Texas Bill Would Ban Pro-Choice Websites

11.15.24

Click to skip ahead: In Anti-Abortion Strategy, Texas lawmakers wants to ban pro-choice websites. In The Cruelty is the Point, a look at Idaho’s strategy in a challenge against the state’s ban. In the States, news from North Carolina, Wisconsin, Texas and more. Ballot Measure Updates details a new proposed amendment in Virginia. Appointment Madness delves into Matt Gaetz and RFK Jr. In the Nation, some quick hits.

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Anti-Abortion Strategy

Well, they’re back at it! Texas Rep. Steve Toth introduced a bill this week that would ban pro-choice websites. Under the “Women and Child Safety Act,” internet service providers would be forced to block any site that contains information about how to obtain abortions or abortion medication. That means the websites of pro-choice organizations and abortion funds would be banned—even Abortion, Every Day would be illegal under the bill.

The bill even includes a list of specific websites that would be banned in the state, including: Aid Access, Hey Jane, Plan C Pills, Just the Pill, and Carafem.

If passed, the law would allow citizens to bring civil suits against internet service providers that don’t block these websites. (Which is sort of Texas’ thing—they love to incentivize communities turning on each other over abortion.)

But it doesn’t end there: Toth’s legislation would charge anyone who raises money for abortion care with a felony—with a particular eye towards targeting abortion funds. In fact, the legislation prompts the state Attorney General to investigate and charge abortion funds using the RICO Act, which is meant to go after organized crime. (If you’ve read my book, you know all about this; Republicans are eager to go after ‘the helpers.’)

If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because Toth introduced a near-identical bill last year. And he’s not alone. Iowa Republicans also tried to pass legislation to ban pro-choice websites last year; their legislation would have also allowed citizens to sue internet service providers and prosecute abortion funds under the RICO Act.

The bills are part of a broader attack on free speech about abortion. Idaho and Tennessee, for example, both passed laws recently that make it illegal to help teens access abortion. Under these policies, even texting a teen the url to an out-of-state clinic would be considered criminal ‘abortion trafficking.’ (Both laws are currently blocked on First Amendment grounds.)

The Republicans trying to pass this kind of legislation all say the same thing: that helping someone get an abortion isn’t protected speech. Remember Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall? He’s obsessed with targeting abortion funds—or anyone, really, that shares information about abortion. Here’s what he argued in a legal brief:

“One cannot seriously doubt that the State can prevent a mobster from asking a hitman to kill a rival because the agreement occurred through spoken word. So too here for conspiracies to obtain an elective abortion.”

All of which is to say: the legislation in Texas isn’t a one-off anomaly. It’s part of a bigger strategy attacking our ability to help each other.

The Cruelty is the Point

Let’s talk about what’s happening in Idaho. Four women are suing the state after being denied abortions despite having pregnancies with fatal fetal anomalies. That’s because Idaho’s total abortion ban doesn’t have an exception for nonviable pregnancies—the state forces women to carry doomed pregnancies to term.

Earlier this week, I told you about the women’s gut-wrenching testimony—including one plaintiff who cried while describing delivering her nonviable pregnancy in a hotel bathroom after having to drive seven hours out-of-state.

You’d think that given the clear trauma these women have been through, that state attorney James Craig might take an empathetic approach to the case. (If for nothing else, to not seem like he’s bullying devastated women!)

Instead, Craig went all in with gory anti-abortion rhetoric, blasting abortions as “gruesome and barbaric” in his opening statement, claiming that they involve “tearing a baby apart limb from limb…and crushing its skull to pull it out of the mother.” Again, he is saying this in a courtroom with women who had abortions, all under tragic circumstances.

As Idaho Statesman reporter Nicole Blanchard points out, the strategy is a “different approach” for Idaho attorneys, who have faced multiple lawsuits over the state’s ban. (Like the suit brought by the Biden administration, for example, over Idaho’s noncompliance with EMTALA—a federal law requiring hospital emergency rooms to provide life-saving care, including abortions.)

Craig’s other tactic has been to try to stop the women from sharing their stories by frequently objecting during their testimonies. He even called the details of their pregnancies “irrelevant” to the case. Which tells you all you really need to know, doesn’t it?

