Abortion, Every Day (7.28.23)

Crisis pregnancy centers are suing for their right to lie to women

In the States

This made me happy: The City Club of Cleveland held a panel debate earlier this week over Ohio’s Issue 1—which would raise the standards on ballot measures, and make it more difficult for citizen-led groups to get issues in front of voters to begin with. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who was on the panel, got booed when he called the state’s pro-choice ballot measure a “radical abortion amendment.” A true delight to watch.

The video I surfaced this week of a Missouri anti-abortion activist revealing how they’re colluding with Republicans to stymie a pro-choice ballot measure is getting national attention. As it should! The activist laid out, point by point, exactly how they’re undermining democracy in the state. Mallory Schwarz, executive director of Abortion Action Missouri told Jezebel that the video demonstrates Republicans’ “last-ditch effort to retain their own political power.”

Also in Missouri, I told you yesterday that Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe says that as governor, he would consider adding rape and incest exceptions to the state’s ban. The St. Louis Post Dispatch reports on how that stance could set Kehoe apart from other Republicans by appealing to a broader base. Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft—who is being sued by the ACLU for his inflammatory ballot summary for a pro-choice measure—is also running, and was recently endorsed by Missouri Right to Life.

Anti-abortion centers in Illinois and Vermont are challenging the states’ laws that ban them from using misinformation and deceptive ad practices. They’re claiming that the legislation is a violation of their free speech. In a telling quote to the Chicago Tribune, Susan Barrett, the executive director of multiple anti-abortion centers across Illinois, said, “I mean, sometimes people make mistakes but we’re very clear even on the phone about who we are and what services we provide.” Mistakes, huh? As Grace mentioned earlier this week, one of the organizations representing the anti-abortion centers is Alliance Defending Freedom—the conservative legal group that’s suing over mifepristone.

Speaking of Alliance Defending Freedom: a church represented by the group in Washington just lost their suit against a state law mandating that health plans include abortion coverage. A U.S. District judge ruled that Washington’s law was religiously “neutral.”

Indiana OBGYNS, including Dr. Caitlin Bernard—who was targeted by state attorney general Todd Rokita by a year-long harassment campaign—write in the Indianapolis Star that the state’s abortion ban is going to kill women:

“The risk of dying during pregnancy or the postpartum period is higher in states with restricted access to abortion. A 2022 study found maternal death rates were 62% high in abortion-restricted states compared to states where abortion was more easily accessible. It is unconscionable that Hoosiers, who already experience one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the United States, are being put at even more at risk by this abortion ban.”

The doctors also point out Republican leaders aren’t just putting Indiana “on the wrong side of the widening maternal health divide” because of the lack of abortion care—but because doctors aren’t going to want to practice in the state because of it.

Finally, in North Carolina, the executive director of Pro-Choice North Carolina, Tara Romano, writes that the attack on LGBTQ rights and abortion rights are from the same playbook—from junk science and scare tactics, to escalating protests outside of clinics and drag shows: “Many of us who care about abortion access and LGBTQ+ rights know that our issues are intricately linked.”  

Quick hits:

• POLITICO and The Washington Post on the abortion rights ballot measure fight in Ohio, and how it’s a sign of things to come in other states;

• Colorado NPR on so-called abortion ‘reversals’;

• Texas businesses are taking it upon themselves to give out free emergency contraception;

• And Yahoo News on how Wisconsin’s new Supreme Court is likely to overturn the state’s abortion ban.

In the Nation

Congress is heading into an August recess, which leaves some key spending bills in limbo. The appropriations package for the Dept. of Agriculture and FDA, for example, is on hold until lawmakers reconvene in September—largely because Republicans added in a ban on the shipping of abortion medication. Legislators did pass a spending bill that funds veteran programs and military construction projects, but just barely. Hundreds of military promotions and nominations are also on hold, thanks to Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s protest of the Pentagon’s abortion policy, which allows service members to take time off and get reimbursed for out-of-state travel for abortion care.

