The Week in Abortion

11.11.24 - 11.15.24

Election Hangover

I don’t know about you, but this past week has been a shift for me—from grief to productive anger. I’m still devastated, obviously, but I’m also determined to reduce as much harm as possible. That’s why I asked some of the smartest people I know what Democrats should do to protect abortion rights before Donald Trump takes office. Recommendations for the Biden administration and state leaders included issuing an anti-fetal personhood executive order, advancing provision of abortion medication, and pushing through judicial nominations. Read the full list below:

Ten Actions Dems Can Take to Protect Abortion Before Trump Takes Office

Given some of the nominations we saw from Trump this week—from sexual predator Matt Gaetz to RFK Jr.—being proactive has never been more important.

Outside of the cabinet of horrors that Trump is putting together, the post-election issue that got the most attention this week was split-ticket voters: those who voted for Trump and pro-choice ballot measures. I collected analyses from various publications here and here, but I continue to think that the answer is relatively simple. Trump gave Republican women something they desperately wanted on abortion: the illusion of choice.

Thanks to mainstream media outlets uncritically repeating Trump’s bullshit again and again, pro-choice Republican women believed the disgraced former president when he said abortion would be “the will of the people.” And as is often the case with conservative women, these voters also bought into the lie that they will be the exception to the rule.

While analyzing Trump’s win is important, I know Abortion, Every Day readers are more focused on what his ascendance means for abortion rights our everyday lives. That’s why I continued to collect and answer your questions this week: Like how to get abortion medication and what the chances are of a national ban. I also wrote about the GOP’s more hidden attacks on abortion rights—the targeting of our medical privacy, for example, and anti-choice indoctrination in schools.

Legal Challenges

We saw women in several states suing over abortion bans this week: In Kentucky, a pregnant woman seeking an abortion filed a lawsuit arguing that the ban violates her right to privacy and self-determination under the state constitution. And in Idaho, four women who were denied abortions despite having doomed pregnancies told their stories in court.

These women, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, bravely testified about the horror of carrying nonviable pregnancies. Meanwhile, the state attorney frequently objected, calling their experiences 'irrelevant' and relying on gory anti-abortion rhetoric to shock the court and shame the women. As the saying goes, the cruelty is the point.

I think we’re about to see a conservative backlash to the post-Roe horror stories women have been sharing. Republicans know that those women’s stories are incredibly dangerous to them; that’s why they’ve been working so hard to ignore them or shirk blame. But this latest legal strategy in Idaho makes me wonder if Republicans are going to go full asshole instead of pretending to empathize. Now that they’ve been emboldened by the election, we may see a lot more politicians willing to more openly call women sluts and killers for seeking abortion care.

State News

In other state news, Texas Republicans continue to fight it out to be the world’s worst humans: In addition to introducing legislation to classify abortion medication as a controlled substance, the GOP also wants to ban pro-choice websites. As I noted, this is part of a broader attack on abortion-related speech across the country—but I will never get over the fact that they’re just shamelessly admitting that they want to ban whole ass websites!

In slightly better news, the North Carolina Republican who told a woman concerned about the state ban to “move to China” is facing some well-deserved backlash. And in Wisconsin, the county attorney pushing to restore an 1800s law to ban abortion was dressed down by state Supreme Court justices during oral arguments. It’s well worth a watch here, and you can read background on the case that will determine Wisconsin’s abortion laws here.

Let’s stick with the relatively good news for a moment: ‘Free speech’ lawsuits brought by anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers were blocked in New Jersey and California; Maryland is training more healthcare workers to provide abortions; and Austin, Texas is moving forward with their fund to help people get out-of-state abortions despite AG Ken Paxton’s threats.

Ballot Measure Updates

Kamala Harris may have lost the presidential race, but Americans still came out strong for abortion rights in ballot measure votes. And as I wrote last week, even the amendments that weren’t successful could hardly be called losses. The best example of that is Florida, where 57% of voters wanted to restore abortion rights—but the 60% threshold kept the measure from passing. (Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani says she’s going to file legislation to repeal Florida’s 6-week ban given it’s so clear what voters want.)

I spoke to the campaign director for Amendment 4 this week, Lauren Brenzel, about what happened in the state and how Florida Republicans’ attacks on democracy are likely to be exported across the country.