In the states…
In Utah, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee advanced the bill that would require abortions be performed in hospitals, effectively banning abortion clinics in the state. If passed, the law would also ban out-of-state doctors from prescribing abortion medication—which would severely limit Utah women’s telehealth options.
The Los Angeles Times has some analysis of the Wisconsin state Supreme Court primary, noting that voter turnout was off-the-charts: 958,835 in total, 20% of Wisconsin voters, compared to the previous record in 2020 of 705,138. (The article also points out that the Republican running, Judge Daniel Kelly, not only opposes abortion rights, but marriage equality.)
In Montana, Republicans are pushing legislation that would ban abortion after 24 weeks unless the pregnant person’s life is at risk. We’re seeing a lot talk from Republicans across the country about viability, so I want to flag this quote in the piece from Dr. Timothy Mitchell, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist from Missoula: “It is easy to think that viability starts at a specific gestational age. The reality is that these outcomes depend on multiple variables.”
Dr. Alison Stuebe, a maternal-fetal medicine physician in North Carolina, said something similar this week—explaining why any restriction on abortion is dangerous: “I want you to understand that when we ban abortion at any point in time, we cause fear for clinicians and take us away from our fiduciary responsibility to do what is best for the patient in front of us.” Dr. Stuebe was one of the over a thousand doctors and health care providers in North Carolina who signed onto a letter asking lawmakers to oppose any more abortion restrictions in the state, where women can only end their pregnancy before 20 weeks.
We know the GOP is going to continue to hammer on later abortions—they know just how popular abortion rights are, and they think their only way forward is painting Democrats as ‘extreme.’ It is incredibly important that Democrats don’t go on the defensive for exactly the reason these doctors are laying out: Pregnancy is too complicated to legislate.
These days I think a lot about Adam Serwer’s now-famous observation that “the cruelty is the point,” and that’s the first thing that came to mind when I saw what Missouri Republicans are up to. Lawmakers have been debating a bill to expand postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to a year as a move to lower the state’s maternal mortality rate. But Republicans have just added in language that says women who have abortions will be ineligible for the coverage. (The federal Medicaid template for extended coverage says women are eligible “regardless of the reason the pregnancy ends.”)
Again, the whole point of this bill is to stop women from dying—so what these lawmakers are essentially saying is that they don’t care what happens to women who have abortions. It’s such a nasty, telling move. Not to mention, women who take the time to apply for coverage specific to pregnancy were likely planning on remaining pregnant—which means if they end up having an abortion, it’s likely because of a complication that will require they have more care, not less. Disgusting.
Speaking of disgusting: The Arizona Senate passed a ‘born alive’ bill—legislation that is more a political stunt than anything, yet could have horrific consequences for families and their fatally-ill newborns. We know that there are no ‘born alive’ situations in abortion, yet what this bill would do is force doctors to perform invasive, painful procedures on premature babies with no chance for survival. If a baby is born too early to survive, for example, families will most often be given the chance to hold their child while it peacefully passes away. Under legislation like this, that opportunity would be taken from mothers and fathers, while doctors are forced to perform pointless resuscitation procedures. It’s awful.
Meanwhile, Nebraska lawmakers are debating a 6-week abortion ban, which passed out of the legislature’s Health and Human Services committee this week. Andi Curry Grubb, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Nebraska, said the vote didn’t come as a surprise:
“We have a long fight still ahead of us, and we stand with Nebraskans—a growing majority of whom support keeping abortion safe and legal…But, the reality is, Nebraska lawmakers now have more control over our bodies and futures than we do. And it’s imperative we let them know this proposed ban is unacceptable.”
Wyoming’s proposed abortion ban also passed through a Senate committee yesterday. (The state’s existing ban is currently blocked.) Just a reminder: This is the legislation that would expand Republican lawmakers’ power to interpret the state constitution, a move they’re hoping will allow them to push the legislation through regardless of what the courts or voters want.
ProPublica reports today on the battle between Tennessee Right to Life and Republican legislators in the state, something we’ve been talking about a lot here recently. I just had to share some of the truly bananas things that the group’s representative, Will Brewer, has said about why they oppose an exception for women’s lives. Brewer and Tennessee Right to Life not only take issue with doctors using their best good faith judgement, but also oppose language in the bill that would allow doctors to perform abortions in order to prevent a medical emergency. Brewer says, “That would mean that the emergency hasn’t even occurred yet.” He claims that pregnancy complications often just “work themselves out” and that doctors should be forced to “pause and wait this out and see how it goes.” Yeah, I’m sure that will work out great for women.
More in men who hate women: The Republican who proposed a bill to make abortion a homicide in Alabama, Rep. Ernie Yarbrough, gave an interview to a local conservative blog explaining how understanding and kind he is to make sure that not all women who have abortions are arrested: “This bill says is if a woman is threatened, her life is threatened, she is threatened or coerced through threats of physical danger, she would not be held liable for that.” What goes unsaid, of course, is that women who weren’t forced to have abortions would go to prison for murder.
