Watch the Ad Florida Republicans Are Trying to Keep Off the Air

10.7.24

Click to skip ahead: Attacks on Democracy outlines the latest insanity in Florida. In All About Georgia, the state Supreme Court has reinstated a 6-week abortion ban. Everything you need to know about Kamala on Call Her Daddy. The news on EMTALA & SCOTUS is disappointing, but not surprising. In 2024, news on Tim Walz, Melania Trump and JD Vance. In the States, news from Delaware, Colorado and Texas. Stats & Studies looks at the anti-abortion researchers suing over their studies being retracted. In the Nation, some quick hits. Finally, some Book Tour News!

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Attacks on Democracy

Let’s talk about what Donald Trump means when he says that abortion will be “up to the states”: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is threatening television stations that run ads for Amendment 4 with misdemeanor charges. Just when I think I’ve lost my ability to be shocked!

The Florida Department of Health sent a letter to WFLA TV, telling its vice president that running the Amendment 4 ad—which features a woman talking about her experience with a doomed pregnancy—puts people’s health and lives at risk. The letter threatens that if the station doesn’t remove the TV spot, the state will move ahead with legal proceedings and that breaking the law could lead to misdemeanor charges.

It doesn’t get more clearcut than this. As Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, tweeted, “Floridians, THIS is not democracy!”

“We do not live in a free state, free of government interference, free of government intimidation and free of government overreach,” she said.

And as journalist Jason Garcia notes, this letter comes at the same time that DeSantis is using taxpayer dollars to run ads attacking Amendment 4 everywhere from ESPN and CNN to the fucking Weather Channel. (Using the power of state agencies to lobby against a citizen initiative is against the law, but a judge ruled in favor of DeSantis regardless last week.)

Here’s the ad DeSantis doesn’t want Floridians to see:

All About Georgia

Just a week after a judge struck down Georgia’s abortion ban in a blistering ruling, the state Supreme Court has put a hold on that decision—which effectively reinstates the ban. That means by 5pm today, abortions in Georgia after 6 week are illegal. You can read the decision here.

The Court’s move comes after state Attorney General Christopher Carr appealed the repeal of the ban, claiming that Georgia patients “will not suffer much harm” if the law were reinstated. It was just a few weeks ago that news broke of at least two women killed by the state’s ban. (Even the state’s own maternal mortality committee found the ban to be responsible for their deaths.)

Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, called the decision “unconscionable, especially after the loss of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller.”

“Today, the Georgia Supreme Court sided with anti-abortion extremists. Every minute this harmful six-week abortion ban is in place, Georgians suffer. Denying our community members the lifesaving care they deserve jeopardizes their lives, safety, and health—all for the sake of power and control over our bodies.”

As the Center for Reproductive Rights pointed out on Twitter, there’s a sliver of good news: The Georgia Supreme Court, at least for now, left in place part of the ruling that blocked a law that allowed state prosecutors broad access to abortion patients’ medical records.

I’ll have more on the ruling and what comes next soon, but in the meantime: I’m so very sorry, Georgia.

Kamala on Call Her Daddy

While we’re talking about the consequences of Georgia’s abortion ban, let’s talk about the interview Vice President Kamala Harris gave to Alex Cooper at the massively popular podcast Call Her Daddy. In addition to talking about Donald Trump’s ‘post-birth’ abortion lies and the attacks on Harris for not having biological children, the presidential candidate spoke at length about about the death of Amber Nicole Thurman.

I noted last month when Harris spoke about Thurman’s death that she did something unprecedented for a presidential candidate—she normalized abortion. Harris did the same thing in this interview, saying Thurman was “so excited and so ambitious, and she had plans.”

“Then she found out she was pregnant and she didn't want to go through with her pregnancy,” she said. Again, this may seem like a small thing but it’s really not. Framing abortion as a normal decision one makes when a pregnancy doesn’t align with their life’s plans is actually quite radical. Though it shouldn’t be!

Where Harris really shone in this interview, though, was when she talked about the lie of abortion ban ‘exceptions,’ specifically the exception for women’s lives.

“OK, so you believe there's an exception that the person should receive abortion care if the life of the mother is at risk. You know what that means in practical terms? She’s almost dead before you decide to give her care. What? So we're going to have public health policy that says a doctor, a medical professional waits until you're at death's door before they give you care. That's outrageous that anybody would be saying that that is acceptable policy. So until everything that that physically could happen to your body in terms of deterioration, only at the point that oh, she might die, is she going to get care? Where is the humanity?”

Where is the humanity. That’s the exact right question. And you should listen/watch to the interview yourself because there’s no way for me to capture the energy in the room; Harris was pissed when she was talking about ‘exceptions.’

There’s also an amazing moment when she responds to the attack from Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said last month that children keep you humble and that “Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.” Harris’ reply? “I’m not aspiring to be humble.” Put that on a t-shirt and call it a day.