President Joe Biden spoke out again about Tuberville’s actions, saying that the Republican is undermining the military with his “extreme political agenda”:

“Tens of thousands of America’s daughters and sons are deployed around the world tonight, keeping us safe from immense national security challenges, but the senator from Alabama is not.”

Vice President Kamala Harris was in Des Moines, Iowa today to talk about abortion rights. I haven’t had a chance to watch everything, but I did catch one thing Harris said that I couldn’t agree with more: “This is not an intellectual debate. People are playing political games with other people’s lives.” You can watch the full conversation below:

Quick hits:

• Agence France-Presse on the abortion providers using shield laws to ship medication to anti-choice states;

• EMILY’s List has launched a new initiative called Madam Mayor that will (you guessed it) work towards electing and supporting female mayors;

• And Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell points out the cruel hypocrisy of Republicans forcing people into childbirth only to cut funding meant to provide food to hungry babies and families.

2024

Mike Pence spoke at a conference yesterday for the conservative Napa Institute, where he promised to only appoint anti-abortion cabinet members. Pence also made clear that his support of a 15-week national abortion ban is just a way to move towards a total ban:

“We are at a turning point, but we have only come to the end of the beginning. Frankly, it may take us as long to restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law as it took us to overturn Roe v. Wade, but I can judge from the enthusiasm and the passion and the faith of the people here…that you will not rest, you will not relent.”

That sentiment was echoed by the organization’s founder Tim Busch, who said that the entire point of ending abortion at 15 weeks is to get the ball rolling: “If 15 weeks, why not 14 weeks, if 14 weeks why not 13 weeks?”

We’ve always known that they never planned to stop at 15-weeks. We never believed that their ‘reasonable’ ‘compromises’ were about anything other than banning abortion entirely. But it’s interesting to see conservatives talking so explicitly about that fact.

Also in 2024 news: Republican presidential candidates are descending on Iowa tonight for the Lincoln Dinner, where they will have 10 minutes each to address the audience. If any of them say something noteworthy on abortion, I’ll include it in “The Week in Abortion” tomorrow.

Care Denied

The Nation reports on how incarcerated women are being denied abortions despite their legal right to obtain care. One woman in Ohio, for example, found out she was pregnant during the medical intake process at the Cuyahoga County Jail. When she told the doctor that she wanted an abortion, they responded that the jail wouldn’t help her because she was only sentenced to 90 days: “She told me if I choose to move forward with that procedure, I can get it once I got released.” But by then the woman was in her second trimester, and unable to obtain a legal abortion; she was forced to carry the pregnancy.

Also in The Nation article: a study from ARRWIP (Advocacy and Research on Reproductive Wellness of Incarcerated People) found that incarceration is a more significant factor in abortion access than a state’s actual abortion laws. “Incarcerated individuals were already living in a post-Roe reality,” researchers say.

And, of course, once incarcerated women give birth, their newborns are taken from them and placed elsewhere (most often with family or in foster care). Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, ARRWIP founder and professor at Johns Hopkins, says, “When you have a situation where pregnant people are not allowed to terminate their pregnancy and not allowed to parent, it should make you wonder whether we, as a society, should be incarcerating pregnant people in the first place.”

The Care Crisis

St. Louis NPR has a vital segment about how Missouri’s abortion ban is driving OBGYNs out of the state. Dr. David Eisenberg of Washington University told the radio station that they’re having a hard time recruiting residents, even though they’re one of the top 10 programs in the country:

“Every year that I have been a faculty member, since 2009, we have seen an increasing number of applicants—until the fall of 2022, when we saw a 10% decrease,” Eisenberg said. And when it comes to the applicants they do get, every single person has brought up the ban during their interview process. (A reminder that a recent study showed that nearly 80% of medical students—across all specialties—said that access to abortion was going to impact where they applied for residencies.)

