The Week in Abortion

A new Abortion, Every Day feature!

One of the challenging things about doing this work is that the sheer volume of abortion news can make it difficult to highlight what I think are the most important stories to pay attention to. With that in mind, I’m going to try out something new on Fridays or Saturdays: A roundup that spotlights the week’s major news and points out any relevant updates.

The other reason for the new feature is that I know there may be times when you’re overwhelmed by the onslaught of daily abortion news. The weekly roundup can be a tool to ensure you’re caught up with the most vital stories, even if you decide to skip a few days of the newsletter.

I hope you all find this useful, and as always—let me know what you think (or if there’s anything I missed!) in comments.

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In the states...

Tennessee Republicans’ proposed rape and incest exception to the state’s abortion ban would imprison women for three years if the state doesn’t believe them about their attack. In the past, women have been accused of making false reports if their case didn’t end in a conviction, if they recanted their statement out of fear, or simply if a cop didn’t believe them.

Wyoming pushed forward with their bill to give legislators equal power to interpret the state constitution as the state Supreme Court—a move to pass abortion bans whether the courts like it or not, and part of a broader strategy by Republicans in multiple states.

An investigation from The Guardian revealed that a Kentucky crisis pregnancy center that used expired disinfectant on vaginal probes faced no disciplinary action from the state medical board—largely because of the lack of state regulations for the anti-abortion groups.

A woman in Georgia was denied coverage for her IUD because of the “sanctity of life;” Minnesota codified abortion rights; and hundreds gathered in the Nebraska Capitol building to protest as lawmakers heard testimony on a proposed abortion ban.

In the nation…

Twenty Republican state Attorneys General sent a threatening letter to CVS and Walgreens, warning them that mailing abortion medication to their states would be against the law. If the AGs are successful in keeping abortion medication out of their states, it would mean that women wouldn’t have access to the most common form of abortion—and that those having miscarriages wouldn’t be able to obtain the medication, either, which is a standard treatment in miscarriage care. One OBGYN said it would be “a crisis in the practice of obstetrics and gynecology.”

The ‘Standing with Moms Act’, introduced by Rep. Nancy Mace in the House and Sen. Marco Rubio in the Senate, would create a federal anti-abortion website that publishes misinformation about abortion, directs pregnant women to crisis pregnancy centers—and collect their personal information for the government to hold onto and to share with anti-abortion groups.

The Republican National Committee passed a resolution to “go on offense” on abortion; the Biden administration is proposing a rule to allow women to have their contraception covered whether or not their employer has religious objections; Representative Ayanna Pressley introduced a resolution to enshrine the Equal Rights Amendment in the constitution.

Keep an eye on…

Conservative attacks on pharmacies—whether via legal threats to keep abortion medication out of retail chains or protests outside of local pharmacies. (Anti-choice groups are planning a national day of action today around pharmacy chains who carry the medication.)

Statistics…

A new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly half of Americans don’t know whether abortion medication is legal in their state and that more than a third didn’t know if abortion medication and emergency contraception were different. Seventy-three percent (including 66% of women) believed that emergency contraception can end a pregnancy in its early stages.

A Planned Parenthood poll showed that the vast majority of Americans are concerned about the criminalization of those who have and provide abortions:

• 81% are worried about medical professionals being charged with a felony if they give a life-saving abortion that a prosecutor disagrees was necessary;

• 80% are concerned that the fear of prosecution will make doctors less likely to give life-saving care;

• 80% are worried that law enforcement will investigate those who have miscarriages or stillbirths.

What the mainstream media missed…

Since Abortion, Every Day surfaced the story of how Tennessee Republicans’ rape ‘exception’ could jail women, there has been zero national media attention to the details of the bill (save for a Jezebel piece), and little local media coverage outside of a few lines at the very end of an article from Nashville’s public radio station. Tennessee voters already know very little about their abortion laws, which makes the lack of comprehensive coverage all the more distressing.

There has also been no national coverage of how the letter from Republican Attorneys General would prevent miscarrying women in those twenty states from getting necessary medication. While mainstream media outlets covered the letter itself and the attempt to prevent abortion medication from being mailed to pharmacies, no reports mentioned that the medication is used to treat miscarriages, and that keeping said treatment off of pharmacy shelves would cause a crisis in women’s health care.

Similarly, there was no coverage of the details of Sen. Marco Rubio’s bill seeking to create a federal anti-choice website—or what it would mean for the government to have a list of pregnant women, and the privacy concerns of sharing pregnant women’s data with anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers.