Abortion, Every Day (10.2.23)

Idaho docs can be arrested for performing emergency abortions

To skip ahead in the newsletter: Lots of news In the States today, from Idaho to Wisconsin. In the Nation, the Supreme Court may hear the mifepristone case & some reading on the connection between anti-trans and anti-abortion activism. In Stats & Studies, OBGYN residents don’t want to practice in states with abortion bans. The Care Crisis is hitting Idaho and Mississippi hard. Another Texas county passes an ordinance to restrict travel in Anti-Abortion Strategy: Travel Restrictions; in Keep An Eye On, I tell you what word to listen out for in media coverage; and just a small laugh in You Love to See It.

---

In case you missed it: I have a column in The New York Times today about conservatives’ efforts to fundamentally change the legal and medical definition of abortion. Please check it out and share!

In the States

One of the states I mention in my Times column today is Idaho, and their particularly vicious definition of ‘abortion’ that requires doctors treating life-threatening pregnancies to perform c-sections or induce labor rather than provide a standard abortion. The state has been giving Texas a run for its money in terms of abortion rights awfulness—and in the last few days, it’s gotten even worse.

You may remember that the federal government sued Idaho last year, arguing that its ban violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires that doctors provide emergency life-saving and stabilizing abortions. After a judge agreed with the Biden administration, and blocked parts of the state’s law, Idaho challenged this decision. Late last week, the state won when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling.

To be clear: Idaho doctors who give women emergency abortions can now be prosecuted under the state’s ban. (This piece from the Idaho Capital Sun has a good breakdown of everything.) Really and truly, how many different ways can Republicans let us know that they don’t give a shit whether we live or die? The Biden administration has asked the Ninth Circuit to reconsider the decision; I’ll keep you updated if anything happens there.

Texas school-children are being taught sex education by the exact people you would never want telling your kids anything about sex: crisis pregnancy centers workers. These religious anti-abortion centers have been behind red state sex education curricula for years (my 2010 book, The Purity Myth, did a deep dive on this), but it’s still a shock to see their work in action. The Texas Tribune reports on how these over-funded centers are telling middle schoolers that sex before marriage will make them depressed, and that contraception doesn’t really work. Remember, crisis pregnancy centers are dedicated to lying not just about abortion—but birth control, too.

Essentially, Texas is putting people who don’t believe in contraception in charge of ensuring teens don’t get pregnant. Would could go wrong!

The Tribune also points out something vital: the sex education classes are “a stealth way for the organizations to develop connections to teens so the young people will turn to crisis pregnancy centers if they do become pregnant later.” Indeed, one of the programs tells students that if they ever need pregnancy or STI tests, they can go to one of their centers. I thought Republicans were against indoctrination of children??

Democrats are putting more than $2 million into Virginia races as we close in on election day. Interim president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, Heather Williams, told ABC News, “The stakes are so high and holding on to the Senate and flipping the House in Virginia is so critical.” Abortion has played an increasingly important role in the Virginia election, with Democrats hitting hard on Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposal for a 15-week abortion ban.

Here’s some cool news: Allie Phillips, the Tennessee woman who was denied an abortion despite her fetus having a fatal anomaly, is running for office:

“Phillips on Monday announced her candidacy as a Democrat for House District 75, represented by Republican freshman Rep. Jeff Burkhart.

…Phillips [says] while her biggest issue in the campaign is reproductive health care, she is also planning to run in support of public education funding, ‘keeping guns out of schools,’ LGBTQ rights including gender-affirming care, access to health care and infrastructure improvements, especially to help Clarksville-Nashville commuters.”

I wonder if we’re going to see a new influx of candidates like this, who decide to run after being denied care. I sure hope so. You can find out more about Phillips and her campaign here.

It’s been two weeks since Wisconsin Planned Parenthood clinics resumed performing abortions, and a few days since anti-abortion groups in the state called on district attorneys to prosecute doctors and clinic workers. In response to all this, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin president Tanya Atkinson spoke to WISN about just how legally secure they feel and what might come next with the state Supreme Court:

Colorado’s ban on ‘abortion reversal’ procedures is now in effect, making it the first of its kind in the nation. Abortion rights advocates hope it will spark a broader trend across the country that targets anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers and this unproven treatment. From Tash Berwick, political director of New Era Colorado, the group that drafted legislation:

“I think that honestly, these centers are scared because it is the first time that anybody has challenged a product they offer. And so I'm hopeful that in states where reproductive rights are being rolled back, that it gives people a piece of model legislation to use.” 

