The GOP's Plan to Ban IVF

9.27.24

Click to skip ahead: In Anti-Abortion Strategy, conservatives have launched a full scale attack claiming that pro-choicers are responsible for two Georgia women’s deaths. In the States, news out of Iowa, Texas, South Dakota, New York and Idaho. In Attacks on IVF, anti-abortion leaders give up the game. I have some Ballot Measure Updates from Missouri and Florida. In the Nation, the Republican panic over abortion. Finally, 2024 news looks at the Trump campaign’s dossier on JD Vance.

---

Anti-Abortion Strategy: Post-Dobbs Deaths

There’s a lot to get angry about these days, but I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this furious. Watching the anti-abortion movement blame pro-choicers for the deaths of Candi Miller and Amber Nicole Thurman is just mind-blowing. Even though I knew it was coming!

I predicted in 2022 that anti-abortion politicians and organizations would blame doctors and claim abortion rights activists had ‘scared’ them out of providing care—but I never could have foreseen just how shameless they would be. Since ProPublica’s report, anti-abortion organizations and activists have launched a full-scale media attack against the pro-choice movement.

As I reported earlier this week, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA-PLA) put out a half million dollar ad campaign insisting that “the Left’s scare tactics are deadly.” (Remember: this is a group that lobbied Tennessee lawmakers not to include an exception for women’s lives in the state’s abortion ban.) Since then, some of the most powerful anti-abortion players have been making the same claim all over conservative media.

First up there’s extremist OBGYN Ingrid Skop, who tells Fox News that “it’s the fearmongering and lies that have led us to this place.”

“The lies about pro-life laws are hurting women. The pro-life laws are not hurting women, but the lies are hurting women. Because in many cases, the women do not understand. And we’ve seen that sometimes even the doctors don’t understand. They’re not reading the law. They’re listening to the pro-abortion media.”

Christina Francis, president of American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), made the same accusation on Fox & Friends, saying, “we are seeing the direct results of spreading lies and misinformation about these laws.

Basically, Skop and Francis would like Americans to believe that doctors are taking their cues from pro-choicers rather than the many hospital lawyers who know how to read the law. (In fact, that’s their whole job!)

Just a quick reminder about who these women are: Francis is an absolute maniac who believes abortion is never necessary to save a patient’s life and that doctors should give women c-sections instead of abortions, even before fetal viability. Skop thinks the same. In fact, she’s so radical that Texas Republicans put her on the state’s maternal mortality board. That’s because like Francis, she doesn’t believe abortion is ever necessary and because she wants to count deaths like suicides in maternal mortality data even when there’s no connection to abortion.

AAPLOG board chair Christina A. Cirucci also wrote an op-ed at Newsweek. She says, “until we stop the lies about these dangerous drugs, women will continue to suffer harm.” Again, this is a group that would gladly torture women in service of their politics. In addition to forcing women into unnecessary c-sections, AAPLOG recommends that in cases of deadly complications like massive placental abruption, women shouldn’t be given an abortion but made to go into vaginal labor in order to deliver “an intact fetal body.”

So excuse me if I don’t take any of their feigned concern for women seriously.

I’m not done yet! In The Washington Examiner, Isaac Schorr blames “abortion disinformation” for Miller and Thurman’s deaths and says that Georgia law allowed for care. (Schorr also does something I’ve been warning about for a while now—he insists that ending a dangerous pregnancy is not really an abortion.) In addition to blaming pro-choicers and abortion medication, Schorr also points a finger at one of the women herself. He writes that “Miller’s pregnancy was not without risks given her age and preexisting conditions…she suffered from lupus, diabetes, and hypertension.”

We saw the same bullshit after The New Yorker reported on the death of Yeniifer Alvarez-Estrada Glick: anti-abortion groups blamed the young woman’s weight and health conditions.

Finally, the anti-abortion movement trotted out two Georgia Republican lawmakers who are also doctors to help shirk blame. Reps. Rich McCormick and Mark Newton say—despite having never treated these women—that their deaths were caused by abortion medication and pro-choice misinformation.

McCormick did let something telling slip in this Fox News interview, however:

“The mother's life is always protected. With that said, it doesn't mean it's easy to get an abortion just because you have a complication or because something goes wrong."

Yeah, we wouldn’t want to make it too easy to save a woman’s life!

In the States

Republicans have a trifecta of power in Iowa, with control of the governor’s office and both legislative chambers, but that isn’t stopping Democrats from trying to restore abortion rights. Yesterday, Iowa House Democrats unveiled their legislative priorities, which include repealing the state’s 6-week ban should they gain a majority come November.

