Abortion care is becoming more and more inaccessible as more trigger bans go into effect across the country. The Washington Post points out that if the injunctions in a handful of states are removed it will mean that 1 in 3 American women will be without abortion care.
Speaking of blocks on abortion bans: A judge will decide tomorrow whether Idaho’s sweeping anti-abortion law can take effect.
An abortion clinic in Jacksonville, Florida was swarmed by anti-choice protesters recently, who blocked access to the building so that patients couldn’t go in. A Woman’s Choice says that the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office is working in “collusion with anti-abortion protesters,” by refusing to enforce laws meant to protect clinics. “[O]ur complaints about the harassment, intimidation, threats and acts of violence against our staff, volunteers and patients have gone unaddressed by the JSO for years,” a statement from the clinic said.
If you want to support A Woman’s Choice, you can donate here.
In Indiana, despite the state ban, women may be able to self-manage abortions at home without it being illegal. Law experts point out that while the state ban makes providing abortions or prescribing abortion medication illegal, it’s not explicitly against the law to take abortion medication. (Please note: this is not legal advice, people are likely to be criminalized no matter what the law is.) Also in Indiana, CBS News talks with one of the many abortion providers leaving, who says, “Being forced to leave my home because of the work that I do is so heartbreaking.”
In Tennessee, the governor is defending the state’s total abortion ban against accusations that doctors will fear prison when providing abortion to save a woman’s life. Gov. Bill Lee says “the law provides for treatment of dangerous maternal health issues,” but doctors aren’t so sure. The biggest hurdle is the law’s ‘affirmative defense’ clause, which means a doctor will need a “preponderance of evidence” that a person’s life was in danger—putting the burden on the doctor to prove that an abortion was necessary. From a former assistant U.S. attorney:
“It doesn’t prevent any doctor from being charged with this crime for any abortion, no matter how necessary. Those decisions are going to be left in the hands of individual prosecutors in every judicial district in the state of Tennessee.”
The woman in Louisiana who was denied an abortion despite her fetus’ deadly complication was not the first woman in the state to have a compassionate medical choice stolen from her. A doctor told Baton Rouge Public Radio about a patient who had an abnormal ultrasound in her first trimester—but didn’t find out just how serious the fetal abnormalities were until the middle of her pregnancy. Because this doctor wasn’t legally allowed to give her an abortion, and because she didn’t have the money to travel out of state, she had to continue with the pregnancy until having a stillbirth in her third trimester. Monstrous.
Thanks to voters in Kansas, abortion is still legal (despite desperate recount efforts)—but some are still having to seek care out-of-state because of the weeks-long waiting times. Christina Bourne, medical director of the Trust Women clinic in Wichita:
“We truly could be doing abortion care 24 hours a day and we would not meet the demand. At the end of the day, we’re also humans. People have families. People have lives to attend to. We’re in this for the long haul, and if we burn ourselves out sprinting right out of the gate, it won’t be sustainable for us.”
To help out the Trust Women clinic, click here.
Kentucky Planned Parenthood is remaining open despite their inability to provide abortion care; they will still see patients for wellness visits, birth control, emergency contraception and gender affirming care.
Remember when I told you anti-abortion activists would be heading to states where abortion is still legal? Here’s another one, a guy from Texas trying to help out anti-choice extremists in Nebraska.
The abortion desert in the South is mostly impacting the care of Black women. Kwajelyn Jackson, the executive director at the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta, Georgia, says this:
“We’ve been living in multiple Americas for a long time. But what we’re seeing is another basic human right to health and wellbeing being so out of reach for so many.’’
In Utah, where a trigger ban has been temporarily blocked, legislators and activists on both sides of the aisle are working on what’s next. For pro-choicers, in addition to keeping that law blocked, the strategy seems to be harm reduction: State Rep. Jennifer Dailey-Provost, wants to introduce a bill that would allow rape victims to report their attack to doctors, counselors and crisis centers—the state trigger law mandates rape be reported to law enforcement before a victim is able to obtain an abortion. And Rep. Angela Romero wants to remove criminal penalties for abortion providers.
Utah Republicans, however, want to go even further: Sen. Dan McCay, who authored the state’s trigger ban, for example, is making moves to amend the state constitution to address (and limit) abortion.
Anti-abortion activists across the country aren’t stopping with state bans. In places where abortion is legal, they’re refocusing their efforts on a chipping-away approach to abortion rights—namely, TRAP laws. By forcing abortion providers to have hospital admitting privileges—something most can’t get either due to stigma or because they don’t bring in enough patients (abortion is too safe to land people in the hospital)—legislators are making it more difficult for clinics to remain open.
Lots of abortion-related services are seeing a surge of people, and that includes Exhale Pro-Voice, which offers nonjudgemental after-abortion counseling services. (They are not an anti-choice group, I promise.) Executive Director Rachel Dyer said, “It’s a very stigmatized experience,” which is why they have a text line available. “Sometimes people are more willing to say things written down and they’re willing to say them out loud, and so we’re able to support more people in their experiences.”
The Daily looks at the people in the anti-abortion movement who want to criminalize abortion as a homicide; it’s worth a listen, but we need to stop referring to these people as the “extreme” end of the anti-abortion spectrum. Because even if someone doesn’t actively want a woman to go to jail for abortion, voting against abortion means that she will. They are the mainstream.
The 19th looks at how the shuttering of some clinics will impact trans patients who relied on them for gender-affirming care; and The Washington Post interviews one of the founders of the underground abortion network, the Janes.
An op-ed in the Los Angeles Times calls on social media companies to update their post-Roe policies on cooperating with law enforcement and privacy. It points to the Nebraska case—and Meta’s excuse that warrants didn’t include the word ‘abortion’—as an example:
“Particularly with police making this request more than a month after the Dobbs opinion was leaked, laying the groundwork for harsher criminalization of abortion nationwide, the messages’ contents should have been enough to alert the company that the end of a teenager’s pregnancy was being investigated. Readily handing over this private information does not demonstrate a careful review or regard for human rights standards.”
The authors recommend reducing the kind of data they collect, offering default end-to-end encryption across all of their services, and deleting data that could be used by law enforcement to criminalize health care.
I’m so sorry for linking to this absolutely shit piece in The Washington Times about why it’s great, actually, that crisis pregnancy centers are on the rise—but you have to see the accompanying art they chose. Like, what??
In better news, Plan C is doing some great work here:
Thanks as always for the support and reading/listening—let me know if I’ve missed anything. I’m on vacation (sorta) so my brain is not working as well as it usually does. :) -Jessica
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