Oklahoma Police Are Investigating a College Student's Pregnancy Loss

8.30.24

Click to skip ahead: Trump’s Abortion Panic looks at Republican desperation and the mainstream media coverage that enables it. In 2024 news, Kamala Harris’ campaign is launching a repro rights bus tour. In Ballot Measure Updates, new polling and what we lose with ‘viability’ language. In The Cruelty is the Point, Texas Right to Life has launched an attack against Kate Cox. In the States, news from Virginia, Massachusetts and West Virginia. Finally, Criminalizing Pregnancy Loss flags an Oklahoma investigation.

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Trump’s Abortion Panic

I warned literally just yesterday that if mainstream media outlets don’t stop taking Donald Trump’s word on abortion, they’re going to help him win the election. Today, we saw exactly how that happens.

Less than a week after dispatching JD Vance to pinky promise on “Meet the Press” that they wouldn’t pass a national abortion ban, the disgraced former president is now making noise about supporting the abortion rights amendment in Florida and covering IVF if elected.

In an interview with NBC News, Trump said that under his administration, IVF would be effectively free: “We are going to be paying for that treatment…We're going to be mandating that the insurance company pay."

Remember: Republicans have consistently voted against IVF protections and coverage, and Trump’s abortion bans have paved the way for fetal personhood that can restrict or ban IVF. So this claim is just absolutely wild. (To see Vance squirm under questioning about how to reconcile that hypocrisy, check out this CNN interview.)

Then there’s Florida: When asked about Florida’s Amendment 4, the ballot measure that would protect abortion rights until ‘viability’, Trump said, “I’m voting that we need more than six weeks.” The media interpreted those comments as Trump indicating support for the pro-choice amendment—but it seems clear to me that he has no idea what the measure actually is. Does he think that you can write in the number of weeks to allow abortion on the ballot?

Regardless, as soon as his comments hit the airwaves, Trump’s campaign spokesperson Karoline Levitt said that Trump “has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida.” She claimed that the disgraced former president “simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short.”

None of what Trump is doing here is surprising. He sees the same polls we do, and he knows that Republicans’ stance on abortion is a losing issue. So he’s throwing anything he can at the wall in the hopes that he can come across as ‘moderate’ on abortion rights. Again, the only way he can do that successfully is if mainstream media covers his comments uncritically. That’s exactly what they did today, giving Trump the kind of headlines he was looking for, like this one from a Florida NPR station, or the one below from USA Today.

I wish those were the only ones. CBS News got in on the action, as did The 19th—of all places! And the Wall Street Journal covered Trump’s offhand comments by declaring the campaign “unveils expansive proposal to support IVF.”

Meanwhile, Trump said something else noteworthy about abortion yesterday that has gotten zero coverage: He claimed in his Michigan speech that "in six states you’re allowed to kill the baby after the baby is born." For some reason, this horrific and dangerous lie continues to go unchecked.

I sort of don’t know what to say anymore. It’s like these reporters enjoy getting played. By the way, it is not a coincidence that Trump said all of this in the wake of Kamala Harris’ CNN interview. He is desperate to drive attention away from Harris, who has been filling up stadiums across the country.

A spokesperson for the Harris campaign, Sarafina Chitika, responded to Trump’s latest abortion comments by reassuring us that “voters aren’t stupid.” They know, she says, that the former president lies “as much if not more than he breathes,” and that his platform “could effectively ban IVF and abortion nationwide.” I sure fucking hope so.

2024

Speaking of Vice President Harris, her campaign is launching a “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” bus tour that will launch next week in Palm Beach, Florida. Kicking things off in Trump’s hometown—and in one of the states where abortion is on the ballot—is a super smart move.

The Hill reports that the bus tour will make at least 50 stops in battleground states in the lead up to the election, with speakers like second gentleman Douglas Emhoff and Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz. Abortion rights storytellers will also join the tour: Amanda Zurawski, who nearly died of sepsis after being denied care in Texas; Hadley Duvall, who shared her story of childhood assault; and Kaitlyn Joshua, who was denied miscarriage treatment in Louisiana.

Harris was also campaigning in Georgia yesterday, where she warned the crowd that Trump would sign a national abortion ban. (If you missed the newsletter yesterday, make sure to check it out—a new poll shows that abortion is one of the few conservative issues that battleground voters don’t seem to fully understand as a threat under a Trump presidency.) And on social media, Harris’ team released a video reminding voters that “Trump did this.”

Meanwhile, the anti-abortion movement continues to react to Trump’s supposed abortion flip-flopping: Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America released a diplomatic statement saying that Trump hadn’t yet committed to how he’d vote on Amendment 4 in Florida. Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life, however, tweeted that Trump "clearly doesn't want to be pro-life anymore” and claimed “pro-lifers are being screwed.” Anti-abortion extremist Lila Rose seemed similarly pissed, giving an interview to POLITICO where she indicated that she might not vote for Trump.

You know what I think: These activists are putting on a good show to create the illusion of strife between the Trump campaign and the anti-abortion movement—a move to bolster Trump’s lie that he’s moderate on abortion.

