The Week in Abortion
1.15.24 - 1.19.24
Whew. It’s been quite a week in abortion rights—and for Abortion, Every Day! I’m still reeling from the huge response to the Senate briefing, and the incredible support you all offered along the way. At last count, my remarks on Wednesday were viewed by over 1 million people on Instagram alone—including over 300,000 views for the full 7-minute testimony. And those are just numbers from the videos that I uploaded! Clips were also shared by other activists, organizations and outlets, like the Center for Reproductive Rights and The Meteor.
All of which is to say, once again, thank you—for the words of encouragement, the hundreds of suggestions, thoughts and questions (I read every single one!), and for watching and sharing the briefing. A huge thank you also goes to Grace, for digging up all the background I needed to prepare. I feel very lucky to have such an incredible community behind me. Onward!
You can watch or read my testimony below:
The Power of Abortion Stories
Speaking of the Senate briefing—I’m sure you remember the incredible testimony of Dr. Austin Dennard, the Texas OBGYN who was denied an abortion in spite of her dangerous and doomed pregnancy. Today, the Biden-Harris campaign released an ad featuring Dr. Dennard talking directly to the camera about her experience—and putting the blame squarely on Donald Trump:
“At a routine ultrasound, I learned that the fetus would have a fatal condition and that there was absolutely no chance for survival. In Texas, you are forced to carry that pregnancy. And that is because of Donald Trump.”
The New York Times reports that the ad is being aimed at younger voters and suburban women, and that it will air during the season premiere of “The Bachelor” and on other channels with high-female viewership.
It’s a smart move by the Biden campaign: Dr. Dennard is compelling, her story is horrific, and it’s important to remind Americans that all of this unnecessary suffering is a direct result of Trump’s SCOTUS picks.
I’m sure that the Biden-Harris folks also looked at the incredible impact that a similar ad had in Kentucky’s gubernatorial race. Gov. Andy Beshear’s reelection has been credited in large part to an ad featuring Hadley Duvall, a young woman who spoke about being raped by her stepfather as a child:
“This is to you, Daniel Cameron. To tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable. I’m speaking out because women and girls need to have options. Daniel Cameron would give us none.”
Women’s personal stories are becoming a bigger and bigger part of Democrats’ 2024 strategy—which makes sense. Voters should know about the real life suffering that bans cause, and we know that abortion storytelling helps to change votes.
I just wish that women did not have to lay bare our pain in order for people to see us fully human and vote accordingly. Watch Dr. Dennard’s powerful ad below:
2024
The campaign ad featuring Dr. Dennard is part of a broader push on abortion rights by President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who will mark this week’s Roe anniversary in a joint appearance in Virginia. And while the Biden-Harris campaign is focusing heavily on Donald Trump’s culpability, law professor Mary Ziegler made this important point to The New York Times:
“There’s a problem, potentially, for Biden, in the sense that young people don’t know what practically Biden can do that he hasn’t already done. What the administration hasn’t messaged effectively is what Trump could do. The reality is that things could get much worse, regardless of Congress.”
It’s a horrifying thought—the idea of things getting even worse—but that’s absolutely right. And it’s important that voters understand every detail of what could happen should Trump be re-elected. In a perfect world, Biden would relay that very real danger to voters while also offering a pro-active, enthusiastic, abortion rights plan.
Conservative Cruelty
It wouldn’t be a week in abortion rights without some good old-fashioned misogynist nightmares! On Friday, I told you about one of the more disturbing anti-choice strategies I’ve been tracking: the move to force women into labor or c-sections when they need emergency abortions.
Why the fuck would anyone ever want to force women who could be treated with a ten minute abortion into unnecessary vaginal delivery or a major surgery? Because they are desperate to divorce abortion from healthcare, and if women have to suffer or die as a result so be it.
Essentially, the anti-choice movement argues that abortion is never necessary to save someone’s health or life. We know that’s false—pregnancy is dangerous, and there are many, many circumstances in which the only way to stop a pregnant woman from dying is to stop her from being pregnant.
But anti-abortion activists believe they have a workaround: They force doctors to give women c-sections or make them deliver vaginally, then say, “See! They didn’t need an abortion after all!” Never mind that they put someone through mental and physical anguish—all in service of a political talking point.
This week, that strategy took hold in Wisconsin, where Republicans introduced a 14-week abortion ban that would only allow for care when a patient’s life is at risk, and even then doctors must “terminate the pregnancy in the manner that, in reasonable medical judgment, provides the best opportunity for the unborn child to survive.” (aka c-sections or vaginal deliveries)
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers will veto the bill, thank goodness. But this kind of mandate is already in effect in other states, and the legislation makes crystal clear that this is the future Republicans want.
Read the full piece here:
In more post-Dobbs horror stories (I’m sorry), we were still waiting for any sort of public outcry over the death of Yeniifer Alvarez-Estrada Glick—the young woman killed by Texas’ abortion ban. Since The New Yorker published Yeni’s story—making clear that it was the state’s abortion policy that led to her death—there has been almost no follow up coverage from other outlets, nor has there been the kind of outrage that Ireland saw after the death of Savita Halappanavar.
And as I reported this week, the anti-abortion movement is pulling out all the tactics that Abortion, Every Day has been predicting since Roe was overturned: They’re blaming doctors, activists, even Yeni herself.
They will do anything to avoid telling the truth: that Texas’ abortion ban—and the ideology that passed it—killed Yeni. (Read more about the anti-abortion ecosystem, including religious hospitals, here.)
