Abortion, Every Day (7.26.23)

They came for abortion, birth control—now, it's IVF

Hey, this is Grace Haley, Abortion, Every Day’s researcher. I’m bringing you the newsletter today. I wanted to start by giving a quick word of condolence to all those who loved Sinéad O’Connor and are saddened by her death. She was a proud abortion rights advocate and her activism will not be forgotten.

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In the States

Wisconsin will have a liberal majority on the state Supreme Court come August—a hugely important shift as a challenge to the state’s abortion law makes its way through the courts. In the meantime, doctors are struggling to provide care under the state’s 1849 abortion ban. Wisconsin OBGYNs describe pharmacists policing abortion medication prescriptions, patients forced to carry nonviable pregnancies, and confusion over who qualifies for abortion care. Doctors are even using fetal imaging to record evidence of nonviable pregnancies as a way to protect themselves from criminal prosecution and anti-abortion vitriol.

One stark example: KFF Health news reports how GOP Rep. Ron Tusler got in a nasty Facebook argument with an OBGYN over Wisconsin’s trigger law. Tusler wrote that the doctor was “angry she can’t kill babies until and occasionally after birth,” and asked whether “I’m a monster for stopping her.” He wrote, “Honestly, how many babies have you aborted? How much money have you made from it? ” (This is a good time to remind you that violence and harassment against abortion providers is on the rise.)

The Iowa Supreme Court has agreed to hear Gov. Kim Reynolds’ appeal of the temporary block on the state’s abortion ban. As we reported last week, the appeal seeks to override a lower court decision in order to allow the ban to go into full effect. A 2018 ban with similar language was permanently blocked by the state Supreme Court last June after one of the justices recused themselves and the court ended with a split decision. A spokesperson for the Court declined to say whether all justices will consider the appeal of this new version of the ban. 

In Missouri, a judge has dismissed the ACLU’s lawsuit against Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft over his proposed ballot summary, which is rife with anti-abortion rhetoric. The summary—which is what voters will see when they go to weigh in on the measure—says that it would  “allow for dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions, from conception to live birth, without requiring a medical license” and would “nullify long-standing Missouri law protecting the right to life, including but not limited to partial-birth abortion.” The good news, though, is that the ruling wasn’t based on the merits of the ACLU’s case—but was more of a procedural decision. (The ACLU filed their suit before Ashcroft officially certified the ballot measure.) The judge will allow the ACLU to file a new lawsuit, and has scheduled another hearing for next week.

Also in Missouri, a reminder from The Kansas City Star that state Attorney General Andrew Bailey—who was just forced by the state Supreme Court to sign off on a pro-choice ballot measure—is one of 19 state AGs who wants the medical records of those seeking out-of-state abortions.

Two anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers are suing Vermont over the state’s shield law that, in part, prohibits the centers from making false and misleading claims. The two centers are backed by major anti-abortion groups, including the National Institute for Family and Life Advocates and the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). As you may recall, ADF is the same organization that played a key role in Dobbs, and brought forward the lawsuit seeking to ban mifepristone—so this is definitely a case worth watching.

Planned Parenthood is seeking an injunction over two pieces of North Carolina's abortion ban. They renewed their request targeting legislation around the documentation requirements for doctors using medication abortion procedures, and the requirement that 12-week abortions take place in a hospital. A district judge already temporarily blocked the documentation requirement, which Planned Parenthood hopes to convert into a permanent injunction.

Jessica wrote yesterday about the all-male panel of anti-abortion religious leaders who met in Georgia over the weekend to discuss political strategies towards fetal personhood, which included calling for the death penalty for those who obtain abortions. It’s important to point out that this group is not fringe—men on this panel work with Republican state legislators across the country to write anti-abortion legislation, and the organizations they represent have relationships with local politicians and state leaders. These groups say the quiet part behind anti-abortion measures out loud: during the panel discussion the moderator (Baptist pastor Derin Stidd) asked, “Why do you all hate women?” The men laughed in response. 

