Study: Anti-Choice States Are Terrible for Families

9.4.24

Click to skip ahead: In All About Oklahoma, what you need to know about this week’s Supreme Court decision. In the States, news from Louisiana, Ohio and more. Ballot Measure Updates in New York and Nebraska. 2024 highlights Kamala Harris’ reproductive freedom bus tour and Trump’s abortion desperation. In Stats & Studies, new research shows that anti-abortion states are terrible for families. In the Nation, a vital piece about abortion funding, pro-choice Republicans, and a new SCOTUS memoir. Finally, Keep An Eye On anti-birth control messaging.

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All About Oklahoma

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the Biden administration can deny Oklahoma millions in federal Title X dollars over the state’s anti-abortion extremism. For those who need a refresher: Title X is the nation’s federal family planning program, and it requires state health centers getting federal dollar to at least tell patients that abortion is an option in other states.

Oklahoma wasn’t willing to do that, and they lost $4.5 million as a result.

Here’s the thing: The Department of Health and Human Services didn’t even mandate that Oklahoma tell patients how to get abortions! They just wanted centers to direct patients to a national hotline that has information about abortion and other pregnancy options. Providers would only be required to do so if a patient asked and the Biden administration allows those with religious objections to opt-out.

In other words, the HHS was asking Oklahoma to do the absolute bare minimum—and I’d argue not nearly enough. But Republicans hate women so much, they’d rather see low-income Oklahomans go without vital contraceptive and family planning care than pass along a fucking phone number.

That’s why the characterizations of this suit as a fight over “abortion referrals” isn’t really correct. Indeed, the Justice Department pointed out that giving someone information about a national hotline is far from a “referral.” (I also find the coverage of the story/case a bit frustrating. Headlines like this one calling the suit an “abortion dispute,” for example, downplay what this is really about.)

Still, Oklahoma is painting itself as the victim and anti-abortion groups are claiming that the Biden administration—and now the Supreme Court—are “discriminating” against anti-abortion states.

Anti-abortion news outlet LifeNews whined, for example, that “pro-life states’ efforts to expand essential health care to women and families are being thwarted by the very same people who accuse these states of failing to provide it.” Lawyers for Oklahoma even had the nerve to point out how many people in the state depend on Title X funding for care. As if anti-abortion activists and legislators are concerned with Oklahomans’ health!

These are the same folks funding crisis pregnancy centers that tell people birth control causes cancer. So we know what kind of ‘care’ they want to offer their citizens.

The SCOTUS decision doesn’t mean this is the end of Title X fights. It wasn’t so long ago that Tennessee lost a lawsuit over their federal family planning dollars, and I’m betting we’ll see even more speech-related cases soon.

In the States

I told you yesterday about the nightmare in Louisiana, where hospitals are removing abortion medication from obstetric hemorrhage carts because it’s now considered a “controlled substance.” (More on that law here.) This comes at the same time that groups like Lift Louisiana report that doctors in the state are increasingly performing c-sections instead of life-saving abortions—ramping up fears about rising maternal death rates across the South.

Now Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is raising the alarm about Louisiana, as well. Last night, her campaign sent out an email about the consequences of the abortion medication law, and spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika told the Louisiana Illuminator, “Donald Trump is the reason Louisiana women who are suffering from miscarriages or bleeding out after birth can no longer receive…critical care.” She continued, “Because of Trump, doctors are scrambling to find solutions to save their patients and are left at the whims of politicians who think they know better.”

Republican Sen. Thomas Pressly, who crafted the law making abortion medication a controlled substance, has scoffed at the idea that his policy could harm women. But hundreds of doctors and healthcare providers signed a letter warning about the dire consequences of the law, and when the Illuminator told one doctor about the drug’s new classification she responded this way:

“What? That’s terrifying. Take it off the carts? That’s death. That’s a matter of life or death.”

And Republicans know it.

Let’s move on to some good news, this time out of Ohio—again! After the state’s 24-hour waiting period was repealed (thanks to Issue 1), a judge has blocked two more anti-abortion laws. The ruling blocks a ban on telemedicine for abortion medication and a law that blocked prohibiting non-doctors (like midwives and physician assistants) from prescribing abortion medication.

Judge Alison Hatheway said that Ohio’s new constitutional abortion protections provide “sweeping protections ensuring reproductive autonomy” and that the two laws “violate these newly enshrined rights.” You love to see it.

Meanwhile, Bernie Moreno, Ohio Republican Senate candidate, says that Issue 1 wasn’t just wrongly decided—but that pro-choicers cheated to win. According to newly-released audio, Moreno said in a campaign event this summer that the anti-abortion side lost “because only 52% of evangelical Christians bothered to show up at the ballot box.”