Finally, Kate Cox—the Texas woman who became a viral example of Republican cruelty—spoke out this week about her experience. She talked to CBS News Sunday Morning about being denied an abortion even after her pregnancy was diagnosed with a fatal fetal abnormality—and how much she just wanted to stay in her home state: “I wanted to come home, cry on my own pillow, hold my babies, be near my doctors.”
Ballot Measure Updates
We had a few major updates this week on pro-choice ballot measures, the biggest coming out of Missouri: After introducing multiple measures, abortion rights groups in the state have decided on one in particular to start gathering signatures on. (You can read the proposed amendment from Missourians for Constitutional Freedom here.)
The measure protects abortion rights until ‘viability’, which would be defined on the “good faith judgement” of a health care professional. If a doctor determines that someone’s life, physical health or mental health is at risk, the government wouldn’t be able to intervene regardless of ‘viability’.
As you know, ‘viability’ standards have been the center of a lot of disagreement among pro-choice groups. Some believe the restrictions will preempt conservative claims that they support abortion ‘up until birth’, while others know those attacks will come regardless.
You know where I stand. I’m also concerned that the allowance for mental health exceptions will Republicans even more fodder than if there was no ‘viability’ standard at all. That said, the coalition of groups pushing the amendment are serious powerhouses who’ve been fighting for Missouri abortion rights over decades. And Mallory Schwarz, the executive director of Abortion Action Missouri, said the the measure meets voters in the state where they’re at:
“Many members of our coalition are out talking about abortion with Missourians every day, and we know that Missourians often have complex or nuanced positions on abortion, but there is one thing that they are aligned in, and it’s that they want to end the abortion ban…we are confident this is our best path forward.”
The good news is that a 2022 poll showed that the majority of Missouri voters oppose the state’s abortion ban—and we know that when abortion rights are put directly to voters, abortion rights wins. The campaign for the measure also raised more than $1 million on the first day it launched.
The bad news is that Republicans have already spent months attacking the measure, using many of the same tactics we saw in Ohio and more. (Some background here.) There’s also a newly-formed anti-abortion group, Missouri Stands with Women, co-opting feminist rhetoric in opposition to the amendment: they claim women and girls “deserve protection from the potential risks posed by unrestricted abortions.”
Pro-choice activists will have to gather more than 170,000 signatures in order to get the amendment in front of voters. And Abortion, Every Day will keep you updated every step of the way.
In other ballot measure news: Virginia Democrats are postponing their pro-choice ballot measure until the 2025 session—but thankfully that won’t push back when voters will actually see the amendment.
In Montana, the Republican Attorney General has blocked a pro-choice measure this week, arguing that the proposed amendment is “legally insufficient.” Attorney General Austin Knudsen made an argument that anti-abortion groups in Ohio tried around Issue 1: that the proposed amendment “logrolls multiple distinct political choices into a single initiative.” (It didn’t work in Ohio, so hopefully the same will be true in Montana.)
Knudsen also argues that his move blocking the amendment and voters’ ability to have a say on abortion is actually just his way of protecting voters: He says the measure “denies voters the ability to express their views on the nuance” of abortion. Just incredible.
Finally, an Oklahoma Republican wants to change the state’s constitution to define life as beginning at conception. Rep. Jim Olsen’s legislation would have to be passed by both lawmakers and voters. Given the recent history of abortion rights ballot measures, I’m not really sure how Olsen thinks this is going to go down in his favor!
State News
A new Kentucky bill would allow women to get child support during pregnancy—a move that could enshrine fetal personhood and allow the state to surveil pregnant people.
Minnesota Democrats want to include abortion rights protections in their state Equal Rights Amendment.
Two Texas lawyers are asking the state medical board to clarify what constitutes a medical exception under the state’s abortion ban.
A Maine Republican says she opposes a constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights because it doesn’t also protect men’s “reproductive autonomy.”
A new Indiana poll shows that the majority of voters in the state—nearly 60%—want abortion to be legal.
And in the Southeast, ProPublica reports that while a record number of women were elected to statehouses last year, the region lags behind—some legislatures there are more than 80% male.
Keep An Eye On
Google came under fire this week after a report from The Guardian showed that the tech giant is still not deleting user location data for abortion clinic visits. Despite vowing to protect patient privacy, 2022 data showed that Google was saving all of their map data along with abortion-related web searches. (Information that could be used to power abortion-related prosecutions.)
After more promises to do better, The Guardian reports that Google has only made nominal changes: “The rate of retention of location information decreased from 60% of tested cases, a measurement taken five months after Google’s pledge, to 50% of tested cases in the most recent experiment.”
Researchers who tested Google in a handful of states (including Texas, North Carolina and New York) found that abortion patients’ location data might still be retained “with the same odds as a coin flip.”
In related news, Bloomberg Law reports that Accountable Tech and the Electronic Privacy Information Center have filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over the privacy breaches.
On Friday in DC they held the annual anti-abortion march my friends and I call the March Against Women’s Lives. It got sympathetic coverage with 3 articles in the Washington Post and at least on in the NYTimes, when I have found no coverage of Thursday’s Senate hearing in either paper. Religious schools bus in hordes of teenagers for this event and poorly supervised boys in red hats think it’s hilarious to yell misogynist crap at the women they pass on the sidewalk. It frustrates me how much deference the media still gives these people and how they still allow them to wrongly claim the moral high ground.
That ad with Dr. Dennard is a great start. Her demographics addresses the people we need to peel off to get even more support. She is white, rich, beautiful/blonde (a lot of Republican women may relate to her better) and a doctor to boot. She knows exactly what is happening or going to happen with the fetus being an OB/GYN herself. And if she had this much trouble to get a medically necessary abortion, what about other mere mortals with even less resources, that is the subtext. Credit to her for coming forward with her story.