I could be totally wrong! Because I also have to imagine that this is a very stressful time for the anti-abortion movement, who have wielded a tremendous amount of political power over Republican candidates for years. Now that their issue is so poisonous at the ballot box, they have to be panicking in the same way Trump is.

Ballot Measure Updates

Ballotpedia points out that November will see the most abortion-related ballot measures on record for a single year. There are eleven ballot measures in ten states: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Nevada, and South Dakota. (As you know, Nebraska has two competing measures.)

It’s both an exciting and frustrating time for abortion rights—because while abortion has won every time it’s been on the ballot since Roe was overturned, most of those pro-choice measures include ‘viability’ language that would actually enshrine some type of restriction into their state constitutions. From Susan Rinkunas at Jezebel:

“[T]hese amendments essentially replicate the Roe v. Wade framework that left behind people who need later abortions and opened the door to the criminalization of pregnancy loss. Even if every ballot measure passes—which is far from guaranteed—some residents of those states will still have to cross state lines for care, and people will still face financial barriers to make it to their appointments, a gap that abortion funds work tirelessly to fill.”

This has been a point of contention within the movement since activists started to propose abortion rights amendments: some feel that immediate action is needed to restore whatever access is possible, others believe that we have an opportunity (and moral obligation) to fight for something that goes beyond ‘restore Roe.’

As you likely know, I fall in the latter group. I realize I say this from the comfort of a pro-choice state where I’m doing work behind a computer—and I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for the activists in these states who are trying to meet people where they’re at. But I’m worried about what happens after these measures pass. Quite a few reproductive justice activists have told me their concern is that once abortion is available to privileged white women, folks won’t have the same fire under their ass to continue fighting for everyone. That’s a reasonable fear.

A few ballot measures don’t contain viability language or restrictions. In Colorado, for example, the proposed amendment would protect abortion rights and repeal the ban on public funding for abortion; the measures in Maryland and New York also have no restrictions.

What’s notable is that in the states that do contain ‘viability’ language, anti-abortion groups are attacking them for supporting abortion ‘up until birth’ anyway. In fact, the term ‘viability’ itself has been the focus of several legal challenges against state ballot measures.

Actually, I have some positive news on one of those legal challenges: A lawsuit seeking to do away with Nebraska’s pro-choice ballot measure was dismissed by the state Supreme Court this week. The suit that claimed the proposed amendment was trying to redefine fetal ‘viability.’

Onto polling news: A Fox News poll this week found that three quarters of voters in both Arizona and Nevada support abortion rights amendments in those states. (73% in Arizona and 75% in Nevada.) I told you yesterday that Missouri voters also support the amendment on the ballot this November—it turns out that also includes a growing number of Republican voters.

We’re seeing something similar in Florida, where POLITICO reports that Republican women are attending semi-secret house parties to learn more about Amendment 4. One Republican attendee, Carol Whitmore, said, “There’s a lot of people who are just too afraid to speak up.”

Abortion rights activists in the state have been seeking out bipartisan support from the get-go, knowing that they need to reach a 60% threshold—higher than most other measures that just need over half of voters’ support.

The Cruelty is the Point

Just when you think anti-abortion groups can’t sink any lower, they find a way. Texas Right to Life has launched a horrific written attack against Kate Cox, the women who was denied an abortion in Texas despite her nonviable and dangerous pregnancy. Cox’s story sparked national outrage, reminding voters just how cruel abortion bans really are.

The anti-abortion response to her story was always awful, but Texas Right to Life seems especially triggered by Cox’s appearance at the Democratic National Convention. Samantha Furnace, a legislative associate with the group, is furious that Cox was called a “heroine” for going public with her story. Furnace, who is not a doctor, doesn’t know Cox, and as far as I know has never met her, insists that her pregnancy wasn’t dangerous or nonviable.

Instead, she claims, Cox killed a “child diagnosed with a life-limiting illness” because she believed “the risks of pregnancy outweighed the benefits of having a child with a disability.” First of all, please note that Furnace uses two terms I’ve flagged here often: Instead of admitting a fetus was diagnosed with a ‘fatal’ abnormality or condition, anti-abortion groups claim that they simply have a ‘life limiting’ condition. Saying that these are “children with disabilities” is just meant to shame and attack women who end doomed pregnancies.

Furnace ends her piece by saying, “Cox is not, as she says, a mother of two. She is a mother of four: two born children, one preborn child, and one deceased child.”

This isn’t a random extremist launching this attack; this is a representative of the most powerful anti-abortion group in the second-most populous state in the country! This is a group that holds enormous political power going after an individual citizen for being brave enough to come forward with her story.

It also appears that these kinds of attacks are becoming a trend. Just yesterday I told you about what’s happening in Louisiana, where both the Attorney General and state powerhouse Louisiana Right to Life attacked Kaitlyn Joshua, another woman who came forward about her experience being denied care.

Anti-abortion activists and lawmakers can see that women who have been harmed by abortion bans are the pro-choice movement’s most powerful weapon. That’s why they’re so eager to take them down. But it’s a seriously ill-considered strategy. After all, voters are already angry that these laws are torturing and killing women—do conservatives really think that public attacks on top of everything else are going to help?

