In the states…
When State Sen. Jessica Garvin saw a study that showed Oklahoma was one of the worst states for women to live in, she decided to work on a new legislative study herself with the question: What would it take to make the state more welcoming, equitable and safe for women? Sounds like a great idea, right? It would be, but Garvin is a Republican—and she decided it was unnecessary to include any data or research on abortion. Her defense of the decision was almost as bad as the omission itself: She said the study was only meant to look at issues that were “not political.”
"I wanted to address all of the things that were not political. Why is our wage gap so big? Why do we have maternal health deserts? Why do we have child care deserts? The number of women CEOs... what's the reason for that?”
Ah yes, the wage gap and child care—famously non-political. The study also looked economic inequality and domestic violence, by the way. So…what?
There is no way to talk about women’s health, happiness and success without talking about abortion—and Garvin knows it.
In New Mexico, legislators who are actually eager to work in the real world are looking at different ways that they can protect and expand reproductive rights and health. Democrats in the state will prioritize legislation that helps those in rural communities get access to abortion, that helps medical professionals under water treating out-of-state patients, and that works to increase the number of health care providers in the state. New Mexico lawmakers are also looking to codify Roe in the next legislative session.
Love this: Kentucky pro-choicers are still feeling that midterms afterglow. From 21 year-old student Lexie Overstreet:
“It was great to wake up this morning and know that Kentuckians are on the same side as me. And know that the thousands of doors that I knocked aren’t going to be forgotten and that all those people I talked to, they cast their vote and their vote was heard.”
Meanwhile, Kentucky’s Supreme Court will start to hear challenges to the state abortion ban tomorrow.
Ohio Republicans are looking to enact even more abortion restrictions in the state (the current 6-week ban is blocked). Peter Range of Ohio Right to Life is pushing for a bill to outlaw all abortions, and bills are being introduced and debated in the state that would make abortion a felony, and would recognize a fertilized egg to be a person with constitutional rights.
Kellie Copeland, executive director of ProChoice Ohio, said, “Anti-choice politicians are planning to once again ban abortion and impose the cruelty of forced birth on Ohioans, despite witnessing the way we suffered before a court temporarily blocked the six-week ban.”
Also in Ohio, a first-year medical student from the state has written an op-ed about how banning abortion procedures from being taught will not just “prevent safe and effective care,” but will push talented would-be doctors to leave the state. “Ohio will struggle to retain the best physicians and OB-GYNs under these conditions,” Denisse Morales-Rodriguez writes.
There’s also a similar concern in Iowa in the wake of the midterms, with one college student writing, “The right-wing policy agenda will drive more young people out of Iowa.”
In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the city council is pushing a package of pro-choice bills that would bolster privacy protections, ban employers from discriminating on sexual health history, and add protections for those in the city who might be sued by those in anti-abortion states for helping people get abortions. Co-sponsor of the bills, Councilmember Helen Gym, says the legislation would “put Philadelphia at the frontlines of abortion defense.”
At the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the executive director REPRO Rising Virginia, Tarina Keene, writes about Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s lobbying for a 15-week abortion ban and how his push isn’t just out-of-touch with what voters want, but based on “dangerous medical disinformation.” She writes, “This is exactly why these types of decisions must be left to a patient in consultation with a highly trained medical professional—not politicians with a political agenda.”
And in Tennessee, Executive Director for Planned Parenthood there, Francie Hunt, has ended her over-500 mile walk across the state in support of abortion rights:
“Women my age have always enjoyed the true bodily autonomy to be able to make decisions over our own body, over our pregnancies. And it grieves me deeply that my own daughter and all of our daughters are not going to have that same fundamental right.”
In the nation…
This is incredibly fucked up: The Republican heading up the EEOC has launched investigations into companies offering travel benefits for employees who need to leave the state for abortion care. Bloomberg reports that Republican EEOC Commissioner Andrea Lucas has initiated discrimination investigations into three or more companies who provide abortion coverage:
“The ‘commissioner charges’ allege that the employers are favoring workers seeking abortions while discriminating against pregnant workers and disabled workers because they are not offering equivalent benefits for their medical needs, according to the attorneys.”
You may remember that I wrote last month about the former EEOC general counsel was sending threatening letters to companies for similar reasons, despite the fact that she no longer worked for the agency.
It won’t surprise you to find out that Lucas was appointed by former president Donald Trump, and that she refused to give Bloomberg a comment for their story. This is clearly an intimidation tactic, and a way to create a chilling effect on other companies that might be thinking about helping their employees get abortion care.
Research published in a journal of the American Medical Association shows that a whopping 99% of abortion clinic websites contain third-party trackers, and that almost 70% also put cookies on users’ home computers to gather data for marketing companies. University of Pennsylvania researcher Matthew S. McCoy told The Philadelphia Inquirer that these companies “may not have the same commitment to privacy that a provider might have.” And that while doctors might deny law enforcement access to patient data—the companies collecting that information would likely have no such qualms. This is a huge issue, and I’m eager to see how clinics and providers respond.
In Vogue, five people shared their stories of what it was like to have a medication abortion—from wishing they were better warned about how bad the cramping would be to “immediately feeling so much lighter, so much safer, and so relieved and free.”
The Associated Press says that despite the midterm wins abortion rights had, the issue lost in key state Supreme Court races (thanks to millions of dollars spent by conservative organizations to get anti-abortion judges on the bench).
On Face the Nation this weekend, White House senior adviser Anita Dunn said that President Joe Biden wants to codify Roe, “so that it is the national law of the land and we do not have states that have, in effect, prohibited abortion totally.”
A new study published in the Arthritis & Rheumatology Journal shows that more than half of women between the ages of 15 and 49 who use a common arthritis drug are at risk of losing access to the medication because of abortion bans. The largest portion of women who use methotrexate live in anti-abortion states like Kentucky and Florida.
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