You can watch a segment of the interview below, but listen to the full thing here. (Harris’ remarks on exceptions start at minute 28.)

EMTALA & SCOTUS

Just as I was ready to send out the newsletter, I found out that the Supreme Court declined to hear the Biden administration’s appeal on emergency abortions in Texas. As you may remember, the administration (rightly!) argued that Texas’ ban conflicts with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires hospitals to give life-saving and stabilizing abortions.

In January, the notoriously conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an unanimous ruling that said EMTALA doesn’t require abortions and doesn’t preempt Texas law. What’s more, the judges ruled that when emergency room doctors are faced with a patient who has a dangerous or life-threatening pregnancy, they have a responsibility to “stabilize both the pregnant woman and her unborn child.” In other words, a 6-week embryo would warrant as much emergency treatment as you do.

The Biden administration wanted SCOTUS to step in, but today they declined. We saw the Court do a similar dance of avoidance in their decision on Idaho’s abortion ban and EMTALA: There, the justices essentially kicked the decision back down to a lower court (it wasn’t a ruling on the merits of the case).

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote at the time that the ruling “is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho.”

“While this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position, as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires. This Court had a chance to bring clarity and certainty to this tragic situation, and we have squandered it. And for as long as we refuse to declare what the law requires, pregnant patients in Idaho, Texas, and elsewhere will be paying the price.”

I mean really. How is it possible that emergency abortions are up for debate? If you need a reminder about what’s at stake, consider re-reading my column in response to the Fifth Circuit decision:

Of Course They Want Us Dead

2024

Harris’ Call Her Daddy interview was just one of several big abortion-focused interviews this weekend. Because I’ll do anything to put off talking more about Melania Trump, let’s start with Gov. Tim Walz.

As I long-warned would happen, conservatives have glommed onto Minnesota’s pro-choice law in the lead up to the election, claiming it allows abortion ‘up until birth’ and using it as supposed proof that Walz is an extremist. So we knew it was going to come up in his interview this weekend with Fox News.

But Walz handled the interview like a pro, and hit back against a barrage of abortion misinformation. When Fox News’ Shannon Bream attacked Walz as signing a law without “a single limit through nine months of pregnancy,” for example, the vice presidential candidate stayed on message. He said, “this puts the decision with the woman and her healthcare providers.”

Most importantly, Walz reminded viewers about the consequences of abortion bans—like women going septic—and the fact that Donald Trump wants to pass a national abortion ban. Naturally, Bream tried to defend Trump, saying that the disgraced former president has claimed he wouldn’t sign a ban. “Are you calling that just it’s a flat-out lie?,” she asked Walz. His answer? “Yes, of course.”

And it is a lie! You all know about the language games Trump and JD Vance are playing with the word ‘ban’; that’s why I was so happy to see this piece from Adam Serwer at The Atlantic delve into just that:

“[A] ‘national minimum standard’ is just another phrase for federal abortion ban, like calling soccer ‘football’ instead. Although Vance did not specify a window of time for such a standard, the only point of one would be to ban abortion outside it.”

Okay, onto Melania. As you know, the former first lady has suddenly revealed that she’s a passionate pro-choice advocate—right in time to distract from the news of women dying in anti-abortion states a few weeks before the election. In an interview with Fox News, Melania expanded on the sentiment:

“I believe in individual freedom. I want to decide what I want to do with my body. I think I don’t want government in my personal business I think it’s very important.”

When asked about writing the book before the election and the timing of this announcement, Melania said, “the books was written months before.” As I said to Chris Hayes on MSNBC, they must really think we’re stupid. The Trump campaign is pulling out every stop to make people believe he’s ‘softened’ on abortion rights, and announcing that the first lady is pro-choice and can somehow influence him is part of that lie. As the BBC notes, there’s even a history of Republican first ladies announcing their support of abortion rights in an attempt to soften their husbands’ image. So yeah, I call bullshit.

Speaking of bullshit, let’s talk about how Vance—who has been working to appear more moderate on abortion rights—slipped up and gave up the game. The Republican vice presidential candidate told a reporter from RealClearPolitics this weekend that he would defund Planned Parenthood:

“We don’t think that taxpayers should fund late-term abortions. That has been a consistent view of the Trump campaign the first time around; it will remain a consistent view.”

The Washington Post points out that Planned Parenthood gets a large amount of funding through Medicaid and federal grants in order to provide things like birth control and cancer screenings for low-income Americans. In fact, it makes up for 34% of the organizations’ revenue. So what Vance is talking about is gutting funding for vital low- and no-cost healthcare services. I really hope we get more than a few headlines on this one; it’s important.

In the States

I truly cannot imagine anything better than Sen. Ted Cruz losing Texas because of abortion rights. Is it possible? Maybe! Cruz’s opponent, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, is barely trailing the Republican—and folks seem to think it’s largely thanks to anger over the state’s abortion ban.

