Abortion, Every Day (6.6.23)

In the States

We’ve been paying close attention to the ballot measure fight in Missouri, where Republicans are undermining democracy in order to stop voters from restoring abortion rights in the state. First, conservative lawmakers attempted to raise the standards on ballot measures, pushing legislation that would require 57% of the vote to pass a measure, as opposed to a simple majority. They were unsuccessful.

So now they’re trying something different: Attorney General Andrew Bailey is trying to hold up the process by refusing to agree to the state auditor’s cost estimate for the measure ($51,000)—instead claiming that restoring abortion rights will actually cost the state billions of dollars. The ACLU is suing over Bailey’s stalling, but until he signs off pro-choice advocates can’t even start to collect the signatures they need to get the measure in front of voters in 2024.

St. Louis Public Radio reports that Bailey’s office responded to the lawsuit last week, arguing that if pro-choicers were worried that they didn’t have enough time to collect signatures, they should have started earlier. KSDK News has a good, short segment about the details of the conflict, if you want to know more:

At least we have some good news out of Missouri: The St. Louis Department of Health is giving out free emergency contraception to anyone who wants it.

Republicans in Ohio have also been trying to stop a pro-choice ballot measure from moving forward. Today, the Ohio Capital Journal has a terrific run-down of everything that’s going on in that fight—from the special August election to the bullshit messaging that this is really about protecting the state from “special interests” rather than keeping abortion banned.

They also point out that Republicans’ new ballot measure law wouldn’t just raise the standards on the percentage of voters necessary, but would mandate that groups get a certain amount of signatures in every single county. (As opposed to just half of the counties, which is the current rule.) That means that even if a majority of Ohians want abortion rights restored, rural areas could prevent that from happening.

Virginia Democrats continue to raise the alarm about what the next election could mean for abortion rights not just in the state—but across the South. State Sen. Jennifer Boysko says, “I think there are a lot of very frightening things in our future if we do not hold the majority in the Senate, and if we don’t have a successful election year for the Democrats.” Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who tried to pass a 15-week abortion ban and was defeated, has already been talking about reviving the proposal. And Don Scott, the Democratic minority leader for the House of Delegates, points out that Virginia is the last state in the South that’s held onto abortion access. “It would be disastrous for Virginia’s women and for all of those who care about women,” he says. “We’re the last bastion in the South for this fight.”

I told you last week about the “sidewalk counselor” who is challenging Colorado’s buffer zone law, arguing that it violates her free speech. The Denver Post has more on the case today, which claims anti-abortion activist Wendy Faustin should be able to closely approach patients in order “to forge, in the last moments before another of her sex is to have an abortion, a bond of concern and intimacy that might enable her to persuade the woman to change her mind and heart”—something her lawyers say “she simply cannot do…by shouting from eight feet away.”

Buffer zones outside of clinics serve to protect patients harassment and intimidation, something we’ve seen significantly increase since Roe was overturned. And while anti-abortion activists try to make it seem as if the people outside of clinics are just harmless grandmas praying for women, we know the truth is a lot nastier than that. (Also, praying grandmas should also leave patients the fuck alone!) I’m betting we’re going to see a lot more of these cases come up in the coming months, unfortunately.

We know that Americans support abortion rights, even in red states—and the further we get from Roe being overturned, the more those number continue to go up. Last week, for example, a new study showed that the majority of people in Louisiana want abortion to be legal in all or most circumstances—and that nearly 80% of respondents supported abortion for rape victims. A new poll out of South Carolina this week reports similar numbers. Winthrop University’s May 2023 poll shows that only 37% of South Carolinians support the recently-passed 6-week abortion ban, and that 78% believe a rape victim should have access to legal abortion. Just another reminder that the bans Republicans are passing are restrictions that voters do not want.

Very sad news out of Indiana: Whole Woman’s Health Alliance is closing their clinic there because of the state’s “politically driven and medically unnecessary abortion restrictions.” President Amy Hagstrom Miller said, “We are devastated to mark the end of our physical presence in South Bend.” Whole Woman’s Health is one of several groups that brought a legal challenge against Indiana’s abortion ban, which is currently blocked while the state Supreme Court hears the case.

In better news for abortion access, Planned Parenthood in New Mexico has opened a new clinic and is expanding their services to include abortion medication. And in Maryland, a new abortion clinic, the Women's Health Center of Maryland, is opening in the next few weeks. At a ceremony this week celebrating the opening of the clinic, which sits on the border of West Virginia, executive director Katie Quinonez said the center “will be a regional access point.”

Speaking of geographical access points: Anti-choice groups continue to target border towns in their move to ban abortion via local ordinance in pro-choice states. Activists pushing for anti-abortion “sanctuary cities” have focused on New Mexico, in particular—this week, they were in Gallup, a town that borders Arizona. The city council there heard testimony this week over a proposed ordinance that would prohibit the purchase and use of abortion medication and tools used in abortion care.

What’s especially noteworthy about Gallup is that nearly half of the 21,000 residents are Native American—who are especially vulnerable to anti-abortion laws and consequences. At the city council meeting on the ordinance, 17-year old Loxitawny Campbell read a poem in opposition to the measure:

“How dare they put thousands of lives at risk while flaunting the words 'they want what's best for the child’. What about those who grow up in a world where firearms are more important than themselves? What about those who grow up in a world where our worth is found in between our legs? They preach the words of being a voice to the voiceless, while impairing the voices of the people who bring life into this world. How dare you leave us dehumanized and animalized. How dare you. My body. My choice.”

Quick hits:

• Wisconsin Republicans’ plan to give tax breaks for embryos has nothing to do with supporting families and everything to do with enshrining fetal personhood;

• Houston Public Media looks at the 15 women suing Texas over the state’s abortion ban;

• Maryland now has a two and a half year supply of mifepristone;

• Maine pharmacists will soon be able to prescribe birth control;

• And The Columbus Dispatch has some key dates in Ohio’s special August election where Republicans are trying to raise the ballot measure standards.

In the Nation

I wrote last week about the $1.8 billion case being brought against Planned Parenthood by an anti-abortion activist—and how, incredibly, it will be decided by Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. (Yes, that Matthew Kacsmaryk.) Reuters reported yesterday that the anonymous activist—along with the state of Texas, which us supporting the suit—made a filing over the weekend claiming that a recent Supreme Court ruling (over whistleblower lawsuits) strengthened their case.

As a reminder: In 2015 and 2017, Louisiana and Texas respectively tried to terminate Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid provider status but were stopped by federal courts. But then in 2020, the (very conservative) US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said that they could remove their status. This lawsuit wants Planned Parenthood to pay back all of the money it got from the two states’ Medicaid programs from the time they tried to stop working with them.

As Ian Millhiser at Vox has pointed out, the lawsuit is based on an incredibly dubious legal argument and “no sensible judge would hold that a litigant can be bankrupted because it acted consistently with a federal court order while that order was in effect.” But, because the case is being heard by Kacsmaryk, we should be very, very worried.

A little bit more from Vox: I really appreciated this piece from Rachel Cohen about why “Republicans’ abortion bans are nothing like those in Europe,” despite conservative lawmakers’ insistence to the contrary. Cohen gets into something we’ve covered here at Abortion, Every Day quite a lot—the lie that 12-week bans are somehow ‘reasonable’ or ‘moderate’—and how Republicans keep pointing to abortion restrictions in European counties in defense of American bans.

But Cohen reports that not only do European countries with 12-week limits still allow women to have abortions after that point for mental health or financial reasons, obtaining abortion in those first weeks is also much, much easier:

“Across Europe, abortion services are covered under national health insurance, meaning the cost of accessing care is a far lower barrier for pregnant people facing time constraints. By contrast, in the US, cost is one of the biggest hurdles to ending a pregnancy.”

And, of course, the global trend on abortion rights is that rights are being expanded—not limited. It’s only in the U.S., El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Poland that abortion access has been further restricted.

Quick hits:

• USA Today on where abortion rights stand across the country since Roe was overturned;

• And Bess Levin at Vanity Fair on Nikki Haley’s generous declaration that she wouldn’t execute women for having abortions.

Stats & Studies

For a broad reminder on how deeply unpopular abortion bans are, check out this FiveThirtyEight piece that looks at a number of different polls sine Roe was overturned.

While Republicans keep claiming that Americans want some kind of “middle ground” on abortion—namely, a gestational restriction—what the polls show is more complicated. (And more pro-choice.) FiveThirtyEight’s analysis finds that while Americans are mostly ambivalent about 15-week bans, they “unambiguously oppose six-week bans.” They also report that any kind of national ban, even in what conservatives are calling later in pregnancy, “seems to be fairly politically toxic.”

Reporter Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux writes that while none of the polls demonstrate “much of an appetite for more abortion restrictions, even among a solid chunk of Republicans”—and even though candidates are afraid of all the polls’ clearly pro-choice results—that hasn’t stopped lawmakers proposing and passing abortion bans anyway.

“The GOP isn’t backing down on its efforts to restrict abortion, even in the face of fairly broad public opposition. The dispute now—in state legislatures and among the presidential candidates—is more about how far to go and how quickly.”

Yet another reminder that this was never about what voters wanted! Which is depressing! But what is hopeful is just how clear and broad the support for abortion rights are. No matter what kind of messaging conservatives are throwing at the wall, you can’t argue with these numbers.

2024

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to flounder on abortion with the rest of the Republican candidates. Given how he’s avoiding talking about abortion in places like New Hampshire, it’s clear that DeSantis would rather be discussing just about anything else. Still, he seems to have decided to establish himself to the right of Trump on the issue—even if it is out of necessity, thanks to his state’s 6-week abortion ban. He needs to own it or risk seeming weak and wishy-washy. But Republican strategists like Sarah Longwell, of the Republican Accountability Project, say swing voters aren’t going to be fans of DeSantis touting his 6-week abortion ban or his “unrelenting focus” on culture war fights.

In a related conversation, Meet the Press got into Republican candidates’ abortion problem and how different it is for a politician to be anti-abortion in a post-Roe world:

Keep An Eye On

The idea of ‘alternatives to abortion’. This headline from conservative columnist Kathryn Lopez, “There are many alternatives to abortion,” made me think about how often we’re going to be seeing that word—’alternatives’.

It’s been part of anti-abortion messaging for years, of course, but I predict we’re going to see even more of it in the coming months as Republicans talk about adoption, or increasingly push funding for anti-abortion centers.

But there is no ‘alternative’ to abortion. Abortion is about ending a pregnancy; adoption can’t do that. Anti-abortion centers can’t help with that. The ‘alternative’ they’re talking about is forced pregnancy. And that’s what we need to be hitting on whenever a Republican mentions alternatives—the only option they’re giving women is pregnancy. And so they’re not offering ‘alternatives’ at all.

What Conservatives Are Saying

One of the most frustrating parts of modern political discourse is the obsession with debating—if I never see another YouTube video claiming to show someone getting “DESTROYED BY LOGIC” it will be too soon. But even in the more traditional sense of ‘debate’, there is something exhausting (and ridiculous) about the idea that we need to give equal weight or consideration to two sides of an issue when one of those sides is absurd. This is especially true when we’re talking about abortion, and being asked to defend our literal humanity.

That’s why I was so glad to see that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) refused a debate last month with the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG). Instead, they responded with this brief note:

“The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists will not debate abortion as a part of essential reproductive healthcare. Rather, we will continue to affirm that the role of abortion in our patients’ lives is settled science.”

Anti-abortion activists, naturally, were furious. A representative from Heartbeat International—the largest network of anti-abortion centers in the world—said, “ACOG cannot defend its position that abortion is healthcare…so clearly a debate would be out of reach for them.”

But here’s the thing: pro-choicers don’t need to debate. We have public support—and science—on our side. Anti-abortion activists and organizations, however, do not. They rely on positioning themselves in opposition to abortion rights advocates in order to glean the credibility they’re so desperate for. From a column I wrote last year about why we need to stop debating abortion:

Our very presence in such discussions lends credence to those who don’t otherwise have any. After all, what kind of credibility does the anti-abortion movement have? They don’t have science or popular opinion on their side—nor do they have the moral high ground, despite their best efforts to claim as much. The only thing that they have is us, continually showing up to defend ourselves as if our beliefs and humanity need defending.

It’s something I think we’re going to need to remember in the coming months as Republicans and anti-abortion groups demand that we defend ideas that are already well-established and supported.