Abortion, Every Day (4.17.24)

Arizona GOP wants to launch a fake ballot measure

Click to skip ahead: The fallout continues in All About Arizona. In the States, news out of Kansas, Kentucky, Indiana and more. Ballot Measure Updates from Montana and Nebraska. In the Nation, more about the Pregnant Fairness Workers Act. Democrats’ 2024 Weapon? Women’s abortion stories. Finally, in You Love to See It, Karlie Kloss uses her platform to push for abortion rights and call out the GOP’s attacks on democracy.

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All About Arizona

The backlash against Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban shows no sign of slowing, with celebrities speaking out against the law and Republicans struggling to figure out how to respond to the widespread fury. Their latest idea? Trick voters into thinking that they’re pro-choice.

A strategy document obtained by NBC News shows that Arizona Republicans are considering proposing a ballot measure to protect abortion rights through 15-weeks—a way to undercut an existing abortion rights measure that would enshrine abortion rights through ‘viability.’

The document lays out how Republicans in the state need to change the narrative and present voters with something other than Arizona for Abortion Access’ ballot measure. That’s because they know that when voters are given a choice between an abortion ban and abortion rights, they’re going to choose abortion rights every time. They figure if they can trick voters into thinking their ballot measure is a pro-choice one, they’ll be golden. (Something similar is going down in Nebraska, as I’ll outline later in the newsletter.)

As you can imagine, Republicans don’t actually want to protect abortion rights. So their plan is to “constitutionalize existing [anti-abortion] laws” in order to make that 15-week protection impossible to use. In other words, it’s a bunch of bullshit.

That said, it’s well-packaged bullshit. You’re not going to believe the potential names they’re throwing around for this fake-out ballot measure: “Protecting Pregnant Women and Safe Abortions Act,” the “Arizona Abortion and Reproductive Care Act" and the “Arizona Abortion Protection Act."

Just unbelievable, honestly—I write a lot here about the way that Republicans co-opt feminist language, but this is beyond the pale. Especially when you consider how this strategy document ended: with a meme of Seth Meyers, and the words, “Boom. Easy as That.” Women are dying, and they’re posting fucking memes.

Meanwhile, Democrats in the state have been proposing legislation to repeal the 1864 ban without much luck—but the effort is putting Republicans in the hot seat, which we love. After voting down an attempt to repeal the law today, for example, Republicans claimed they rejected the bill because they don’t want to “rush” anything. Insert biggest eye-roll here.

In more Republicans-are-scared news: The Washington Post reports that U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake is personally lobbying GOP legislators in the state to repeal the ban. It was just in 2022 that Lake said she was “thrilled” by the 1864 law. But like all Republicans at this point, she can see the writing on the wall. Arizona Sen. Ken Bennett, for example, told the Post that Republicans wouldn’t “have a chance” if they didn’t do something to reverse or repeal the ban.

Gov. Katie Hobbs, however, says that Republicans had it coming. Correct!

“They own this. They voted for a bill that had this explicit language in it. They had the ability to not vote for this law in the first place.”

The anger of Arizona’s ban goes far beyond political junkies; people across the country, women especially, are outraged and afraid. On Monday, Kelly Clarkson interviewed Hillary Clinton about the law, with the former secretary of state calling the ban “cruel.” Clarkson called the law “insane” and “backwards,” and got emotional sharing her own difficult experience with pregnancy.

All of this comes as a new poll shows that Arizona Republican voters are split on the ban, with 49% opposing the law. (Something else interesting from this polling: voters continue to think that the president has very little to do with setting abortion policy. That means that the Biden Administration should be hitting a little harder on the danger of the Comstock Act.)

Finally, in just about the least surprising news ever, Arizona-based traffic has jumped at Plan C, a website that helps people obtain abortion medication.

In the States

A Kentucky judge is allowing a lawsuit to move forward that seeks to remove a buffer zone from a Louisville abortion clinic. The anti-abortion activists who brought the suit say that the protective zone is a violation of their free speech rights. As you may remember, we’re seeing these kinds of suits more and more–anti-choicers claiming that harassing patients and staff is a First Amendment right.