I told you in “The Week in Abortion” that a North Carolina judge has blocked two provisions of the state’s sweeping abortion ban. POLITICO has more, but the short version is that the two mandates were restrictions meant to make it as difficult as possible for people to obtain abortion care in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy—which is when the state ban says its legal to do so. It’s precisely the kind of chipping away at access we’ve seen for years: Republicans say that they’re ‘compromising’ by legalizing abortion within a certain period of time, but then enact restrictions that make it impossible for patients to get care.

Speaking of so-called ‘compromises’: A Florida Republican is introducing legislation to ban abortion at 12 weeks, claiming that the state’s current 15-week ban isn’t strict enough, but that a newer 6-week ban is too extreme. Rep. Fabián Basabe says that some House Democrats are open to the legislation, which I sure hope isn’t true.

California Republicans have decided not to nix opposition to abortion and marriage equality from their platform after all. You may recall that there was some talk from ‘moderate’ Republicans in the state about doing away with that particular language at the state convention (given just how abhorrent Americans find the positions). But the majority of the party won out, with members saying that changing the platform would have just “stoked divisions” within the party.

Finally, a bit of good news in New York: New York City public hospitals will now offer abortion medication via tele-health, making them the first public health system in the country to do so. Patients can get the pills by going to NYC Health & Hospitals virtual clinic here.

Quick hits:

• As Ohio voters get closer to making a decision on an abortion rights ballot measure in a few weeks, anti-abortion groups are fighting amongst themselves;

• The Boston Globe has a profile of Dominique Lee, the new president of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts;

• The woman who set fire to a Wyoming abortion clinic was sentenced to five years in prison;

• And college students are collecting signatures for a pro-choice ballot measure in Arizona.

In the Nation

The Supreme Court will likely hear the case on mifepristone in the new term, a ruling that will determine the availability of the abortion medication not just in anti-choice states but across the country. For more information on the case and what’s at stake, check out Abortion, Every Day’s explainers on the lawsuit itself and the related fight over the Comstock Act. Also: The Washington Post reminds us that public approval of the Supreme Court “remains mired at historically low levels.”

In some positive Supreme Court/abortion news, the Court has declined to hear a case by anti-abortion activists seeking to reverse a decision that ordered them to pay more than $2 million in damages to Planned Parenthood. I’m sure you remember this group: they put a target on PP’s back after making deceptively edited videos that claimed to prove they were selling fetal tissue.

In case you missed it last week, make sure to read Garnet Henderson’s important piece at Rewire about the connection between the anti-trans and anti-abortion movements:

“For just as long as anti-abortion operatives have used laws to chip away at abortion access, they have also used harassment and violence to intimidate abortion providers into quitting, or hiding what they do…Now, the anti-trans and broader anti-LGBTQ+ movement is unleashing the same violent and threatening tactics in many spaces where queer and trans people exist in public: pride parades, drag story hours, and gay bars. They’re also beginning to target providers of gender-affirming care in the same way they’ve long targeted abortion providers, including pickets outside of medical facilities, harassing messages, bomb threats, death threats, and more.”

And in a related piece at MSNBC, law professor Mary Ziegler writes about Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling last month that allowed a school to ban a drag show fundraiser, and the connection that it has to abortion rights and free speech:

“If the justices were willing to reinvent abortion jurisprudence, why not free speech law? …The message of Kacsmaryk’s ruling is about much more than drag. It’s a sign of how much conservatives see speech, sex and reproduction as interconnected issues. And it’s a reminder that we have just begun to see the ripple effects of Dobbs on American life and law.”

South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace was on The View today, continuing her media rounds to paint herself as the ‘reasonable’ Republican on abortion. I am so over the people giving this woman a platform to pretend that she’s a moderate, even as she pushes for the same exact restrictions that most of the GOP is behind! It is not a ‘compromise’ to ban abortion at 12 weeks, or at 15 weeks—and her repeated talking points about exceptions are, as we know, absolute bunk. Whoopi Goldberg took Mace to task a bit, which I was grateful for, but I just find this whole thing so exhausting. And, honestly, dangerous.

Speaking of Republican women trying to seem like they’re in the “middle” on abortion: Nikki Haley went on Fox News to assure viewers that she would sign a national 15-week abortion ban. This comes after Haley’s repeated talking points that a federal ban is “unrealistic.” She’s trying to have it both ways.

Quick hits:

• Both NBC News and The American Prospect have pieces on how abortion rights are playing out in Southern races (the latter is much more comprehensive);

• The New York Times on how a fight over abortion rights is endangering PEPFAR funding;

• And California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced today that EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler will fill the seat of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Stats & Studies

A new study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology reports that OBGYNs are avoiding states with abortion bans. Researchers found that residents who were set to practice in conservative states were actually eight times more likely to change their plans than residents who planned to practice in pro-choice states.

