Abortion, Every Day (5.26.23)
3 in 10 Americans will only vote for a pro-choice candidate
In the States
For months, we’ve been following the Indiana Attorney General’s harassment campaign against abortion provider Dr. Caitlin Bernard. Dr. Bernard spoke out last year about one of her patients—a 10 year-old rape victim from Ohio—whose story prompted an international firestorm about the cruelty of American abortion bans. Since then, AG Todd Rokita has been using the power of his office to harass and punish Dr. Bernard under the guise of caring about the girl’s privacy. (Incredible for someone who wants to force a 10 year-old to give birth to argue that the doctor who treated her is somehow the issue.)
This months-long attack culminated yesterday when the Indiana medical board—two members of which are donors of Rokita’s—ruled that Dr. Bernard violated her patients’ privacy. The board issued a reprimand and a $3,000 fine, which is relatively good news considering that Rokita wanted her medical license taken away. The medical board also cleared Dr. Bernard of allegations that she didn’t report the girl’s rape to state authorities.
We know what this is about: punishing those who come forward about the horrific consequences of abortion bans, and sending a message to anyone else who might think of doing the same. Republicans are desperate to keep the suffering these laws cause under wraps—which should tell you all you need to know. (For a good run-down of what happened at the medical board hearing, check out this Twitter thread from Niki Kelly, the editor-in-chief of the Indiana Capital Chronicle.)
Small gripe: In The Washington Post's coverage of this story this week, reporters wrote that “Republicans dismissed the story [of a 10 year-old rape victim] as fictitious. What they didn’t mention, though, was that The Washington Post itself questioned the story in an extraordinarily shoddy piece—a ‘fact-checking’ article that gave credibility to the idea that no such victim existed. (Here’s what I wrote about it at the time.)
We have bad and good news out of South Carolina. Gov. Henry McMaster signed Republicans’ abortion ban on Thursday, but today a judge blocked the law from going into effect. Judge Clifton Newman ruled that “the status quo should be maintained until the Supreme Court reviews its decision,” which means abortion in South Carolina is still available up until 22 weeks. Obviously, Republicans will be fighting the block; Gov. McMaster said, “We stand ready to defend this legislation against any challenges and are confident we will succeed.”
In case you need a reminder of how full of shit South Carolina’s governor is: When Republicans were trying to pass a bill that would make abortion punishable by the death penalty, McMaster claimed that “no one that I know wants to criminalize women.” His comments came just weeks after a woman in the state was arrested for using abortion medication. Also in South Carolina: Doctors there are preparing for the possibility that the ban goes into effect, and warn about the broad impact it would have on all sorts of healthcare—including maternal mortality—across the South.
Something we’ve been flagging here at Abortion, Every Day is the way that Republicans are trying to either sow distrust in maternal mortality numbers, or limit the collection of maternal mortality data (as we saw recently in Idaho). The latest example comes to us from Oklahoma, where The Frontier reports on how multiple efforts to improve the state’s tracking and reporting of maternal deaths have been blocked by Republicans. In fact, most of the bills introduced to improve maternal health didn’t even get a hearing.
Democratic Sen. Carri Hicks says, “My main question is why? We had the opportunity to really highlight meaningful policy changes that would decrease our maternal and infant mortality rates.”
The Frontier has a list of the legislation didn’t go anywhere, including three bills that would have required hospitals and other health centers make a “reasonable and good-faith effort” to report maternal deaths. Republicans know that the maternal death rate is going to go up, and they want the least amount of data possible.
TIME reports on the untenable situation in Louisiana, where doctors continue to be unsure of how to give patients the care they need while remaining within the confines of the law. A reminder that Republicans in the state just rejected legislation that would have added rape and incest exceptions to the state’s ban, and made it explicit that treating molar, ectopic, and doomed pregnancies wouldn’t be criminalized.
We’ve been paying a lot of attention to the pro-choice ballot measures across the country and the way that Republicans are trying to stop them—and Missouri has been at the center of that battle. Conservative lawmakers recently failed to raise the standard on ballot measures, a move to prevent voters from restoring abortion rights. And state Attorney General Andrew Bailey has been holding up the measure by claiming that legal abortion would cost the state billions of dollars.
At the Missouri Independent, lawyer and writer Bridgette Dunlap explains how the success of a pro-choice ballot measure would change the entire landscape of reproductive rights in the state—and reduce an incredible amount of suffering. (Dunlap also addresses pro-choice criticisms of the measure because of its limitations after ‘viability’.) She writes, “A better world is possible.”
Since Roe was overturned, pro-choice states have seen an exponential increase people seeking abortions—especially those who are coming from anti-abortion states. In Colorado, a new report says the state is actually seeing the highest number of abortion patients since 1985. The study also shows that two out of seven abortions performed in Colorado in 2022 were for out-of-state patients. Activists are assuring citizens that the increase hasn’t meant that anyone in the state hasn’t been able to get care. Still, we know that the heavy load on abortion providers and clinics in pro-choice states is having an impact—doctors are overwhelmed and waiting lists are getting longer. And it’s only going to get worse; that’s why we need to increase funding and resources to pro-choice states to ensure they can handle the onslaught of patients.
Multiple civil liberties organizations have sent letters to over 70 California police agencies, demanding that they stop sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with out-of-state law enforcement agencies. An investigation from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) found that police departments in the state “share records containing detailed driving profiles of local residents with out-of-state agencies”—a practice that could be especially dangerous for those who come to California seeking abortions.
A bit of good local news: Pro-choice activists in Edgewood, New Mexico—where an anti-abortion ordinance was adopted recently, in spite of state law—have collected enough signatures to call for a special election to vote on the rule.