What’s remarkable about this full-on attack strategy from the state is that the Center for Reproductive Rights—which brought the suit on behalf of the women—isn’t even asking for the law to be repealed! They’re simply asking for clarity. From CRR senior attorney Gail Deady:

“The critical question is: Who should be able to receive abortions under the medical exceptions? Two years after the laws were passed, no one has offered an answer.”

The other bit of cruelty I had to point out comes from the anti-abortion movement. Much as we saw with Kate Cox—the Texas woman who had to flee the state to end her dangerous and nonviable pregnancy—anti-abortion activists are attacking the women in Idaho. They claim that the women have “killed” their “disabled babies.” (If you need links to the quotes, you can email me; I refuse to put them in the newsletter.)

This particularly heinous attack is part of a broader language strategy: anti-abortion activists have started to refer to fetuses with fatal abnormalities as “children with disabilities.” It’s a way to shame women who don’t want to be ‘walking coffins.’ I spoke about the tactic in my “Anti-Abortion Glossary” collaboration with The Meteor:

themeteor

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In the States

I think we could all use a palate cleanser after that, so let’s talk anti-abortion assholes getting their comeuppance. (Or at least, having to face a hint of accountability.) Earlier this week, I told you about North Carolina Sen. Danny Britt, who told a woman with a genetic disorder concerned about the state’s abortion ban to "move to China immediately.” Thanks in large part to the AED community here and on socials, Britt’s nastiness went viral—shining a light on just how little these Republicans actually care about women.

I was especially happy to see this story covered in North Carolina media—from the News & Observer to local television stations. To no one’s surprise, the guy who was oh-so-brave in a letter to his constituent doesn’t have anything to say now that everyone can see what a coward and bully he is.

No need to move on from anti-abortion men being exposed quite yet! Let’s take a look at a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice skewering the lawyer who wants to enforce an 1849 law to ban abortion. This is the case I told you about a few days ago that will determine the future of abortion in Wisconsin. But there’s a difference between reading about an anti-abortion lawyer being humiliated and watching an anti-abortion lawyer be humiliated, so tune in below and enjoy. (For more on Wisconsin’s abortion law and this case, get background here.)

I wish I could end there, but we have to talk about Texas a bit more. In addition to legislation that would make pro-choice websites illegal, Republicans want to classify abortion medication as a controlled substance. State Rep.-elect Pat Curry has filed a bill that would do just that, following in the footsteps of Louisiana.

It was just last month that Louisiana made abortion pills a controlled substance—and endangering women’s lives in the process. (Hospitals had doctors running timed drills to see how long it would take them to get the locked-up medication to a hemorrhaging woman.)

Making abortion medication a controlled substance doesn’t just make it harder to get and up the criminal penalties around the medication—it allows state officials to track the patients and providers who take and dispense the pills. If you’re a regular reader, you know this kind of data and tracking is a major centerpiece to anti-abortion strategy going forward.

That’s why it’s the perfect time to order advance provision abortion medication. You don’t need to be pregnant to buy the pills right now. Trusted sources for abortion medication: Aid Access, Plan C Pills, Abortion Finder, I Need An A.

Quick hits:

• The Alabama Political Reporter points out the hypocrisy of Republicans talking about ‘post birth abortion’ while ignoring Alabama’s sky-high infant mortality rate;

• Local media coverage of the pregnant woman challenging Kentucky’s abortion ban;

• And pro-choice states are worried about what a Trump presidency means for their abortion policies: Local media in Maryland, Colorado, and Michigan all ask what the risks are.

Ballot Measure Updates

Virginia Democrats have started the process to protect abortion rights in the state constitution. The resolution, advanced by a state House of Delegates committee, would need to pass both chambers twice before winning voters’ approval. In other words, this is an effort that will take a few years.

The measure states that “every individual has the fundamental right to reproductive freedom, including the ability to make and carry out decisions relating to one’s own prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, abortion care, miscarriage management, and fertility care.”

Republicans, naturally, claimed that the amendment would undermine parental consent for minors seeking abortions. (Conservatives’ big play around these pro-choice amendments has been to hone in on parental rights.) And GOP Minority Leader Todd Gilbert said, “They tried to say it basically embodies state law and Roe v. Wade. It goes well beyond both.”

