Calculated Cruelty, Texas Edition
Calculated Cruelty, Texas Edition
Anti-abortion activists are attacking a woman with a fatal fetal anomaly
This is a special edition/addition to the 12.6.23 issue of Abortion, Every Day. The regular daily report will be in your inbox later tonight.
Back in October, I published an investigation into the anti-abortion movement’s latest campaign: a massive but little talked about initiative to pressure and force American women to carry doomed pregnancies to term. If you missed the piece, make sure to check it out—because we’re starting to see the impact of that project right now.
You’ve probably already read about Kate Cox, the Texas woman seeking an emergency court order to obtain an abortion after her pregnancy was diagnosed with a fatal anomaly. The Guardian has some background if you need a refresher, but what’s important to note is that Texas law doesn’t allow abortions in cases of fetal anomalies—even fatal ones. In other words, this isn’t a matter of Texas’ ban being unclear. It’s not: Women must carry doomed pregnancies to term.
That’s part of the reason that the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), the group representing Cox, is arguing that she needs the abortion because her health and future fertility is endangered by the pregnancy.
Still, the media coverage of the case has largely been about the fact that Texas wants to force someone to give birth to a baby that will die. And understandably so! The cruelty is too astounding to ignore. Obviously, that horror is also very much top of mind for Cox herself. From her statement:
“I do not want my baby to arrive in this world only to watch her suffer a heart attack or suffocation. I desperately want the chance to try for another baby and want to access the medical care now that gives me the best chance at another baby.”
Here’s where this new campaign comes in. When I wrote “Calculated Cruelty,” one of the anti-abortion strategies I focused on was disinformation about prenatal testing. Essentially, activists have begun claiming that prenatal tests aren’t accurate and that the prenatal testing “industry” itself is suspect.
They’re also pushing dubious “science” that says women are so traumatized by devastating fetal diagnoses, that their brains are incapable of making a rational decision about the pregnancy for at least 72 hours. And when all else fails, shame: telling women that they might be ending a healthy pregnancy, or that they’re “discriminating” against disabled children.
You can see where this is going: Forced waiting periods for abortions, even in cases of doomed pregnancies; mandates that doctors lie to women about the efficacy and safety of prenatal testing; attacks on prenatal testing companies akin to the kind of attacks we’ve seen on the so-called ‘abortion industry’.
Now that Cox’s story is getting national attention, anti-abortion activists are pushing back using these exact messages I warned about. Steven Ertelt, the CEO of LifeNews, for example, wrote a piece today on the case:
“The lawsuit claims the baby has Trisomy 18…However, there’s significant question about whether the baby has the condition in the first place…Early prenatal tests for rare disorders often lead to thoughts about abortion for expecting parents. Sometimes, doctors and genetic counselors pressure parents to abort their unborn babies after a positive test, and both healthy and unhealthy unborn babies are killed in abortions as a result.”
We’re going to see more arguments like this one—not just in conservative media, but in legal arguments. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they come up in Cox’s case. After all, we know that Texas Republicans are heavily influenced by the anti-choice movement, and that their policy often reflects the latest in anti-abortion strategies. (Remember my piece about how the state’s abortion ‘complication’ reporting law was being used to drum up fake statistics about abortion being dangerous?)
But as I wrote in October, this isn’t just about forcing individual women to carry doomed pregnancies to term—but changing law and culture to create the broadest impact possible. In the same way that Republicans targeted mifepristone by going after its FDA approval, for example, GOP lawmakers are doing the same with the labeling requirements and regulatory measures around prenatal tests. The endgame is to make it difficult, if not impossible, to test for abnormalities at all.
Follow what's going on with the Ken Paxton - Kate Cox forced pregnancy lawsuit and counter-appeal with this interactive relationship map. Check to see how many of the Texas Supreme Court Justices were appointed by Greg Abbott.
https://thedemlabs.org/2023/12/08/texas-judge-abortion-ruling-non-viable-pregnancy-paxton-lawsuit-map/
There are conspiracy theories and then there are actual conspiracies. The tactics of the ultra right are the same across the world as though they all went to the same boot camps. Pick an emotional laden hot topic, e.g., abortion, freedom, immigration, vaccination, and run with it, using obfuscation, manipulation, the co-opting of religion, appeal to insecurities, character assassination, saying one thing one day, then the opposite the next to confuse the electorate, corruption of language, stealing the wording of the opposition and making it mean something else bad, twisting facts to create misinformation, and then blatantly outright lie, lie, lie once you have control of people’s minds so they will believe anything you say. If people hear the same lie three times they start to think there must be something to it. Mind control. Take over control of media outlets so the messaging can be constant. Warn people to mistrust other “liberal” media outlets to blank conflicting messaging. The United States is not the only country where this is happening. In the past few years, right wing governments have been elected throughout Europe, right.wing military coups are taking place in several African nations, even New Zealand has gone right in the last election. In Canada polls are suggesting it’s next federal election might bring in a right of right party that has been using all the same tactics.
The conspiracy of global right wing collective action is not just theory. Trump’s stated admiration of authoritarian styled leaders like Putin in Russia, Duterte in the Philippines, Erdogan in Turkey, Modi in India should have sent chills up the spine of every American. And let’s not forget his bromance with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. That is the kind of control Trump’s cadre of strategist’s are aiming for in 2025. Trump has already said he will put the opposition in jail. He is a useful tool and the Republican strategists pander to his thirst for revenge. Republicans tried demonizing immigrants in Trump’s first term but then they found being anti-abortion an even more useful tool to divide the country and control mouthy feminists who don’t do what they are told. Power and control.