I’ve been raising the alarm about this strategy since last year, and it’s an important one to watch—especially since the suits are coming alongside Republican efforts to repeal the FACE Act. (That’s the federal law that makes it illegal to do violence to an abortion clinic or block patients from gaining access.) As violence and harassment against abortion providers and clinic staff increases—by a lot—it’s vital that we’re doing everything we can to protect them.

Some good news in Kansas, were Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed anti-trans and anti-abortion bills—including one that would have made it illegal to ‘financially coerce’ someone who had an abortion. The language there was so broad that even divorcing someone could be seen as financial coercion. Anti-abortion groups have responded by trying to give Gov. Kelly a Trump-esque name, “Governor ‘Coercion Kelly.’” They’re really reaching these days.

This week, the Associated Press reports on something Abortion, Every Day flagged last month: how Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita is pressuring the governor and legislature to bring back publicly available individual abortion reports. Now that there are virtually no abortions in Indiana, the state switched to aggregate reports in order to ensure that patients aren’t identifiable.

But Rokita—best known for his harassment campaign against Dr. Caitlin Bernard, the abortion provider who treated a 10-year-old rape victim—says that without the reports, he’s not able to get tips from anti-abortion snitches anymore. Rachel Jones, researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, tells the AP that the move is all about intimidating patients and providers. “There’s no public health or even legal purpose for trying to impose this,” she said.

Remember: Abortion reports are a growing conservative strategy, so make sure to keep an eye on stories like this.

Quick hits:

• Tennessee Democrat Sen. London Lamar is pushing legislation that would establish a maternal mortality committee;

• A former Marine has been sentenced to nine years in prison for firebombing a California Planned Parenthood;

• And we’re keeping an eye on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Democrats’ 2024 Weapon: Women’s Stories

If you’re a regular reader, you know how powerful abortion stories have been for Democrats since Roe was overturned. We watched Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, for example, bring home his reelection thanks in large part to a campaign ad featuring a young woman talking about being raped and impregnated as a child. And just a few weeks ago in Alabama, Democrat Marilyn Lands flipped a state House seat by sharing her own abortion story.

The Associated Press says it’s becoming a trend. Tennessee Rep. Gloria Johnson, for example, talked about an abortion she had at 21 years old at a Republican-controlled House panel. “The reality is that we're in a situation where people act like stories like mine are one in a million when actually they happen every day,” she later said.

The Biden-Harris campaign are bringing some of those compelling personal stories on the campaign trail. Amanda Zurawski, the Texas woman who went septic after being denied an abortion, and Kaitlyn Joshua, the Louisiana woman denied miscarriage treatment, both campaigned for the president in North Carolina last week. This week the pair are in Wisconsin. (This also follows a heart-breaking ad featuring Zurawski that Democrats are pushing out in Arizona.)

Zurawski said what she went through was “nothing short of barbaric,” and it happened “because of Donald Trump.” Joshua talked about her doctors being afraid to treat her:

“They instead sent me home, sent home on prayers. I remember the young lady said ‘We’ll be praying for you and you’re just gonna have to handle this at home.’” 

So now we’re giving “thoughts and prayers” to miscarriages, apparently. Nightmare.

Ballot Measure Updates

Montana abortion rights advocates officially launched their ballot measure campaign this week, after being held up by Republicans for months. Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights will need to get 60,000 signatures by June 21 to qualify for the ballot.

The ballot measure initiative in Missouri has raised nearly $5 million in the past three months. Abortion rights advocates there just have a few weeks left to gather the signatures they need to get abortion on the ballot. In addition to the absolutely bonkers attacks from Republicans, the group has had to contend with an anti-abortion “decline to sign” campaign.

This week, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch debunked that groups’ (outrageous) claims, most of which we’ve seen before in places like Ohio. A new one, however, is saying that the pro-choice measure would stop women from bringing malpractice claims against abortion providers—which, of course, is untrue. Remember, these groups are desperate to seem as if they give a shit about women’s health, even as they work to endanger it.