Quick hits:
North Carolina Rep. Keith Kidwell has resigned from his leadership positions after making a comment about a female colleague “going to the Church of Satan” after she shared her abortion experience;
Rolling Stone has a piece on the clinic attacked in Danville, Illinois;
Jezebel has more on the Alabama woman being charged for her stillbirth;
The ACLU of Indiana explains the connections between attacks on abortion rights and trans rights;
And Reuters with state abortion rights battles to watch.
In the Nation
Ten Senate Democrats have written a letter to Google asking the company how it treats user’s private location data, especially when it comes to sensitive locations like abortion clinics. The senators, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Mazie Hirono and Amy Klobuchar, wrote to Google CEO Sundar Pichai with concerns that Google isn’t deleting user location history as promised. (Several investigations showed that the company was holding on the data.)
“Claiming and publicly announcing that Google will delete sensitive location data, without consistently doing so, could be considered a deceptive practice,” they write.
Civil rights and liberties organizations—including abortion rights groups—are pushing Slack to offer end-to-end encryption for messages, pointing out that law enforcement have been targeting people’s private messages in abortion investigations. (Remember the teenager in Nebraska?) Fight for the Future says, “Slack is falling short in terms of the most basic guardrails for platform safety and privacy, which could have seismic implications for users.”
Quick hits:
Democrats are introducing legislation to curb ‘judge-shopping’ aka how we ended up with Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk making decisions about mifepristone;
The Scientific American on how abortion bans are driving doctors out of states and putting all kinds of healthcare at risk;
A column at The Hill on why it’s impossible to be anti-abortion and pro-family;
And ABC News gives a broad overview of how abortion rights have been restricted post-Roe.
In the World
Denmark will allow those under 18 years old to have abortions without a parent’s permission;
Activists in Poland continue their fight for abortion rights;
Five years after abortion was made legal in Ireland, access is still limited;
And Parisians are pissed off about anti-abortion stickers on city bikes.
Stats & Studies
A new study from KFF further illustrates something every election and poll has shown since Roe was overturned: Voters really don’t like what Republicans are doing on abortion. KFF reports that 3 in 10 voters will only vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights, with 35% if women voters saying the same. And when respondents were asked which party best represents their views on abortion, 42% said the Democratic party, while just 26% said Republicans. Independents were also more likely to support Democrats candidates when it comes to abortion.
Some other important takeaways: Three-fourths of Americans believe abortion is a safe procedure. This is terrific news— huge part of the anti-choice strategy right now is about claiming that abortion is unsafe (despite all evidence to the contrary). A smaller majority, 55%, believe abortion medication is safe. One stat that shocked me was that three-fourths of respondents didn’t know that mifepristone can be used to manage a miscarriage. That’s clearly something that Democrats need to hit harder on.
Two-thirds of Americans also have confidence in the FDA, and six in ten believe it would be inappropriate for a court to overturn a FDA decision. (Confidence in the Supreme Court, as you can imagine, was less overwhelming.)
2024
As we inch towards 2024, the messaging war continues is ramping up. In addition to Republicans calling their state-level bans ‘reasonable’ and ‘commonsense’, I told you earlier this week about how conservatives are trying to push a federal abortion ban by calling it a ‘national consensus’—avoiding the word ‘ban’ altogether. Now they’ve taken it a step further, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis telling Fox News that that he simply wants to stop Democrats from “trying to nationalize” abortion.
“I think that would be an abuse of power for them to try to override every single pro-life protection in this country,” he said. HILARIOUS. Conservatives are going to try to pass a national ban—DeSantis said he thinks “there’s a role for both the federal and the state”—and claim it’s just a protective mechanism??
This is why Democrats and the mainstream pro-choice movement need to go on offense (writing a column about this at the moment).
What Conservatives Are Saying
One of the most damning polls for the anti-choice movement came out recently to show that 78% of Americans believe abortion should be between a woman and her doctor. The ABC News/Washington Post poll found that just 18% of those surveyed believed that abortion should be regulated by law. That’s huge! So it’s not surprising to me that anti-abortion activists are trying to pick apart the poll and Americans’ support for reproductive rights. In Newsweek, which has become a major platform for anti-choice bullshit lately, an activist from the anti-choice group the Charlotte Lozier Institute, argues that Americans aren’t really that pro-choice because “in most abortion pill cases, there effectively is no doctor.” (Not true.)
You Love to See It
🍽 Restaurants and food vendors in Utah are fundraising for abortion rights;
🫶 Minnesota’s SPIRAL Collective is offering free abortion doula services in the Twin Cities area;
🎓And thanks to a project by a college student, Maryland colleges are now required to have reproductive health care plans for students, including 24-hour access to emergency contraception!
I have only ever voted for pro-choice candidates. If a woman is subject to the whims of the state when it comes to her reproduction, then she's a second class citizen.
I’m not surprised about the stat that 3/4 of respondents didn’t know mifepristone is used to manage miscarriages. I was so frustrated in mid-March during that initial ruling in Texas by how many mainstream articles just simply said that a ruling against the pill would limit abortion access without emphasizing that a ruling against mifepristone puts literally *every* woman in jeopardy because *every* woman is capable of miscarrying. I get that we need to reclaim and destigmatize the word abortion, but there’s a lot of education that needs to happen because the right has done so much damage - most people still think of abortion as ending an unwanted pregnancy rather than a medical procedure that applies to so many different circumstances. Honestly, I didn’t know that the abortion pill was also miscarriage care until I lost my baby at 17 weeks last fall and needed a D&E, which included a regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol. There’s so much you don’t know until you experience it yourself. Anyway, I totally agree with you, Jessica - this needs to get emphasized a *lot* more.