In the States

As you know, abortion access has been near-eradicated in the South—especially after Florida enacted its 6-week abortion ban. The impact of that ban, and others, have been felt throughout the entire country. That’s why I was so pleased to see that Whole Woman’s Health opened a clinic last week in Virginia.

Founder Amy Hagstrom Miller told The Guardian, “We didn’t open this only because of Florida, we opened this clinic because we know how many people are traveling from the region.” Miller says she feels more “engaged and hopeful” that she has in a long time, but that she’s also terrified about the prospect of a Trump presidency. “I have to plan for that contingency,” she said. “I have to plan for a national abortion ban.”

Something else to note from that piece in The Guardian: Dr. Meera Shah, the Virginia clinic’s medical director and chief medical officer of a New York Planned Parenthood affiliate, shared a story about a patient who came from Florida with an ectopic pregnancy. As you know, ectopic pregnancies are nonviable and can be deadly; and Republicans would have us believe that their bans don’t stop women with these kinds of conditions from getting care.

But Shah says that the doctor her patient saw in a Florida emergency room turned her away because they found the state’s abortion ban “confusing.”

“You know, she could have ruptured. The zip code in which you live really determines the type of healthcare that you’ll receive. And it shouldn’t be that way.”

In a similar nightmare, two women are suing the Texas hospitals that denied them treatment for their ectopic pregnancies. One of those women had to have emergency life-saving surgery after her fallopian tube ruptured.

Massachusetts crisis pregnancy centers are suing the state over a campaign that urges people to avoid the religious groups, which are known for lying to women about their pregnancies and putting their health and lives at risk. (Just last year, a Massachusetts crisis pregnancy center nearly killed a woman when they told her that an ectopic pregnancy was healthy and viable.)

The $1 million campaign includes digital ads, billboards, posters on public transportation and more warning people against the centers, making clear that they’re not real reproductive health clinics. But Your Options Medical’s lawsuit says that the campaign deprives them of their First Amendment rights “to voice freely their religious and political viewpoints.”

If that sounds familiar, it’s because crisis pregnancy centers brought forward a similar case in New York; and we’re seeing free speech cases all over the place from crisis pregnancy centers.

With pro-choice amendments in the spotlight now more than ever, states that don’t have abortion on the ballot this November are starting to ask why. I’ve written before that voters in states without citizen-led initiatives are feeling a bit testy that they don’t have the same ability to make their voices heard on abortion rights.

The latest example of that comes from West Virginia, where Emily Womeldorff at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic notes that in their state, the Republican-led legislature would have to put abortion on the ballot. And that’s just not going to happen:

”Unfortunately, we have a very hostile anti-abortion legislature at the moment, who would I highly doubt be willing to vote to put it on the ballot and let people decide. Because they have a vested interest in not letting people make those decisions for themselves.”

Criminalizing Pregnancy Loss

The last bit of news for the week is awful, so I’m sorry. But it’s important. Earlier this month, a fetus was found in a restroom at at Northeastern State University in Oklahoma, and the way the school handled it speaks volumes about post-Roe criminalization.

University of Tulsa law professor Janet Koven Levit wrote about the incident in Tulsa World, where she shared the school’s notice to students and staff:

“It is with great sorrow that I write to inform you that a fetus was discovered in a community restroom inside an NSU campus residence hall. NSU officials immediately contacted ambulance services and OSBI. Campus officials then began conducting welfare checks in an attempt to locate the mother. Shortly thereafter, a student came forward seeking medical attention. NSU is cooperating with OSBI as they lead the investigation into the incident.

NSU has counseling services available this evening to help students affected by this unfortunate situation. I encourage our students to utilize these and other campus resources as we heal together. Students may contact counseling at … For other concerns, please contact University Police."

We have no idea what happened here, but as Levit writes, whether or not this was a miscarriage or self-managed abortion is irrelevant. Oklahoma’s abortion ban prohibits prosecuting women who end their pregnancies. So why in the world was the school, the university police, and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation investigating a pregnancy loss?

“NSU’s response—calling in law enforcement, implying that the student's actions were criminal, and evincing more empathy for the student body as a whole than for the health and welfare of the young woman—is not merely irresponsible but creates a dangerous disincentive for our students to access reproductive health care on our campuses.”

Basically, the school took a healthcare situation and turned it into an investigation—not only criminalizing pregnancy loss, but creating a chilling effect that could dissuade students from seeking medical care in the future.

We saw pregnancy criminalization even before Roe was overturned, but the rapid ramping up of these kinds of cases over the last two years is incredibly alarming. What happened here feels very similar to the story Abortion, Every Day covered out of Georgia, where police investigated a woman’s miscarriage because they didn’t like how her fetus was disposed of. Which, of course, is also similar to the Brittany Watts case in Ohio. How many more ‘investigations’ like this are we going to see?

And as I wrote in the Georgia case, even if this young woman isn’t arrested for her pregnancy loss—think about the horror and trauma this investigation has caused. Imagine what it’s like to have to answer questions from school administrators or police about miscarrying in a restroom. Just a nightmare.

For more information on criminalization, go to Pregnancy Justice.