Quick hits

• More from Wisconsin: Dane County has started issuing reimbursements to cover abortion-related travel expenses for its government employees;

• Baltimore, Maryland Mayor Brandon Scott announced more grant funding will go to organizations providing abortion care;

• The Seattle Council Blog reported on a briefing from Washington public health officials on how funding from the City of Seattle and King County has helped out-of-state abortion patients;

• And Columbus Underground on how abortion clinics in the Midwest are mobilizing to help patients across state borders to obtain abortion care.

In the Nation

Sens. Patty Murray and Tammy Duckworth reintroduced the Reproductive Health Care Accessibility Act today, and Reps. Cori Bush and Ayanna Pressley are introducing its companion in the House. The bill addresses reproductive health accessibility for disabled people, including those working in the reproductive health workforce. It includes funding to address significant barriers disabled people face while trying to obtain abortions and reproductive healthcare, including funds for training and educational programs. Love to see it.

On the anti-abortion side of the aisle, U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa conducted a telephone town hall with a representative from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America to tout her fetal personhood strategy in Congress—including legislation to expand the federal child tax credit to include unborn fetuses. Please remember that this is not about helping women and families, but establishing fetal personhood. (It also is more show than anything; when Georgia passed a similar law, almost no one took advantage of it.)

This is important: Hinson’s Providing for Life Act, introduced with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, includes federal funding for anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers and a government-run hotline to deter women from seeking abortions. Abortion, Every Day reported back in January about Republicans' attempts, led by Rubio, to create a national clearinghouse of crisis pregnancy centers that would collect data on the pregnant people who visited. These efforts are all part of a larger strategy to further nationalize anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, and to use the power of digital data to further annul abortion rights.

More news from Congress: Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, The Heritage Foundation, and the Family Research Council are urging House Republicans to vote against the reauthorizations of the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)—the largest global health program to address a single disease in history. The program has been credited to save millions of lives and has been a successful bipartisan effort for decades. 

These anti-abortion organizations claim that the program promotes and funds abortions (this is not only false, but against the law). Some Republicans say they’ll only vote for reauthorization of PEPFAR if the program adopts something similar to the global gag rule. It’s yet another example of the anti-abortion movement’s attempts to upend political order without any concern for the harm caused. From Christianity Today:

“The biggest slice of PEPFAR’s roughly $6 billion annual budget goes to buying antiretroviral drugs and other medical supplies. The contractors’ primary role is to deliver those drugs, often through local health clinics. PEPFAR also funds prevention programs, including funding for both condoms and abstinence education.”

The way that House Republicans are using unrelated spending bills as a means for anti-abortion activism is another demonstration of how Republicans want are pushing through anti-abortion measures at the expense of all else. The newest case is in the appropriations bills where GOP representatives are targeting mifepristone access by mail during the threat of a government shutdown. A dozen moderate Republicans are demanding for this anti-abortion measure to be stripped from the funding bill, according to Politico.

Iowa remains in the national spotlight as Vice President Kamala Harris prepares for her upcoming trip to the state on Friday, while most of the GOP presidential primary field is scheduled to speak at the annual Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines. The White House announced Vice President Harris will be speaking with health care providers, patients, local leaders and reproductive rights advocates about Iowa’s abortion ban. 

This is another moment where the White House has plugged Harris as the face of abortion rights for the executive branch. From The Hill:

“Harris has in recent weeks settled into a role as the White House’s main attack dog going after Republicans for controversial policies on abortion, book bans, educational guidelines and gun violence, among other topics.”

But many abortion advocates wonder if this is enough. Abortion, Every Day has documented how those in the field believe the administration has not gone far enough to protect abortion rights, especially in the midst of Biden’s poorly timed comments about his personal discomfort with abortion.

Quick hits:

• CBS News on Gen Z’s political mobilization efforts around the abortion rights, student loans, and affirmative action Supreme Court decisions;

• The Department of Veterans Affairs will now institute a nationwide religious accommodation process for VA employees following a lawsuit win from an anti-abortion nurse practitioner;

• How prosecutors can use digital data to prosecute abortion after Nebraska’s sentencing of the teen who used abortion pills;

• And the Los Angeles Times on data privacy and the possibility of anti-abortion states using geofence warrants and Google data to track illegal abortions.