“In state after state, the majority of voters were clear and unequivocal: People are dying. People are suffering. Fix this. The results prove what we’ve known all along: People across backgrounds, states and political affiliations believe that politicians have no place in their personal health decisions.”

-Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood on the pro-choice ballot measure wins

Appointment Madness

Ugh. Okay, let’s talk about Donald Trump’s appointments.

As I said on Wednesday, I’m wholly unsurprised that the disgraced former president tapped fellow sexual predator Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. It came out this week that the girl at the center of the ethics probe into Gaetz testified that the congressman had sex with her when she was just 17 years-old and still in high school. (ABC News has a comprehensive breakdown of the case for those interested.)

And while I really don’t want to think or write about another sexual abuser, I have to stress the obvious here: Seventeen is a child, and I don’t just mean legally. Sometimes I think that people forget how little and young teenagers look because we’re so accustomed to seeing mid-20s actors playing high schoolers on television. She was a child.

Gaetz also has a mean streak when it comes to feminists and abortion rights activists. At a 2022 conference, he laid into pro-choice women, asking, “Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions?

“Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb,” he said. What made the comments particularly egregious was that they came at the same time that the story of a 10 year-old rape victim forced to get an out-of-state abortion was going viral.

The only glimmer of hope here? GOP legislators—who are actually quite miffed by the announcement—are telling reporters they’re not so sure that Gaetz will make it through the confirmation process.

Okay, onto brain worms. RFK Jr.’s nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services has raised concerns among some conservatives, we’re told, who question his anti-abortion bonafides. Former Vice President Mike Pence, for instance, called on Republicans to oppose the nomination, claiming that “Kennedy would be the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in modern history.”

I have no doubt that Pence—an absolutist—genuinely believes Kennedy isn’t sufficiently ‘pro-life.’ But I’m skeptical of the mainstream media narrative forming around Kennedy and abortion. CBS News describes the anti-abortion movement as “divided” over his appointment, while POLITICO claims his abortion record has “riled” the right. To me, this reeks of media manipulation—it reminds me of what we saw with the GOP platform, when anti-abortion groups feigned disappointment with the abortion plank to distract reporters from how extreme the language actually was.

In Kennedy’s case, I think the anti-abortion movement wants Americans to believe that they’re conceding or losing something with his appointment. Because while it’s true that he had conflicting statements in the past over the issue, Kennedy’s most recent stance indicates that he was groomed by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA PLA) into being a good little soldier.

Back in August 2023, for example, Kennedy told an Iowa reporter that he supported a national abortion ban after three months of pregnancy. His campaign quickly issued a reversal, claiming that he misspoke and that the then-presidential candidate believed “that it is always the woman’s right to choose.”

SBA PLA president Marjorie Dannenfelser saw her opening, and issued a statement calling Kennedy “one of the few prominent Democrats aligned with the consensus of the people today.” (Remember that word, ‘consensus.’) She also said she believed that he was getting bad advice from consultants and that voters “deserve to hear directly from Kennedy on where he really stands given the conflicting statements from him versus his campaign.”

Then in May, Kennedy expressed support for abortion rights in a podcast interview this May, but reversed course almost immediately after. Check how he clarified himself on Twitter:

“Abortion has been a notoriously divisive issue in America, but actually I see an emerging consensus—abortion should be legal up until a certain number of weeks, and restricted thereafter.”

There’s Dannenfelser’s favorite word—consensus! I think he’s been taking his most recent cues from her and SBA PLA, which is why the group isn’t opposing his nomination. It’s also worth remembering that Students for Life has shaped an entire anti-abortion strategy around RFK Jr’s appointment. I reported early this week that the extremist group is pushing a bogus claim about abortion medication in the groundwater using Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” language.

All of which is to say: I don’t think the anti-abortion movement is nearly as “divided” on Kennedy as the media is reporting.

In the Nation

• The politically powerful Southern Baptist Convention is already pushing Trump to restrict abortion and reverse protections for LGBTQ people;

• The 19th took a look at the counties that swung both for Trump and abortion rights;

• Salon on how abortion funds are preparing for another Trump presidency;

• Law professor and author Mary Ziegler lays out the danger Trump poses not just to abortion, but birth control and IVF;

• And Bloomberg breaks down what the Trump administration could do at HHS to attack abortion.