In Nebraska, a Republican state senator just donated half a million dollars to the anti-abortion ballot measure being pushed in the state. If you don’t remember this, it’s similar to what the Arizona GOP is floating: an anti-choice group, using a similar-sounding name to the pro-choice ballot measure campaign, is pushing an amendment to ‘protect’ abortion rights until the end of the first trimester.

But wait! Doesn’t Nebraska have a 12-week abortion ban? It sure does.That means this amendment—which just so happens to be supported by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Nebraska Right to Life, and the Nebraska Family Alliance—would actuay enshrine an abortion ban into the state constitution. Tricky, tricky.

In the Nation

The Texas Tribune has a really good piece on the EMTALA case headed to the Supreme Court. It always feels weird to write this out: justices will decide if states can deny women life-saving and stabilizing abortions in hospital emergency rooms. I wanted to flag this, though, because there’s a particularly important quote from George Washington University professor Sara Rosenbaum. She points out that a ruling in favor of Idaho would essentially allow hospitals to exclude certain classes of people from EMTALA protections:

“Now you've opened the door to excise any disfavored condition. What if, ‘We're going to prohibit our hospitals from providing emergency care unless someone’s dying from a drug overdose, because we think that by offering emergency care, we're encouraging people.’ Or hospitals are now barred from treating populations with HIV unless they're dying. There's no endpoint to this.”

I was so busy complaining about the coverage of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act’s abortion provision, that I didn’t take proper time to celebrate! A refresher: this federal regulation ensures that workers have time off and accommodations for pregnancy-related medical conditions like miscarriage, stillbirth, abortion and more. That’s great news. Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju says, “Nobody should have to sacrifice their reproductive health for their job.”

And Kimberly Inez McGuire, executive director of URGE (Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity), tells Salon that the regulation is a reminder that “the struggles and the needs of pregnant people, whether they're going to become parents, or whether they need an abortion, are very deeply connected.”

Glad to see The New York Times covering the trend of people sharing their abortion stories on TikTok, because it really is so important and cool. But you probably know what I’m going to say: I wish it wasn’t framed as something “divisive,” given we know that abortion rights are incredibly popular in the U.S. I think there’s a way to cover the fact that videos like this get gross anti-abortion pushback while making clear that those opposing voices are in the minority. (Am I forever complaining? Maybe!)

Finally, Andrew Warren, the prosecutor ousted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for declining to prosecute abortion cases, has an op-ed in The Hill about prosecutorial discretion and how it relates to abortion rights. The short version? Punishing state attorneys—who are elected officials!—for not wanting to arrest providers and patients is a democracy issue.

Quick hits:

• CNN looks at why corporate America has been relatively quiet on abortion rights;

• The San Francisco Chronicle on how abortion bans violate religious freedoms;

• The Center for American Progress outlines 5 connections between the attacks on abortion rights and gender-affirming care;

• And Mother Jones spoke to law professor Mary Ziegler about how Donald Trump could use the Comstock Act to enact a national backdoor ban.

You Love to See It

This is awesome: Philanthropist and model Karlie Kloss, who has been collecting signatures for the pro-choice ballot measure in Missouri, has a really good op-ed in The Washington Post today. Kloss not only calls out Republicans for their attacks on reproductive health, but for their assault on democracy:

“This is all part of a nationwide playbook to rip away our freedoms. In Kansas, antiabortion politicians tried to confuse voters with convoluted language on an abortion referendum. In Ohio, they tried to make it harder for a majority of voters to change the state’s constitution to protect abortion rights. Their efforts failed spectacularly, but that isn’t stopping lawmakers in Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida and Montana from trying similar tactics. Activists in those states are trying to give voters a voice on abortion this November, and politicians are trying to silence them.”

I especially appreciate that Kloss name-checks a few organizations she’s been working with and learning from. This is the kind of action we need to see from celebrities and other folks with large platforms. It’s great to see people sharing news and outrage on social media, but if you have the ability to garner national media attention and make a big fuss—now is the time.