative, Republican Jeff Burkhart. He not only told Phillips he thought women could only have a miscarriage in their first pregnancy—but that if he had a daughter whose pregnancy was doomed, he’d tell her “to continue the pregnancy.”

“The lack of knowledge, the lack of education, is astounding,” Phillips told TIME. “I thought, ‘Somebody needs to step up.’”

Quick hits:

• Indiana abortion funds say that fear over the state’s ban has less people reaching out for help;

• High Plains Public Radio gets into the new Texas law that allows prosecutors to be removed from their jobs if they don’t go after abortion cases, and The Texas Tribune outlines other new regulations on abortion and birth control;

• Starting next year, you can get hormonal birth control without a prescription in New Jersey;

• Massachusetts is doing the same on a temporary basis;

• And the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus is introducing a bill to protect the right to contraception.

In the Nation

More than 600 Democratic lawmakers have signed onto an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to reject the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that would limit access mifepristone. The legislators argue that the decision “improperly undermines state legislatures’ ability to expand abortion access consistent with the FDA’s scientific judgment and approval processes.”

As you likely remember, the ruling—made by what Vox once called “the Trumpiest court in America”—would ban mifepristone from being mailed or prescribed via tele-health, and would only approve the drug through the 7th week of pregnancy. The Supreme Court is expected to take up the case (but hasn’t announced as much yet). The States Newsroom has a searchable list of the Democrats who signed onto the brief, if you’d like to make sure your rep is on there.

Speaking of mifepristone: Some pharmacies have started to distribute the drug after the Biden administration passed a new rule allowing them to do so. It’s mostly independent pharmacies that are dispensing abortion medication for now, with bigger chains poised to do the same. POLITICO has more, but it’s an important move given that it’s easier for most people to run to the pharmacy for medication than it is to access a drug at their doctor’s office or a hospital.

Susan Rinkunas at Jezebel wrote an incredibly important piece about a bill that could allow Republicans to censor vital abortion information from the Internet. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which is being co-sponsored by 22 Democratic Senators, sounds innocuous enough: It would require websites and social media apps to “prevent and mitigate” harms to children.

But as Rinkunas reports, the bill would allow state Attorneys General to sue these companies if they think certain content is harmful to children, “meaning AGs could weaponize the law to attack content they simply disagree with.” In response, the sites “likely would preemptively block content they think could get them sued.”

If you’re a regular reader, you know that Republicans in multiple states have already introduced legislation that would make certain pro-choice websites illegal—and give citizens the right to sue internet service providers that don’t block said sites. The fear is that legislation like KOSA would empower those efforts. As Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) told Rinkunas, it’s massively dangerous to allow state AGs to decide what’s “harmful,” given how many of them are anti-abortion. Read the whole piece, it’s an important one.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) has new language mandating employers allow reasonable workplace accommodations related to pregnancy, childbirth, and “related medical conditions”—including menstruation, lactation, fertility treatments, abortion and miscarriage. Naturally, conservatives are furious. In response, twenty Republican Attorneys General have written to the EEOC in opposition of the rule, warning that if they don’t reverse it, “we will sue to stop the agency from illegally coercing employers to facilitate abortions in violation of state law.”

Quick hits:

• Ms. magazine on how Biden’s push to reduce barriers to internet access will impact access to abortion care, as well;

• The 19th on Republicans’ efforts to restrict out-of-state travel for abortion;

• The New York Times reviews the documentary “Plan C”;

• The Portland Press Herald reports that since Roe was overturned, more reproductive rights organizations are unionizing;

• And in international news, the Associated Press on Mexico decriminalizing abortion.

Care Denied

An Alabama woman is suing Etowah County and the sheriff’s office after she was forced to give birth in a jail shower despite having a placental abruption. From The Guardian:

“[W]hen her water broke and she pleaded to be taken to a hospital, her lawyer says, officials told her to “sleep it off” and “wait until Monday” to deliver—two days away. During nearly 12 hours of labor, staff gave her only Tylenol for her pain, the suit says, allegedly telling her to “stop screaming”, to “deal with the pain” and that she was “not in full labor”. Caswell lost amniotic fluid and blood and was alone and standing up in a jail shower when she ultimately delivered her child, according to the complaint and her medical records. She nearly bled to death, her lawyers say.” (Emphasis mine)

Ashley Caswell was in jail after being arrested for “chemical endangerment” of her fetus. If those charges sound familiar, it’s because Caswell is one of many women who have been targeted by Etowah County—jailed by officials claiming they just want to protect the women’s fetuses. Remember Ashley Banks? She was arrested and kept in jail for three months for allegedly using marijuana. While there she had severe vaginal bleeding, two emergency room visits, and was forced to sleep on the jail cell floor. But sure, tell me more about protecting pregnancies.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall also planned to use ‘chemical endangerment’ charges to arrest women who use abortion medication—a way to get around the state ban’s prohibition on charging abortion patients. (He was forced to reverse course after Abortion, Every Day broke the story.)

Thankfully, Caswell’s baby survived, and now she has the terrific organization Pregnancy Justice supporting her and her case. But this is a nightmare—and a stark reminder of just how full of shit conservatives are when they say they just want to protect women and babies. It’s about punishment, pure and simple.

2024

Donald Trump has released new ads bragging about his role in overturning Roe—part of the former president’s strategy of taking credit for abortion being banned while calling other Republicans too ‘extreme’ on the issue.

Speaking of candidates pretending to be moderate: Nikki Haley has been trying to paint herself as the reasonable Republican on abortion, in part by claiming that a federal ban is “unrealistic” while surreptitiously supporting a national 15-week ban. This week, she let the mask slip, saying at a campaign stop, “I think there is room for a federal law” on abortion.

Meanwhile, Gov. Ron DeSantis is going in the other direction, hoping that doubling down on his anti-choice bonafides will help set him apart from Trump. During an event at an Iowa crisis pregnancy center this week, DeSantis slammed Trump for saying that Florida’s 6-week ban was a “terrible thing.” DeSantis did the same in an interview with the Des Moines Register on Monday:

“Of all the candidates that are running, I’m the one that’s actually delivered results on pro-life protections. A lot of people talk about it, some people—now Donald Trump—denigrate it, but I’ve actually delivered it. And that’s, I think, what people want to see.”

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That’s it for this week, folks! Keep an eye out tomorrow for “The Week in Abortion. Also: If you sign up to be a paying supporter today, you can join in on the “One Good Thing” thread right now, only available to paid subscribers: