Abortion, Every Day (6.7.23)

Ask Republican candidates better questions on abortion

In the States

The South Carolina Supreme Court will hear arguments in the challenge to the state’s recently-passed abortion ban on June 27th. Republican lawmakers asked the Court to expedite the lawsuit by bypassing any lower courts and the appeals process in order to get a verdict as quickly as possible. Their hope, obviously, is that the Court will rule in their favor and that abortions will be banned immediately. (Right now, enforcement of the law is blocked until the legal challenge is settled.)

Jenny Black, president of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, told The Post and Courier that they “remain hopeful the court will follow its own precedent.” South Carolina’s Supreme Court ruled in January that a different 6-week ban was unconstitutional because it violated the right to privacy. What’s notable is that the lead opinion in that ruling was written by Justice Kaye Hearn—who was then the only woman on the state Supreme Court. Hearn has since retired, which leaves South Carolina’s highest court with only male justices. (It’s the only state that has an all-male Supreme Court.)

Also in South Carolina: Republican state Sen. Katrina Shealy has been reprimanded this week for her role in filibustering and standing against the 6-week ban. After censuring Shealy, Republican Party Chair Pamela Godwin said, “Being pro-life is a bare minimum expectation for Republican legislators in Lexington County and Sen. Shealy has unfortunately failed that test very outwardly.”

A reminder that only 37% of the people in South Carolina support the 6-week ban.

A legal challenge to Indiana’s abortion ban was classified as a class action suit yesterday. The suit, brought by the ACLU of Indiana on behalf of four anonymous women of various faiths and the group Hoosier Jews for Choice, argues that the abortion ban is a violation of religious freedom. An Indiana judge found that the case met the requirements of a class action suit because the plaintiffs share a common claim, they’re representative of an entire class, and there’s a large group of potential plaintiffs.

In more lawsuit news, abortion providers in Kansas are suing the state over the requirement that patients wait 24 hours after first seeing a doctor before being able to end their pregnancy, and a new law that mandates doctors lie to patients about abortion medication ‘reversal’. From the Associated Press:

“The lawsuit, filed in state district court in Johnson County in the Kansas City area, argues that Kansas has created a “Biased Counseling Scheme” designed to discourage patients from getting abortions and to stigmatize patients who terminate their pregnancies. The lawsuit contends that the requirements have become ‘increasingly absurd and invasive’ over time and spread medical misinformation.”

Planned Parenthood Great Plains president Emily Wales said, “We felt compelled to do something.” And in keeping with the trend I mentioned just a few days ago, anti-choice groups in the state co-opted feminist rhetoric in their response to the suit: Danielle Underwood of Kansans for Life said, “[T}he profit-driven abortion industry has launched an unprecedented attack on a woman’s right to informed consent…”

As a reminder: Kansas voters overwhelmingly rejected an anti-choice ballot measure last August.

Speaking of ballot measures: You know we’ve been watching what’s happening in Missouri closely. (Click here and here for some background.) Today, a judge heard arguments in the lawsuit against state Attorney General Andrew Bailey—who has been trying to stymie a pro-choice ballot measure by refusing to sign off on the state auditor’s cost estimate. A lawyer for Missouri ACLU, Tony Rothert, pointed out that the ballot summary was supposed to be done by May 1, and that the delay is meant to stop the proposal from getting in front of voters in 2024: “Less time to collect signatures makes the cost go up and feasibility go down.”

We know that harassment and violence against abortion clinics and providers has been on the rise since Roe was overturned—and this latest example out of Illinois is a stark reminder of how bad things have gotten. A few weeks ago, I told you about a man who drove his car into the site of a potential abortion clinic in Danville; he was planning to set fire to the building. This week, the site was targeted again: Someone went to the building site and tore down repairs made after the first attack.

You may remember that Danville has been at the center of an abortion rights fight. The town is on the border of Indiana, where a block on the state’s near-total abortion ban could be lifted at any time. And as we’ve seen in multiple small border towns, the Danville city council passed an ordinance banning the mailing of abortion medication in spite of state law—causing contentious town meetings and an increase of dangerous anti-abortion rhetoric. All of which is to say, this kind of violence is predictable. You can donate to the clinic’s GoFundMe here.

In related abortion clinics news: Now that an abortion clinic in Casper, Wyoming has re-opened after being destroyed by an arsonist, anti-abortion activists are asking the city council to adopt an ordinance condemning the clinic, or to revoke the clinic’s business license altogether.

Meanwhile, Maine Gov. Janet Mills has been working to expand abortion rights in the state—including a law that would allow for abortions later in pregnancy if a doctor deems it necessary. Anti-abortion groups have been fighting against the change, obviously, and now say they believe it hasn’t passed yet because it doesn’t have the Democratic support it needs. (A heads up that this link is from a conservative news outlet.)

In the wake of the Colorado law banning deceptive advertising practices from anti-abortion centers, anti-choice activists spoke at a stakeholder’s meeting this week with the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies—largely to defend ‘abortion pill reversal’. An anti-abortion center in the state has also brought a legal challenge against the law. We’re seeing multiple attacks on abortion rights in Colorado: the fight against the law prohibiting ‘abortion reversal’, a lawsuit filed this week seeking to remove buffer zones outside of abortion clinics, and local governments trying to pass anti-abortion ordinances in spite of state law.

Two hundred physicians in Oregon have signed onto a letter asking lawmakers to pass a bill protecting abortion and gender-affirming care. This happens at the same time that Republicans are boycotting over the legislation—specifically over claims that it would violate parents’ rights. From the letter:

“The majority of young people would involve a parent in care decisions and those who do not have reasons that include abuse or neglect. Physicians will always seek to involve parents in healthcare discussions when it is safe for the youth.”

