Abortion, Every Day (3.29.23)
North Carolina proposes abortion ban punishable by life in prison
In the states…
The biggest breaking news today is that North Carolina Republicans have introduced a near-total abortion ban that defines life as beginning at fertilization. We’ve been expecting this to come down for a while, but that doesn’t make it any easier. A few takeaways from the legislation:
The bill claims it doesn't apply to contraception, but the language doesn't qualify which birth control they're talking about. That's important: Conservatives believe IUDs and Plan B prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg, and are therefore abortifacients.
Keeping with the latest multi-state trend, the legislation also tries to redefine abortion. It claims treatment for an ectopic pregnancy isn't abortion, nor is the “removal of a dead, unborn child.” That distinction means the law wouldn't allow miscarriage treatment for women whose fetuses still have a heartbeat, something that has been a huge health risk for women who have gotten dangerous infections or gone septic after being denied care.
There are no exceptions for rape, incest or health of the pregnant person. The bill claims to protect life of the pregnant person, but the language is similar to that of Tennessee’s bullshit ‘exception’—it doesn’t do much.
The penalties for doctors are no less than $100,000 in fines for each violation of the law, the revocation of their medical license, and up to life in prison.
If the ban passes in the state, it wouldn’t just impact those in North Carolina, but anyone seeking an abortion in the South. The state has been a safe haven for abortion care—an important one, especially now that Florida is set to pass a 6-week abortion ban any day.
Doctors in the state have been speaking up for months, begging legislators not to enact any further restrictions on abortion. Yesterday, they took out a full page advertisement in The News & Observer:
I’ll keep you updated as I find out more.
Meanwhile, Montana Democrats walked out of a committee hearing in protest yesterday after Republicans refused to stop using inflammatory language about abortion. Legislators in the Senate Judiciary Committee were debating a bill that would ban dilation and evacuation procedures. And the language of the legislation is about as inflammatory as you can get. Sen. Shannon O’Brien, speaking to Republican House Speaker Matt Regier, said, “If I were a person who had had an abortion, I would hear ‘You are a murderer’. And not only are you a murderer, you dismember, and you cut these things apart.” Regier’s response? Asking if it was true.
But it was when Republicans started to talk about Satanism that Democrats had finally had enough. Sen. Jen Gross, said, “I don’t understand how Satanism is relevant to this bill or this discussion today.” Regier responded, “Let’s find out.” That’s when the lawmakers walked out. There’s no overstating how dangerous this kind rhetoric is. We’ve seen what it leads to.
The Ohio Supreme Court has set a date to hear the lawsuit brought by anti-choice groups trying to stymie a pro-choice ballot measure. (Anti-abortion activists want the amendment split into two as a way to stall or stop the process and to require pro-choice advocates to obtain twice as many signatures to move the measure forward.) They’re asking evidence to be filed by the end of the month. The legal director of ACLU of Ohio, Freda Levenson, says, “The extremists behind this lawsuit are desperate to prevent Ohioans from going to the polls and voting on the Reproductive Freedom amendment.”
Kansas legislators are also trying to upend the will of voters: They’re advancing a bill that would require doctors to give patients false information about abortion medication, claiming that it can be “reversed.” Democratic Rep. Lindsay Vaughn said patients deserve accurate medical information, “without state-mandated deception.” She said, “We’re requiring doctors to lie to their patients and we’re putting the lives of women at risk.”
I’ve been writing quite a bit about the Idaho ‘abortion trafficking’ bill that would make helping a teenager obtain an abortion a crime punishable by two to five years in prison. Today, The Washington Post gets into some of the details of the legislation, which is expected to be signed into law by the Republican governor.
Mistie DelliCarpini-Tolman, the Idaho state director of Planned Parenthood pointed out that minors are more likely to tell their parents about an unwanted pregnancy than not. “But for young people living in abusive households, disclosing sexual activity or a pregnancy can trigger physical or emotional abuse, including direct, physical or sexual violence, or being thrown out of the home,” she said. We know that this has nothing to do with protecting young people—it’s about setting a precedent around limiting travel and broadening legislators’ ability to punish women.
HuffPo outlined just a few of the circumstances where people could be criminalized for helping a loved one get care:
“Since the bill would criminalize anyone transporting a pregnant minor within the state to get an abortion or to obtain medication abortion, it could apply to an aunt who drives a pregnant minor to the post office to pick up a package that includes abortion pills. Or it could target an older sibling who drives a pregnant minor to a friend’s house to self-manage an abortion at home.”
In Illinois, Democrats are introducing legislation that would allow women to sue anti-abortion centers for lying to them about their pregnancies and health. If passed, the center would incur a penalty of up to $50,000 for trying to keep a patient from accessing their legal right to abortion care. It’s a terrific idea, considering that anti-abortion centers are founded on the idea that they should do anything to stop a woman from getting an abortion—including scaring or lying to her. And it takes a page out of the conservative civil-suit playbook.