Anti-Choice Strategy: Attacks on Buffer Zones

I’ve brought this up before, but it’s worth repeating: conservatives want to make it easier for anti-abortion activists to harass and attack abortion providers, patients and clinic workers. Multiple lawsuits have been filed in different states seeking to overturn buffer zone laws, and conservative media has started to paint buffer zones as ‘free speech violations’. Now they want to take the issue to the Supreme Court. Jessica Mason Pieklo at Rewire News writes about a case filed with SCOTUS that argues clinic buffer zones violate anti-abortion activists’ right to free speech:

“That case, Hill v. Colorado, is the last remaining precedent protecting the public from protesters approaching them and harassing them. And under the guise of “protecting free speech,” the Roberts Court could sweep it all away.”

Criminalizing Care

There’s been quite a lot of pushback against the 19 Republican attorneys general who want to reverse a new HIPAA rule that will prevent them from obtaining the medical records of out-of-state abortion patients. In response to the outcry, some of those AGs are speaking out to defend themselves. And you won’t be in the least bit surprised over how they’re doing it.

Alaska’s Attorney General Treg Taylor writes in the in the Anchorage Daily News, for example, that he only wants women’s medical records so he can prosecute sex abuse and trafficking. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost claims the same. A spokesperson from his office, Bethany McCorkle, said that the move is just about protecting sexual violence victims—and allowing state officials to collect evidence like “DNA from a rape kit.” McCorkle also said that if the HIPAA expansion goes through, less sexual assault crimes will be prosecuted and that, “victims deserve more.”

I warned literally last week that conservatives would be increasingly using sexual violence and trafficking as excuses to go after abortion rights. It’s so completely shameless. Also: if Dave Yost cares so much about rape victims, maybe he shouldn’t have called the story of a 10-year old victim a “fabrication.”

In Utah, the Attorney General’s office says that the HIPAA expansion doesn’t “serve any legitimate need” and that it will “unlawfully interferes with states’ authority to enforce their laws.” When asked specifically if Utah AG Sean Reyes planned on prosecuting people who leave the state for abortion care, a representative declined to answer saying he didn’t want to speculate. I wonder why that is!

Finally, Nebraska AG Mike Hilgers is expected to release a statement soon, after Senators in the state publicly called him out over his support for the letter. They pointed to the recent prosecution of a teenager who self-managed her abortion, writing that the state already “has an unfortunate history of prosecuting women and health care providers for pregnancy outcomes.”

In one more bit of criminalization news: Law professor Mary Ziegler told TIME this week, “I certainly think we’re going to see a lot more abortion prosecutions. I don't think this [Nebraska] case was going to be inspirational, but I do think it’s likely to embody trends we’re going to see elsewhere.”

Stats & Studies

We know that younger people are the most pro-choice demographic in the country: nearly 75% of adults under 30 believe abortion should be legal in most or all circumstances, and a 2019 survey shows almost 80% of college students want abortion to be legal. This week, a new investigation from Bloomberg Law on Gen Z reinforced those numbers, finding that young people are increasingly worried about the attacks on abortion rights—specifically how they impact people of color.

Twenty-year old Sophie Sikowski says, “After the abortion ruling came out, I kept thinking ‘What’s next?’ At this point I am scared for our generation.”

Also in Stats & Studies news: ProPublica reports on why it can be so hard to collect maternal mortality data.

Keep An Eye On

I’ve been warning about the anti-abortion attacks on college professors: conservative media are targeting individual teachers who do innocuous things like say something pro-choice or publish a paper about abortion. The point, naturally, is to drum up harassment and have a chilling effect on any other professors considering doing anything at all that’s pro-choice. One teacher, however, is fighting back.

You may remember when Abortion, Every Day flagged this story last year: After a professor at Notre Dame put a note on her door telling students she was there to help them get information about healthcare access, the school newspaper wrote an inflammatory article that got picked by all sorts of right-wing media outlets. The Associated Press reports that Tamara Kay is now suing the student newspaper, noting that she’s been “harassed, threatened, and experienced damage to her residential property” and “continues to experience mental anguish” because of the attacks.

That’s all for the week! I hope everyone has a terrific weekend and that you talk to someone about abortion.