The Texas Tribune points out that Cruz has been uncharacteristically silent on the issue, and that Allred’s campaign has started airing ads that attack Cruz for his anti-abortion record. Cruz declined an interview with the Tribune, but that’s okay because the publication outlined his extremist opposition to abortion in detail.

For example, Cruz doesn’t support a rape and incest exception; he also literally ran from questions about Kate Cox, who was denied an abortion in Texas despite having a doomed and dangerous pregnancy.

I’ll update you as new polls come in, but fingers and toes crossed because abortion ousting Cruz would just be a delight.

“I think it’s interesting that we have people who will never understand what it means to carry a child…that they are the ones with the loudest voice and opposition to what folks who actually carry pregnancies to term, what they are asking for.”

- Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, in an interview about Georgia’s abortion ban

Some great news in Delaware, where a new law goes into effect in January that mandates health plans cover abortion care—including private plans, state employee insurance plans and Medicaid. The bill’s sponsor, House Majority Leader Melissa Minor-Brown, said, “I know what it means for a woman to have access to the full spectrum of reproductive health care, and I'm so proud that as a state, we have taken steps to ensure that we're protecting women in our state and we're protecting providers in our state.”

We all know by now that abortion being legal in a state doesn’t mean that it’s accessible. Take this report from The Denver Post on abortion availability in Colorado, where despite some of the most pro-choice laws in the country, many counties still lack access. Part of the issue is the increase in Catholic hospitals, which don’t offer abortion, birth control or sterilization. That’s why the state has passed an important new law, set to take effect this month, which requires hospitals to disclose any restrictions on the types of care they offer. While it won’t do anything to increase access, at least patients will know where they can and can’t get care.

Quick hits:

• A court struck down an anti-abortion lawsuit challenging Oregon’s law requiring that employers’ insurance plans cover abortion;

• Missouri women speak up about the state’s abortion ban;

• A full-spectrum doula in Nebraska talks about why she’s supporting the abortion rights amendment there;

• And the Midwest Newsroom and Emerson College Polling Center has new info on what midwestern voters think about abortion rights.

Stats & Studies

Remember how two major anti-abortion studies were retracted by their publisher back in February? Well, States Newroom reports that the anti-abortion activists behind the so-called studies are now suing Sage Publications, claiming that the retractions were politically-motivated and have led to “enormous and incalculable harm” to their professional reputations. (I’d say the shitty studies did that, but what do I know!)

Oh, and you’ll never guess who is bringing the suit on behalf of the ‘researchers’: Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). That’s right, the ultra-conservative legal group who argued in front of the Supreme Court against mifepristone and emergency abortions. You’d think that if you wanted to prove that your studies aren’t anti-abortion bunk, you might choose a lawyer with less obvious baggage.

ADF wants Sage to arbitrate with the ‘researchers’, rescind the retraction and “remedy the reputational damage the researchers have suffered at the hands of abortion lobbyists.”

In case you need a refresher: Several independent reviewers found that the articles had “unjustified or incorrect factual assumptions,” “material errors” and “misleading presentations” of data. The authors of the two studies also had major undeclared conflicts of interests; nearly all were affiliated with groups like the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) and the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

The reason this is so important is that these studies were used in major abortion cases—Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk cited them in his ruling against mifepristone, for example. Anti-abortion groups like AAPLOG and Charlotte Lozier are working hard to appear scientifically-credible in the hopes that their bad data and research will continue to be used in suits, legislation and beyond. So ensuring that these studies get retracted—and stay that way!—is vital, vital work.

In the Nation

• The Washington Post on how blue states are ‘Trump proofing’ abortion rights;

• A new study shows that more women are seeking sterilization post-Dobbs;

• Sally Field shared the harrowing story of her illegal abortion before Roe was enacted;

• The New York Times on the women sharing abortion stories in battleground states;

• And NPR on anti-abortion ‘abolitionists’ who want to criminalize IVF.

Book Tour News

I’ve been out doing press and events for the book nonstop and am definitely exhausted—but I’m also so grateful to all of the newsletter folks who came out to say hi! It’s such a pleasure to meet some of you real life. I’ll also be sending out info tomorrow about some online events for Abortion, Every Day readers, including a livestream and live-chat about the book.

In the meantime, if you’re not sick of hearing me talk about abortion yet, listen to my interview with Bay Area public radio station KALW here, watch me rant about Melania Trump with Chris Hayes here; and hear me tell Ali Velshi what the endgame is for the anti-abortion movement is here. I’ll also be on The Daily Show (gulp!) this Wednesday evening.

Also, please don’t forget: if you’ve read the book, please consider leaving it a review on Amazon, Goodreads, etc; it’s a great way to support Abortion!