Stats & Studies

We are seeing more data coming out describing the migration of patients traveling from states with abortion bans to states with available legal abortion care. Advocates in pro-choice states, which are filling that healthcare gap, are frequently reporting that half of their funds are going to patients who are traveling out of state for care—or that half of their patients are out-of-state abortion seekers. Two examples from today:

• Located on the Illinois state line, Rockford abortion clinic reported that nearly half of its patients were from Wisconsin. The clinic was opened this year in response to the Dobbs decision; 

• Public health officials in Washington reported that 45% of patients who received state-funding for abortions were traveling from other states, and that the number of out-of-state callers to the Northwest Abortion Access Fund almost doubled over the past year.

Data for Progress also released a poll yesterday showing that the majority of Americans oppose the anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ provisions the GOP-led House added to the defense spending bill. In fact, over half of the Republicans polled opposed these amendments. The poll also showed majority support for the military policy that pays for the travel expenses for service members who are forced to travel for abortion procedures—the policy that GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville is blocking military promotions over. 

Keep An Eye On

I wanted to flag a story that describes the broader anti-feminist moment in American history we are living through: The Intercept reported that there is a rise in retaliatory defamation cases against sexual abuse survivors over the last five years since the height of the #MeToo movement—something that’s especially noticeable in the aftermath of the libel judgment in Johnny Depp’s case against Amber Heard. 

It’s vital to track the ways in which the law is weaponized to enforce a patriarchal power structure both culturally and politically: We’ve seen it in the Texas bounty-law case, for example, where a man is using a wrongful-death lawsuit as a form of harassment towards his ex wife’s friends who helped her obtain an abortion. It’s evident in the ways rape exceptions to abortion bans, once widely accepted, are starting to disappear in this post-#MeToo era. We are living through a backlash that feminists have long warned about, where the rule of law is being abused by men who feel entitled to control women with the help of the courts. As Constance Grady put it, “It’s a mass reaction to a mass movement.”

Anti-Abortion Strategy: IVF

The panel of male anti-abortion religious leaders I mentioned earlier in the newsletter (who called for the use of the death penalty against women who have abortions) also discussed something that’s been a hot topic in the anti-abortion movement lately: fetal personhood laws that would limit IVF.  While more ‘mainstream’ members of the anti-abortion movement and Republican legislators don’t talk much about IVF, there’s a sect of activists who are much more openly hostile to fertility treatments—and want to make it a national priority. 

These anti-abortion leaders are framing IVF as an industry where a baby is “more likely to have its life snuffed out at an IVF clinic than at Planned Parenthood.” An example of this is in Live Action’s podcast (at around 26 minutes) with Lila Rose, president of one of the most extreme anti-abortion groups in the nation; and Katy Faust, an advocate and founder of the children’s right organization Them Before Us.

The movement refers to IVF as an industry that produces “on demand, designer babies, shipped worldwide”—language that mirrors the talking points they use to describe abortion as an industry that produces “on demand abortions, any time, paid by taxpayers.” These activists frame both IVF and abortion as industries that take advantage of vulnerable women, all while making the case that the rights and wellbeing of ‘children’ trump those of their parents. They often use the sentiment, as quoted from this podcast, “[babies] are the most vulnerable in this equation, let’s talk about their rights first.” As Jessica mentioned yesterday, the language of ‘equal protection’ is going to be especially important in the coming months; in this case, however, anti-abortion activists are being explicit about women coming second (or, more accurately, last).

The other tactic that’s important to note: painting abortion- and IVF- seekers as victims of a predatory industry means that the movement can frame anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers and adoption agencies as charitable alternatives. 

Abortion, Every Day has long-documented the ties between fetal personhood and IVF endangerment in abortion bans—most recently with Kansas’ state legislature advancing a bill that would establish the “unlawful destruction of a fertilized embryo” as a crime, and the Tennessee lawmaker who told his constituent that IVF doctors can be prosecuted under the state’s abortion ban. West Virginia’s lawmakers have also introduced bills that would allow civil lawsuits against the loss of an embryo as a result of negligence. No matter how much lawmakers backtrack once public backlash arises from these measures, the anti-abortion movement is setting a path towards fetal personhood that requires limiting IVF.