Iowa House Democratic Leader Jennifer Konfrst predicted her Republican colleagues “are going to have a different attitude when they come to the Legislature in January about the importance of listening to voters, because they will have just seen some of their colleagues lose their elections because they didn’t.” (The majority of Iowans want abortion to be legal.)

As you likely know, the anti-abortion movement has been hard at work trying to pass travel ban ordinances in Texas, which they call ‘anti-trafficking’ policies. Most recently, anti-abortion assholes like Mark Lee Dickson have targeted Amarillo—where activists gathered signatures to put the ordinance on the ballot after the city council declined to pass it. This week, the Texas Tribune profiled Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley, who calls himself ‘pro-life’ but is taking heat for stopping the ordinance from moving forward. “That’s just not my job,” he said.

To hear from local abortion rights activists, read this guest column from the Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance:

How to Stop An ‘Abortion Trafficking’ Ordinance

Danielle Campoamor has published a harrowing but important piece at The Nation about why she drives an hour out of South Dakota to get her prenatal care in Minnesota. Campoamor outlines having to sketch out an “oh-shit plan”—what to do if she goes into early labor or has some other kind of emergency pregnancy complication. She needs to plan for who will take care of her children, and who will drive her across state lines if she can’t drive herself.

”I am one severe pregnancy complication away from landing in a South Dakota emergency room where a doctor is too afraid to help me because of state politicians and their cruel anti-abortion policies. I know my joyfully oblivious sons, who cannot wait to meet their future sibling, are unaware that the legislators in charge of their home state believe it’s ‘pro-life’ to allow their mother to die.”

It’s hard to fathom that this is what it takes to be safe as a pregnant person in America.

A federal judge has blocked New York Attorney General Letitia James from taking action against anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers that lie to women about ‘abortion reversal.’ The judge ruled in favor of the Thomas More Society, which claims that preventing the religious groups from misleading women is a violation of their free speech rights. (First Amendment suits are the latest legislative trend of crisis pregnancy centers.)

Finally, a judge in Idaho heard augments this week about whether to dismiss a legal challenge against the state’s abortion ban. The lead plaintiff in the suit is a woman who was denied an abortion for her doomed and dangerous pregnancy; the suit was brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of women whose health and lives were endangered by the state ban.

Remember, Idaho’s law allows for life-saving care, but abortions to save someone’s health remain illegal. As Idaho Capital Sun reporter Mia Maldonado put it: “This means even if a pregnant patient faces organ loss, paralysis, or loss of fertility, they still would not be able to seek an abortion in the state.”

It doesn’t get much starker than that.

The attorney for Idaho, however, Jim Craig, says, “I don’t know how much clearer we can get…You do not have to wait to provide life saving care.” He didn’t say anything about the whole loss-of-organs and paralysis bit.

As a reminder: Idaho Republicans went in front of the Supreme Court to argue against a federal law requiring hospitals to give women life-saving abortions, and the Attorney General Raúl Labrador claimed that doctors who said they had to helicopter women out of the state to save their lives were lying.

“The truth is, pregnancy is complicated. It involves life-changing decisions, deeply personal medical considerations, and in some cases, matters of life and death. Politicians are not equipped to make these decisions, and they shouldn’t be interfering in such intimate matters.”

- Florida family medicine physician Dr. Aparna Asher in the Tampa Bay Times

Attacks on IVF

One of the anti-abortion movement’s biggest weaknesses is their opposition to IVF. Remember what happened when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos were ‘extrauterine children’? I do! The backlash was immediate. Since then, Republicans and anti-abortion groups have been doing their best to pretend to support IVF in order to avoid voters’ ire.

As I’ve pointed out previously, their primary strategy is to claim that they simply want to implement “health and safety standards” for fertility clinics. (This is the language that Sens. Katie Britt and Ted Cruz used in their bullshit IVF ‘protection’ bill, for example.) What are those standards? Well, probably something similar to the onerous and unnecessary anti-abortion TRAP laws we’ve seen Republicans impose on abortion clinics.

The other thing to watch out for is the “tracking” of embryos. For example, I’ve reported before that the anti-abortion group, the Charlotte Lozier Institute submitted a public comment to the CDC advising them to report and regulate the embryos used in fertility treatments—which is just another way that anti-abortion ‘data’ collection is going to come into play.

Every once in a while, however, anti-abortion activists don’t bother hiding their extremism. In this terrific Salon piece about how anti-abortion groups expect Trump to give them any policy they want, SBA-PLA president Marjorie Dannenfelser tells reporter Nandika Chatterjee, “We believe human embryos should not be destroyed.”

Dannenfelser goes on to repeat talking points about “basic safety standards” and “negligence”—all keywords she can use to feign caring about women and families while actually opposing IVF. Kristi Hamrick from Students for Life offered similar language, telling Chatterjee, “IVF is an industry that needs strong oversight and regulation.”