Quick hits:

• New Mexico abortion rights organizations launched a new website yesterday—New Mexico Abortion Info debunks misinformation and helps users to find abortion clinics and funds;

• A column at the Los Angeles Times on why the persecution of Indiana abortion provider Dr. Caitlin Bernard was a “shameful political farce”;

• Wisconsin legislators are considering a law allowing pharmacists to prescribe birth control;

• Telehealth provider Hey Jane launched in Virginia this week;

• And The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has an editorial blasting Missouri Republicans’ plan to use more than $1 million in state funds on a public marketing campaign to persuade women not to have abortions—even though abortion is already illegal in the state.

In the Nation

Something we’ve been following here at Abortion, Every Day is the connection between anti-abortion and anti-trans laws. In addition to the most explicit connections—like the legislation in Nebraska that combined and abortion ban with a ban on gender-affirming care—we’ve also seen anti-abortion groups using anti-trans rhetoric in their campaigns against pro-choice ballot measures. (Their hope was that tapping into anti-trans bigotry would be more effective than focusing solely on abortion rights, which are increasingly popular across the country.)

Today, the Los Angeles Times has a piece on the relationships between these attacks, and how the strategy that conservatives spent years using to rollback reproductive rights is now being used to do the same to LGBTQ rights. Chase Strangio, the deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU, says, “You can look at the antiabortion playbook and see parallels here every step of the way.”

The entire piece is an absolute must-read, but in case you don’t, there are two important things I want to flag. The first is something else that Strangio said about how the language conservatives are using is “designed to appeal to people’s sense of disgust or fear or vulnerability”—terms like ‘late-term’ abortion, for example, or ‘genital mutilation’. The second important piece is a strategy we’ve written about here as well: the extreme focus on minors. Law professor and author Mary Ziegler told the Los Angeles Times this is the “linchpin” in attacks on both abortion and trans rights:

“If people are on the fence about whether they’re going to tolerate something—a decision that’s different from what they would make—they tend to be more uncomfortable when it’s their own child, or even the thought of any child making that decision.”

And, of course, starting with restrictions on care for minors is part of the chipping away approach we’ve seen with abortion rights for decades. They start there, and then move on to adults. In related news, feminist writer Jill Filipovic has an op-ed at CNN that also connects the dots between anti-abortion and anti-trans attacks.

Quick hits:

• Republicans are asking the Biden administration not to take abortion into account when thinking about the permanent headquarters of Space Command;

• And Ms. magazine on how companies can protect abortion patients’ privacy.

2024

Former vice president Mike Pence, who filed paperwork to run for president earlier this week, made his official announcement today. Pence is the favorite of anti-abortion groups because he’s the only candidate who has done zero equivocating; he wants a national abortion ban.

And after Pence’s speech today in Iowa—where he blasted Donald Trump on abortion—it’s clear that he plans to make the issue the centerpiece of his campaign:

“After leading the most pro-life administration in American history. Donald Trump and others in this race are retreating from the cause of the unborn. The sanctity of life has been our party’s calling for half a century—long before Donald Trump was ever a part of it. Now he treats it as an inconvenience, even blaming our election loses on overturning Roe v. Wade.”

Pence has not only been open about wanting a federal ban, but he has also said that he wants mifepristone “off the market.” Pence is scheduled to have a town hall tonight on CNN, where the hardcore anti-choicer is bound to be asked about reproductive rights. Given we know that Pence will basically do whatever anti-abortion organizations want, he doesn’t need to be asked about what laws he would support—but what he thinks about the consequences of abortion bans.

Speaking of what to ask Republicans about abortion: The Washington Post editorial board has published a list of questions they say every presidential candidate should answer, from whether or not they support a federal ban to whether they believe it should be harder to pass ballot measures. It’s a good start, but we need more nuanced questions that take into account the complexities of how abortion restrictions actually operate in the real world.

For example, WaPo says candidates should be asked about what, if any, abortion ban exceptions they would support. But we know that exceptions aren’t real—no one is really able to use them. A better question would be, How do you think states can ensure that exceptions are actually usable? Candidates also should have to answer questions that take women’s humanity into account! Ask them what they would say to a young woman who doesn’t want to be pregnant but lives in a state where she has no choice? How do they think a person feels when they’re forced to carry a doomed pregnancy to term? I may have to write a column with questions of my own…

Some more 2024 news:

• North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has announced that he’s running for president. Burgum signed a near-total abortion ban into effect in April, but didn’t mention abortion at all at his campaign launch. (Gee, I wonder why!) In response to Burgum’s announcement, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju said,“Like the clown car of extremist GOP candidates he just squeezed into, Governor Burgum’s position on abortion is wildly at odds with the American electorate.”

• Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie announced his presidential campaign yesterday. Christie, who has said he doesn’t think abortion matters as a political issue, said this year that he’s ‘pro-life’ but that he doesn’t support a federal abortion ban.

• Media Matters has a piece on how CNN gave Nikki Haley a platform to spread dangerous misinformation about abortion.

Listen Up

Fresh Air has an interview with constitutional lawyer Michael Waldman about his new book, “The Supermajority: How the Supreme Court Divided America.” (As you can imagine, abortion rights were a part of their conversation.)

More in podcasts/radio:

• Connecticut Public Radio with a long segment on how the state has fared with abortion rights since Roe was overturned.

Hate Read of the Day

I just had to share this headline from the Cincinnati Enquirer, written by an anti-abortion “sidewalk counselor.”

It is one of the funnier things I’ve seen in a while—and quite a claim coming from the people who have been calling women murderous sluts for decades! And if you think the language in her column is much better, please consider that she characterizes women who are considering or have had abortions, “abortion-minded and post-abortive women.” Sounds pretty judgy to me!