The researchers also write that the trend is likely to “significantly exacerbate maternity care deserts.” Dr. Leilah Zahedi-Spung, a maternal fetal medicine specialist who moved from Tennessee to Colorado after Roe was overturned, told USA Today, “We're going to see medical students and residents and physicians continue to leave these spaces because they don’t feel like they can practice the full spectrum of care that they spent their life learning how to do.”

The Care Crisis

People are already starting to feel the impact of OBGYNs fleeing anti-abortion states—especially in places like Idaho, which has seen several maternity wards shut down in the wake of Dobbs. NBC News just published a piece on the maternal health deserts in the state, and it’s absolutely gutting.

Idaho women who are suddenly left without a local maternity ward are trying to figure out how they can protect their health in a place where there’s no doctors to help them.

Thirty-four year-old Candice Funk, for example, had HELLP syndrome—which is life-threatening—in her last pregnancy. She just moved to an area of Idaho with no obstetrics unit: “In case of an emergency, what do I do?” (This absolutely broke my heart. As some of you know, I developed HELLP syndrome when I was pregnant with my daughter Layla—and it is an absolutely terrifying disease.) Katie Bradish, 36, has been forced to spend thousands of dollars out-of-pocket and drive hours to get adequate prenatal care. And 32 year-old Laura Olin says of her last pregnancy, “To go into labor at home and arrive at the hospital five minutes later was a blessing that I didn’t know was a blessing.”

Olin told NBC that she’s looking to move out of Idaho within the year: “If you’re planning to have a family, why would you move here?”

Dr. Morgan Morton, an OBGYN who moved to Washington after her hospital’s maternity ward shut down, says, “I definitely have patients that I know would’ve been in support of these laws and now are very surprised at the downstream effects.” And that’s the thing: I have to imagine that the impact on small communities is going to drive a lot of votes.

But the post-Roe care crisis goes beyond the exodus of OBGYNs and maternal and reproductive health deserts—we’re also going to see a crisis around child care. In Mississippi, for example, since abortion was banned, the state has seen a rise in families seeking public assistance for childcare—and the state doesn’t know if they’ll have enough money for them all:

“Bob Anderson, who leads the Mississippi Department of Human Services, said the upward trend in voucher enrollment means the agency might “hit a wall with state and federal money,” forcing parents to undergo a waiting period for child care assistance. The department counted 31,532 families receiving those vouchers as of this month, up from 24,500 last October.”

We knew this was coming, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

Anti-Abortion Strategy: Travel Restrictions

I told you this weekend that another Texas county was considering passing an ordinance to restrict out-of-state travel for abortion care. Well, they did it. Cochran County passed what they’re calling an ‘anti-trafficking’ rule, joining Mitchell and Goliad counties, which just passed similar ordinances.

The mandate, which would be enforced through civil lawsuits, outlaws using the county’s roads to bring someone out-of-state for an abortion. Something to note: The anti-abortion activist behind the ordinances, Mark Lee Dickson, told The Texas Tribune that the rule is “saying the roads, and the airport, could not be used for abortion trafficking into New Mexico.”

This is the first time I’ve seen Dickson mention airports, and I’m wondering if it’s a way for them to go after organizations like Elevated Access—a group of volunteer pilots who fly patients out of states with abortion bans to places where they can get care.

Keep An Eye On

The mainstream media and the word ‘ban.’ Sen. Lindsey Graham was on Face the Nation this weekend, and at the end of his appearance he spoke about reintroducing a federal abortion ban. You know I’m always on the lookout for the ways that Republicans avoid saying ‘ban’—and that was definitely the case here—but I noticed something else. When CBS’ Margaret Brennan asked Graham about his legislation, she also didn’t use the word ban:

“Are you going to reintroduce your bill limiting [abortion] to 15 weeks of access, which has kind of become a litmus test for a lot of these presidential candidates.”

Now, this doesn’t mean Brennan was deliberately avoiding using ‘ban’. But I think it’s worth noticing what kind of language reporters are using, especially in the coming months. We know that anti-abortion groups have been pressuring media outlets to stop using ‘ban’, claiming that it’s a biased term—and sometimes outlets would rather just quietly change their language than make a fuss and take a stand. But language matters, so it’s incredibly important that we ensure publications don’t acquiesce.

You Love to See It

I’m sorry, but this subhead from an article about a pro-choice protest at Binghamton University had me absolutely cackling. I love college feminists!