And because Texas will never let anyone outdo them when it comes to punishing women, check out what’s happening there right now:
Al Jazeera has a long read on how Louisiana abortion rights proponents are learning from activists in Honduras, where abortion has been banned for decades:
“Then they cover patient care, contraindications, side effects and follow-up. Next, it’s security protocol: use secure messaging platforms, burner phones, code names and coded language. Ask the patient if they’ve told anyone else they’re getting an abortion… and if they did, come up with a cover story together to explain the pregnancy loss.”
The piece is an absolute must-read, both to understand what’s happening on the ground and how criminalization elsewhere can give us a sense of what’s to come here in the U.S.
And if you’re looking for a good laugh/cry today, please consider that anti-abortion advocates think that the new statue by a Pakistani American artist in a park near New York courthouses is “demonic” and some sort of sign that abortion-supporters are in league with the devil.
Quick hits:
A merger that would bring a South Dakota-based health center to Minnesota has citizens worried about access to abortion and gender-affirming care;
Florida’s Attorney General is seeking to cut off public money to abortion providers for health services that are unrelated to abortion;
The Chief Medical Officer at Planned Parenthood in Missouri urges hospitals to fight back against political attacks on medicine;
Washington is pushing more protections for abortion patients and providers;
An Indiana bill would allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control;
And Texas women now how to travel ten times further for abortion care.
In the nation…
Well, I love this! Attorneys General from 12 states filed a lawsuit yesterday against the FDA in a move to force the agency to increase access to abortion medication. Washington AG Bob Ferguson said in a statement today that “the federal government has known for years that mifepristone is safe and effective” and that “the FDA’s excessive restrictions on this important drug have no basis in medical science.” Thank you. This is the kind of action we like to see!
Meanwhile, PBS NewsHour has a short segment on the lawsuit against abortion medication if you know anyone who needs a refresher:
College students across the country have responded to the attacks on abortion rights with so much activist zeal, it really has warmed my jaded old heart. On campus after campus, students are demanding that their schools provide abortion medication and/or emergency contraception. We’re seeing an increase in schools putting Plan B vending machines on their campuses, and students speaking out more broadly. It’s amazing.
Speaking of young people, The 19th points out that one of the takeaways of that huge study I told you about yesterday on Americans’ views on abortion is that young people are becoming more pro-choice:
We already knew that younger people are the demographic most likely to support abortion rights, but it’s nice to see that things continue to trend in the right direction. The other interesting snippet of information from the report is that over the last year, Republican women have become less likely to say that abortion should be illegal in all cases: In March 2022, 20% of Republican women supported total abortion bans, but by December it went down to 15%. (I really hope Democrats are paying attention to that one.)
This interesting: VICE reports that 20,000 abortion pills have been shipped to the United States since Roe was overturned:
“The suppliers of these estimated 20,000 packets are neither abortion clinics nor abortion telehealth organizations, but instead operate outside of the U.S. legal health care system. The demand for their pills, as well as their success at shipping them out undetected, are evidence of the thriving underground abortion network that has sprung up since Roe’s demise devastated access to abortion clinics.”
Even more interesting is that the suppliers reporting that 20,000 doesn’t include Aid Access—one of the most well-known organizations shipping abortion medication to the U.S. So that number is likely much higher.
In random cool news: Paris Hilton is talking about having an abortion in her 20s and why she supports reproductive rights and I am 100% here for it. Anyone with a platform and influence who can talk about their abortion story absolutely should. We know that people are more likely to vote pro-choice if they know someone who has had an abortion, and I feel confident that the relationships that fans have to celebrities are no different.
Quick hits:
NPR has a piece on the Fairness Project, an organization that works on progressive ballot measures;
One of the largest data collection companies, Acxiom, is being asked for a report on how they plan to protect reproductive health data;
Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity (URGE) launched their Abortion Bans Are Racist campaign;
FiveThirtyEight has an explainer on the abortion medication lawsuit;
The Associated Press reports what will happen if the lawsuit against mifepristone is successful;
And Reuters reports that Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to have a meeting with reproductive rights groups today about the ongoing attacks on abortion medication.
Something to share…
If you’re a healthcare provider or know one, the terrific organization ANSIRH (Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health) at the University of California at San Francisco has launched a project called Care Post Roe. They’re collecting stories from doctors, nurses and other medical professionals about how their standards of care have changed due to abortion bans, and (de-identified) stories of delayed or denied treatment.
Dr. Daniel Grossman, ANSIRH’s director, spoke to States Newsroom about Care Post Roe, saying “The stories are really heart-wrenching.” They’ve heard about patients whose fetuses had fatal abnormalities, yet were still unable to get care, for example, and women whose water broke in their second trimester. The normal treatment in that case would be abortion, but instead patients were sent home: “Then they come back with infection, and several of them developed very severe infection that required very complicated management in the intensive care unit.”
It’s all so horrible, but I’m grateful to ANSIRH for doing this work—Republicans want these stories to go unnoticed, and we can’t let that happen. So if you’re looking for something to share today, both the article and the Care Post Roe project is a good place to start.
You love to see it…
Accurate journalism! It seems depressingly rare these days when it comes to abortion, so I wanted to share from a local Georgia news outlet:
It seems like a small thing, but that subhead making clear that women will be required to remain pregnant is actually a pretty big deal. Too often, I don’t see reporters using that kind of stark, yet accurate, language. More of this please!
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