Abortion, Every Day is back from the long weekend—I hope you all got to take some time for yourselves. Don’t forget to send stories and tips to jessica@substack.com
In the states…
The South Carolina Senate reconvenes today to discuss the abortion ban that just passed the House. The law has narrow exceptions for rape and incest if care is sought before 12 weeks of pregnancy and the attack is reported to law enforcement. More from the state: A look into how abortion is impacting the gubernatorial race, and a column about how one woman’s story demonstrates just how cruel abortion bans are.
Lawyers for pro-choice advocates in Michigan have asked the state Supreme Court to make a decision about the proposal to put abortion on the ballot by tomorrow after a state board was deadlocked over the issue. As a reminder: The amendment had more than enough votes to legally be put on the ballot and was blocked over typos. (This op-ed in The Detroit Free Press gets into what a bad strategy this is by Republicans.) CNN looks at how even Republican voters are worried about abortion rights in the state, and how that’s driving their decision around who to support for governor.
Tyler Kistner, a Republican congressional candidate in Minnesota, has said he supports rape and incest exceptions and that states should decide the issue—but Axios reports that Kistner actually signed onto a pledge supporting a federal ban on abortion. Just a straight up liar.
A new poll out of Missouri shows voters there would prefer to overturn the state’s abortion ban, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will vote out Republicans.
Washington’s Republican Senate candidate Tiffany Smiley went after incumbent Sen. Patty Murray in the exact way I outlined in last week’s column: Suggesting that she supports no limitations on abortion. Florida’s Sen. Marco Rubio recently went after his opponent Rep. Val Demings for the same thing. Democrats need to get their messaging straight on this.
In Texas, where pregnant women are being denied care—even when their health is at risk—Gov. Greg Abbot responded in a local TV interview by saying “there are some things we need to work on,” and pivoted to blaming doctors for being confused over the law. Abbot also said recently that rape victims—unable to legally obtain abortions in Texas—should just take a Plan B. Charming. Also in the state, even elections for judges are being impacted by abortion (as they should).
Here’s a closer look at Tennessee’s “affirmative defense” mandate in the state’s abortion ban. (If a doctor needs to provide an abortion to save someone’s life, the state doesn’t have to prove the abortion wasn’t necessary—instead, the doctor has to prove that it was.) From lawyer Chloe Akers:
“Because this is so unreasonable and because this is so antithetical to what we think of as fair and just and American, that they’re like, surely, surely someone’s not going to prosecute this. Right? But I have seen cases that would make your skin crawl.”
A new ad attacking Pennsylvania’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano on abortion and LGBTQ rights—suggesting that his views will cost the state jobs.
I wish the whole, you know, human rights thing was considered convincing enough by itself—but I’ll take any strategy that works at this point.
Kansas providers are struggling to keep up with the influx of abortion patients from out-of-state; and in California, the editorial board at the Los Angeles Times endorses Proposition 1, which would amend the state constitution to protect abortion rights.
A Chicago church that was vandalized for posting a pro-choice sign held a rally this weekend; one banner read: “Believe it: People of all faiths believe a woman should decide.”
And in Ohio, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports on how the legal confusion over abortion in neighboring states impacts those traveling to end their pregnancies. As the legal status of abortion changes day by day, anyone in Ohio who needs an abortion isn’t quite sure where to go. Jessie Hill, one of the lawyers challenging the state’s ban, said “I’m a law professor and even I am struggling to keep up with what’s going on everywhere. It’s absolutely predictable chaos resulting from the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade."
On the national level…
PBS Newshour looks at what it’s like for students to go back to their college campus without the right to abortion:
The Department of Veteran Affairs says it will start to provide abortions—even in states where abortion is illegal—to rape and incest victims, and to people who need to end a pregnancy to save their health or life.
The Washington Post has made a huge error: A headline on a piece about an anti-choice nurse who was fired calls emergency contraception “abortion drugs.” Plan B is not abortion medication, it is the morning-after pill—yet the paper refers to the contraceptive as such in the headline, and calls it “abortion inducing” in the body of the article. This is not a small mistake! Reclassifying contraception as abortion is part of the Republican strategy to ban birth control—publications shouldn’t be making that easier for them. (In addition to the fact that they should just be fucking accurate!)
A poll from the Wall Street Journal shows that support for abortion rights has jumped since Roe was overturned: 60% of voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases (up 5 points since March), and only 6% said it should be illegal in all cases (down 5 points since March).
The New York Times looks at how activists and doctors are trying to broaden access and use of medication abortion, and CNN outlines where abortion is on the ballot in November. CNN also has a piece on the Democrats that have voted in support of abortion restrictions and bans, and here’s the most unsurprising thing about them: “In all, men represented more than 80% of the Democratic votes in state legislatures in favor of the bans.”
WIRED gets into the lie of “abortion pill reversal” and what the misinformation campaign is really about. “They’re peddling this narrative of regret to generate outrage,” says one OBGYN.
And The New Republic has an incredibly important piece on what it actually means to arrest abortion providers, focusing on the story of one family in 1963.
The Daily Yonder, a publication dedicated to rural news, looks at the increase in demand for abortions in the Midwest and how volunteer pilots are helping transport women to states where abortion is legal. A representative from the group, Elevated Access, says, “There’s no TSA, there’s nobody asking you all these questions. When you drive up to the plane, the pilot welcomes you on board, flies you to where you need to go, you do your medical procedure.”
Some must-reads today: Irin Carmon at New York Magazine has an interview with professor and author Dorothy Roberts (who I’ve mentioned in the newsletter before, read her book!); and Moira Donegan points out in The Guardian how the abortion rights movement could learn from the AIDS activism of the 80s.
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