“What did we get in exchange? We have abortion right until birth. We have no parental consent for minors getting an abortion because we didn't show up to vote. Can't do that. They can only cheat so much.”

As is usually the case with anti-abortion legislators, this is all projection. Because Ohio Republicans went absolutely ham when trying to cheat voters out of their right to vote on Issue 1! In addition to holding a special election to raise the ballot measure standards (in an election that cost taxpayers millions of dollars), the Republican Secretary of State colluded with national anti-abortion groups to write a biased ballot summary. So who are the real cheats?

Quick hits:

• The Nation on Florida as ground zero for abortion rights;

• 78% of Wisconsin voters, including 57% of Republicans, don’t want abortion to be criminalized;

• A bipartisan majority of voters in swing state Pennsylvania support abortion rights;

• And Axios looks at three years of a Texas abortion ban.

Don’t forget to pre-order my new book, Abortion, and get your thank you gift here!

Ballot Measure Updates

The lawsuit over Nebraska’s abortion rights ballot measure has been expedited by the state Supreme Court, which will now hear arguments on the case on Monday.

The anti-abortion lawsuit claims that the Nebraska measure violates the state’s single subject rule (it doesn’t), and is just the latest desperate attempt by Republicans who don’t want voters to have a say on abortion rights. Remember, anti-abortion activists in the state actually launched a fake ‘pro-choice’ ballot measure in order to trick voters. They collected signatures by telling people that they were signing an abortion rights measure, with hundreds of voters report being misled by the move.

Just in case that doesn’t work, they have this lawsuit. Similar legal challenges are being filed in other states with pro-choice ballot measures, like Missouri.

New York’s abortion rights ballot measure has a powerful public ally: state Attorney General Letitia James. James wrote an op-ed this week in support of Prop 1, the state’s equal rights amendment that prohibits discrimination based on pregnancy or pregnancy outcomes. Here’s James:

“Across the country, we are seeing vicious attacks on the right to choose. Millions of Americans now face dangerous restrictions on their reproductive freedoms, and we are seeing governments in some states do everything in their power to limit access to safe and reliable reproductive health care, putting their residents’ health, lives, and future fertility at risk. 

In New York, abortion remains legal and accessible. We are lucky to live in a state that has leadership committed to protecting our reproductive rights. Now, we must make those protections permanent.”

2024

Vice President Kamala Harris’ ‘Reproductive Freedom Bus Tour’ kicked off this week in Florida (aka Donald Trump’s backyard). It’s a brilliant move really, bringing attention to what’s arguably the campaign’s strongest issue. Having speakers who have been directly impacted by abortion bans certainly helps, too. Like Anya Cook, a Florida mom who nearly bled to death after being denying care for a miscarriage:

“Because of the abortion ban in my state, doctors could not induce labor, leaving me at far greater risk of infection and hemorrhage. [Trump] has comprehensive plans to ban abortion nationwide, which could inflict the kind of pain that I went through on women in all 50 states.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign is doing damage control over his abortion flip-flopping. How? By doing some flip-flopping of their own. For those worried that Trump’s comments will drive down anti-abortion voters’ enthusiasm, the campaign trotted out permanent suck-up Rep. Elise Sefanik to defend the former president’s ‘pro-life’ bonafides:

“President Trump is pro-parents, pro-babies, and pro-family and his strong pro-life policies reflect that. His support for protecting and expanding IVF coverage for families should be applauded by the pro-life community as it will further promote the culture of life.”

But for Republican voters who aren’t crazy about abortion bans, the campaign had Vivek Ramaswamy doing cable news hits, saying that the issue is now “for the states.” On CNN, the former Republican presidential candidate assured viewers, “The reality is, it’s not a presidential issue anymore.”

The GOP panic is well-founded. EMILY’s List president Jessica Mackler says Trump should be scared, and that the group “has long known that women will decide this election and we are voting on abortion.” Indeed, Republican pollster Whit Ayres says Trump’s real issue is the voter gender gap:

“The real challenge right now for Republicans is whether they can perform sufficiently well among men to overcome the deficit among women. Given the prominence of abortion in this year’s race and Trump’s past statements about women, the traditional gender gap could become a gender chasm.”

It’s almost as if misogyny is not a good campaign plan!

Stats & Studies

New research published in the American Journal of Public Health finds that states with abortion bans are the states that help families, women and children the least. I know, not exactly shocking. But the authors write that “the degree to which these states fail to support their most disadvantaged populations warrants immediate attention and action.”

The study from researchers at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago compared state abortion laws with the public programs that help families (like paid parental leave and social services like WIC and TANF). They found that states with abortion bans had lower enrollment in state-funded assistance programs, were less likely to implement leave policies, and were less likely to have policies allowing pharmacists to prescribe birth control.