Oregon is considering similar legislation that would make it a crime to interfere with someone obtaining health care, and allow citizens to bring civil action against anyone who tried to deprive them of that right.
By the way, in case you were wondering if anti-abortion centers continue to be the absolute worst, consider the woman in this article who was led to believe that if she kept her pregnancy she’d be given prenatal care. She wasn’t, of course, and ended up driving herself to the emergency room when she went into labor.
I told you last week about efforts across multiple states to redefine abortion; today The Kansas City Star delves into the legislation there that tries to exclude abortion under certain circumstances as ‘abortion’. Really and truly: We need to keep an eye on this. Conservatives are desperate to be the arbiters of what constitutes an abortion and they are the last people who should be.
Quick hits:
The 6-week abortion ban in Florida is scheduled to be in front of the Senate tomorrow;
Bloomberg Law has more on the abortion suit before the Georgia Supreme Court;
Idaho doctors say that Republicans’ bill to “clarify” when life-saving abortions can be performed is still too vague (which, of course, is by design);
Democrats in Colorado have advanced a bill that would require insurers to cover abortion care;
And in some heartening news, a proposed “monument to the unborn” in Tennessee has raised a grand total of zero dollars.
In the nation…
Senate Democrats introduced the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH) Act today, which would guarantee insurance coverage for abortion care and end the Hyde Amendment. In a release, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray said the legislation would “do away with harmful abortion coverage restrictions that disproportionately prevent women of color, women with low-incomes, and immigrant women from being able to get the abortion care they need.”
A pilot for Elevated Access—the organization of volunteer pilots who take women out of anti-abortion states to places where they can get care—spoke to the TODAY Show about why she got involved. Kim, who didn’t give her last name for obvious reasons, said that she felt physically ill when Roe was overturned, in part because she had an abortion nine years ago and knows what it means to be facing an unwanted pregnancy: “When you're carrying an unplanned pregnancy, it feels like you're being held hostage. That feeling of being held hostage all came back to me.”
More in women becoming medical refugees: More and more abortion clinics are starting to open mobile clinics as a way to make travel easier on patients. Bonyen Lee-Gilmore of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri said, “The mobile clinic is our act of defiance.” They plan to operate in southern Illinois to help those from Missouri, and will start with abortion medication before moving on to surgical abortion. And in the Rocky Mountains, the group Just the Pill has been offering abortion medication across border towns in Colorado to help those in neighboring states—though there is some concern about increasing violence against abortion providers and what that could mean for mobile clinics. Medical director Julie Amaon says, “Making sure we have that safe place to park the clinic has really been a challenge,” she said.
Quick hits:
The Washington Post with more on Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s refusal to approve Department of Defense promotions and nominations over the department’s abortion policy;
The FDA will hold an advisory panel on an over-the-counter birth control pill in May;
Psychology Today on the importance of abortion exceptions that take mental health into account;
And Sen. Tammy Duckworth asks the Federal Trade Commission to investigate a mifepristone distributor who may be refusing to dispense the drug to retail pharmacies.
Keep an eye on…
I’m going to be thinking about this tweet from Tressie for a while. It is 100% absolutely correct. It all leads back to this.
You love to see it…
We could use some good news today. In Maryland, the department of health has announced that it’s accepting applications for programs that will increase the number of medical professionals trained in abortion—it’s part of a $3.5 million fund allocated specifically for abortion care training. We need abortion providers more than ever, so I was really pleased to see this actually go into effect.
We are hearing more and more about OB/GYNS thinking about leaving anti abortion states. Who could blame them since they are unable to provide a reasonable standard of care to their patients and risk criminal charges in many instances. Some have left anti abortion states while others reconsidered and stayed citing the fact that, if they leave, there would be no one to care for their patients. As a former nurse practitioner I understand their position. But, here’s the thing- unless these state legislators and governors experience the repercussions of their actions they will simply continue enacting more and more restrictive abortion laws. They clearly don’t care what their constituents desire (reproductive rights) so perhaps they will respond to OB/GYNS leaving their state enmass.
From that article on anti-abortion centers in Illinois:
"...the patient believed the center would also provide prenatal care.
“She received no prenatal care services throughout the duration of her pregnancy,” Swartzendruber said. “In fact, when she went to deliver, she drove herself to the emergency room.”
This is unbelievably enraging. This woman or her baby could have died. How the fuck does this even happen? They just thought they'd lead her on this whole time in case she got an abortion eight months into her pregnancy? And they didn't think to tell her at any point to go to a real doctor? What in the fuck is wrong with these people?