Ballot Measure Updates

You all know by now that Republicans across the country have been attacking democracy in order to ban abortion or keep in banned. The Missouri GOP is one of the worst offenders, pulling out all the stops to stop voters from having a say on abortion rights entirely. Now, one Republican lawmaker reveals his plan for how to get around voters’ wishes should they decide to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

Rep. Brian Seitz says, “We will do everything to protect the innocent life in the womb if Amendment 3 happens to pass,” telling the Kansas City Star that he plans to file a bill to define life at conception. Seitz insists that the legislation would “pass court muster” because it does not specifically mention abortion.

These assholes will try anything.

A few bits of news in Florida: Floridians Protecting Freedom brought their suit against Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) in front of a judge this week. As I’ve reported previously, the state agency and Republican leaders are using taxpayer dollars to campaign against Amendment 4—which is illegal! But Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody says that they’re exempt from the law prohibiting interference in elections. Terifying.

In better news, the campaign for Amendment 4 released its first-ever Spanish-language TV ad in support of the measure, and the Associated Press looks at the abortion rights groups courting Latino voters in the state.

In the Nation

It’s incredible that after more than two years since the end of Roe, Republican men still don’t know how to keep their mouths shut on abortion rights. Earlier this week, it came out that Bernie Moreno, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Ohio, said that women who care about abortion rights are “crazy,” especially if they’re over 50 years-old. “I don’t think that’s an issue for you,” he quipped at a campaign event.

Independent and Republican women voters really didn’t like those comments, according to the Ohio Capital Journal. Sixty-three year old Tammy Krings told the publication, “When I turned 50, I didn’t stop caring about my daughter’s body and her choices and her rights.” And Republican voter Lea Maceyko says, “Bernie said I was crazy, but really, I think he’s a little crazy to be mocking people that he wants to represent.”

This comes at the same time, by the way, that The Columbus Dispatch found that in 2023, Moreno said that the Founding Fathers would “murder you” for supporting abortion rights. But that’s not even the best favorite part! In the same event, Moreno chastised pregnant women for not taking responsibility: “You don’t get pregnant because you were at the checkout line at Kroger.”

NBC News looks at the trend of Republican abortion gaffes more broadly, with GOP strategists worrying that candidates are “falling into the same trap of what happened in 2022” and not talking proactively on abortion rights. Instead, most have been ignoring the issue, scrubbing their campaign websites of mentions of abortion, and—in many cases—just plain fucking it up.

Some Republicans, like Kari Lake in Arizona and Sam Brown in Nevada, have strategically ‘softened’ their views (at least publicly). We’ll have to wait to see just how successful that tactic will be.

Fellow Substacker Chris Geidner has a good breakdown of the ruling from a federal judge that allows Catholic employers to discriminate against people who have abortions or need gender-affirming care.

Ms. magazine looks at Republicans’ obsession with abortion surveillance—from Project 2025 to Senate legislation seeking additional “abortion data reporting.” You all know this is something I’m obsessed with; abortion reporting, attacks on privacy, and the collection of skewed data are the centerpiece of anti-abortion strategy right now.

Both the Associated Press and Susan Rinkunas at The New Republic look at the financial crisis that’s hit abortion funds across the country. Make sure to read both and donate to your local fund.

Finally, in the least surprising news of all time, it turns out that the director of Project 2025 didn’t resign from the Heritage Foundation as had been previously reported—but was fired for mistreating employees, women in particular. I know, truly shocking.

2024

According to the dossier that Donald Trump’s campaign complied on JD Vance, they knew exactly how radical the now-vice presidential candidate is on abortion. Thanks to Substacker Ken Klippenstein, who published the dossier, we can see that the campaign not only knew that Vance was an anti-abortion extremist—but understood that his views wouldn’t go over well with voters.

The campaign flagged that Vance doesn’t believe rape and incest victims should have access to abortion, that he called pregnancy after rape an “inconvenience,” and that he compared abortion to slavery. The dossier also says that “Vance is noted as having expressed that divorce is too common and that women in violent marriages should stay in them for the sake of their children.”

In other words, the Trump campaign knew very, very well just how dangerously sexist Vance is. Let’s be honest, I’m sure for the disgraced former president, that was a selling point. And as I noted when Vance’s candidacy was announced, Trump never really cared about having a running mate who was moderate on abortion rights (despite political predictions to the contrary).

I’m still making my way through the dossier and will update you if I come across anything else, but I did find this tidbit interesting: The campaign seemed concerned that while Vance opposed providing childcare assistance to low income families, “after his wife gave birth to their first child, Vance was living in Columbus while his wife lived in Washington, D.C. with her mother.” Hmm.