Senior author Dr. Lynn Yee didn’t mince words:

“Proponents of abortion restrictions, who identify as 'pro-life,' assert that these policies are essential to protect children, women and families. It would seem in these states that the abortion opponent, 'pro-life' attitude not only begins at conception but ends there as well.”

Whew. Anti-abortion activists are having a difficult time with all the post-Roe studies coming out: whether it’s the increase in infant mortality in Texas or the link between abortion bans and suicides among women of reproductive age, it’s clearer than ever just how dangerous anti-abortion restrictions are.

That’s why anti-abortion groups are spending so much time, money and energy on efforts to seem scientifically and medically credible—to mixed results. (More on this tactic later this week.)

In the Nation

Please do not miss this vital piece of reporting from Susan Rinkunas in The Nation this week. Rinkunas writes about the abortion funding crisis, a “perfect storm” that’s getting worse by the day. At the same time that increased out-of-state travel is driving up abortion patients’ costs, major pro-choice organizations have cut their funding commitments—leaving patients like one 16-year old in Illinois with just $600 in funding for a $16,000 abortion.

I highly recommend you read the whole thing, but I especially appreciated the focus on what kind of immediate actions the Biden administration (or a future Harris administration) could take to help:

“The White House could provide federal funding for out-of-state abortion travel like it’s doing for military members, declaring a reproductive health emergency if necessary. Funding travel rather than procedure costs gets around the federal Hyde Amendment, which Congress doesn’t have the votes to repeal. ‘It wouldn’t be perfect,’ [DC Abortion Fund’s Alisha] Dingus said, ‘but it would at least help us get people here, which is a huge barrier right now.’

[DuPont Clinic’s Karishma] Oza suggested that the government could fund free or low-cost ultrasounds so people can get accurate pregnancy dating rather than getting turned away by clinics for being too far along. Now, many patients receive free, non-diagnostic ultrasounds at crisis pregnancy centers, which vastly outnumber legitimate clinics and lie to people about abortion to convince them not to seek the care.”

Read Rinkunas’ full piece here.

Meanwhile, I’m seeing more and more stories about pro-choice Republicans coming out in support of Vice President Kamala Harris. Apparently the end of Roe was just a step too far for voters who didn’t have a problem with Trump’s racism and misogyny in the last two elections.

Here’s Olivia Troye, who was a national security official under the Trump administration, telling the Arizona Republic about why she’s joined a Republicans for Harris group:

“As Republicans, we've believed in limited government. We believe government should be out of our personal lives, out of our businesses and out of our health care. Why would we want government overreach in our reproductive rights? This is not a question of pro-life or pro-choice, it's about being pro-freedom.”

I agree, obviously—but I have a difficult time swallowing the sudden enthusiasm for abortion rights and freedom from folks who have spent years looking the other way as their party chipped away at access until Roe was overturned. It’s giving ”I never thought leopards would eat MY face.”

Finally, Supreme Court Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson has a memoir out, and is doing the media rounds this week. In her interview with CBS, Gayle King asked the judge about her dissenting opinion in the EMTALA case. In case you need a refresher, here is one of Jackson’s most incredible passages, where she criticizes the Court for “shirk[ing] its duty” to provide a clear answer on emergency abortions:

“While this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position, as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires. This Court had a chance to bring clarity and certainty to this tragic situation, and we have squandered it. And for as long as we refuse to declare what the law requires, pregnant patients in Idaho, Texas, and elsewhere will be paying the price.”

When King asked the Justice if she was worried that her words were “too strong,” Jackson said, “Lots of justices use terms and phrases that they want to use in order to make a significant point.” You can watch a snippet of the interview here:

Quick hits:

• Conservative media outlets are still decrying the spate of anti-abortion extremists being arrested for violating the FACE Act;

• Sen. Lindsey Graham says he opposes mandatory insurance coverage for IVF treatment (which Trump floated last week in an attempt to distract from his abortion extremism);

• Over 200 venture capitalists signed a letter to Kamala Harris where they listed abortion as a top priority;

• And Amanda Marcotte at Salon writes that JD Vance ruined Trump’s chances of convincing male voters he’s a ‘fun’ misogynist.

Keep An Eye On

One last thing today! I had to flag this headline at The Federalist. I know, I know—not exactly a credible news source. But this is what conservatives are talking about and obsessed with:

I’ve warned about this before. There’s a growing anti-contraception sentiment that’s moving from conservative circles to so-called wellness and influencer culture. From there, it’s hitting young women hard. The idea is to plant as much doubt about hormonal birth control as possible—using women’s understandable distrust of the medical system as a way in. I write more about this in the book (and the link it all has to ‘tradwives’), but it never ceases to amaze me just how often headlines are this are coming up. Make sure you’re keeping an eye out.