1). “Abortion, Every Day (4.17.24): Arizona GOP wants to launch a fake ballot measure”, Apr 18, 2024, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
3). “Kids at work: States try to ease child labor laws at behest of industry: Bills doing away with work permits and extending working hours for teens 16 and older have cleared legislative committees in Missouri”, Apr 7, 2023, Ariana Figueroa, Missouri Independent, at < https://missouriindependent.
4). “Abortion in Missouri: A look at key claims in the ‘decline to sign’ effort”, Apr 19, 2024, Alyse Pfeil, St. Louis Post Dispatch, includes at the bottom of the article 3 videos, of Republican Candidates for the Missouri Governorship, and one radio ad from a Forced-Birth organization, spouting typical lies about the Abortion Rights Initiative that will appear on the ballot in the November General Election, at < https://www.stltoday.com/news/
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista: Item 1)., “Abortion, Every Day (4.17.24): Arizona GOP ….”, is one of Jessica Valenti's typical fine overviews of the latest efforts, both by the Forced-Birth elements centered in the Republican Party, and the many people struggling to recoup their stolen Reproductive Healthcare and Abortion Rights. She provided a link to Item 2)., “Defunding Schools -- Rolling Back ….”, posted by Jess Piper. Piper zeroes right into some of the real issues that face Americans. She writes:
“Missouri is considering a bill right now to ban restrictions on child labor laws. Yes, ban them.
“So, what do child labor laws have to do with vouchers and defunded schools? Well, everything.
“Lawmakers in 11 states have either passed or introduced laws to roll back child labor laws — a push that’s come from industry trade organizations and mostly conservative legislators as businesses scramble for low-wage workers. {this line excerpted by Ms Piper from Item 3).} ….
“In Missouri, under that new Senate bill, kids as young as 14 would not need to get a special permit to go to work ….
“Missouri Republican lawmakers have received their mandate from their donors—pass a school voucher scheme and defund public schools in this 2024 session. For those who haven’t been paying attention, this is done with “school choice” and vouchers. (Emphasis added) ….
(In Florida) “ …. lobbyists vying to send taxpayer money to religious schools and even homeschools. They have successfully defunded the schools and are now working to fill dangerous positions with child labor.” (Emphasis added) ….
“School vouchers are a strategy to offload the burden of paying for education onto parents. Defund the public schools with vouchers for private schools and then remove the vouchers or raise private school tuition. If a parent can't afford to cover the new price of a previously public and free education, their child goes to work.” (Emphasis added)
Of course this is the informal and somewhat inadvertant way that the U.S. ruling class is adapting to their (and our) greatly diminished role in the world. No longer a nation that has powerful industries or that is at the cutting edge of producing high technology products, the U.S. ruling class wants a beaten down semi-literated work force that in their desperation will accept any indignity.
Item 3)., “Kids at work: ….” is an article from a fine Missouri publication that goes into some detail about the new reality for children who are forced, by economic deprivation of their families to go to, often dangreous, work at an early age.
Item 4). “Abortion in Missouri: A look at ….”, is an article that looks at some of the claims made by the Forced-Birth forces in Missouri; as the state girds for the likely vote on an initiative to amend the State Consitution, to provide for decent Abortion and Reproductive Healthcare Rights. Of particular interest are the three statements by Missouri Republican politicians (all middle aged or older well-off White Men of course) that a reader can click and listen to the lying bombast of these creeps. There is also audio for a one minute forced-birth organization's advertisement on the issue. These are members of the “Decline to Sign” forces and their efforts.
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Abortion, Every Day (4.17.24)
Click to skip ahead: The fallout continues in All About Arizona. In the States, news out of Kansas, Kentucky, Indiana and more. Ballot Measure Updates from Montana and Nebraska. In the Nation, more about the Pregnant Fairness Workers Act. Democrats’ 2024 Weapon? Women’s abortion stories. Finally, in You Love to See It, Karlie Kloss uses her platform to push for abortion rights and call out the GOP’s attacks on democracy.
All About Arizona
The backlash against Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban shows no sign of slowing, with celebrities speaking out against the law and Republicans struggling to figure out how to respond to the widespread fury. Their latest idea? Trick voters into thinking that they’re pro-choice.
A strategy document obtained by NBC News shows that Arizona Republicans are considering proposing a ballot measure to protect abortion rights through 15-weeks—a way to undercut an existing abortion rights measure that would enshrine abortion rights through ‘viability.’
The document lays out how Republicans in the state need to change the narrative and present voters with something other than Arizona for Abortion Access’ ballot measure. That’s because they know that when voters are given a choice between an abortion ban and abortion rights, they’re going to choose abortion rights every time. They figure if they can trick voters into thinking their ballot measure is a pro-choice one, they’ll be golden. (Something similar is going down in Nebraska, as I’ll outline later in the newsletter.)
As you can imagine, Republicans don’t actually want to protect abortion rights. So their plan is to “constitutionalize existing [anti-abortion] laws” in order to make that 15-week protection impossible to use. In other words, it’s a bunch of bullshit.
That said, it’s well-packaged bullshit. You’re not going to believe the potential names they’re throwing around for this fake-out ballot measure: “Protecting Pregnant Women and Safe Abortions Act,” the “Arizona Abortion and Reproductive Care Act" and the “Arizona Abortion Protection Act."
Just unbelievable, honestly—I write a lot here about the way that Republicans co-opt feminist language, but this is beyond the pale. Especially when you consider how this strategy document ended: with a meme of Seth Meyers, and the words, “Boom. Easy as That.” Women are dying, and they’re posting fucking memes.
Abortion, Every Day is just as angry as you are. Support independent feminist media by signing up for a paid subscription.
Meanwhile, Democrats in the state have been proposing legislation to repeal the 1864 ban without much luck—but the effort is putting Republicans in the hot seat, which we love. After voting down an attempt to repeal the law today, for example, Republicans claimed they rejected the bill because they don’t want to “rush” anything. Insert biggest eye-roll here.
In more Republicans-are-scared news: The Washington Post reports that U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake is personally lobbying GOP legislators in the state to repeal the ban. It was just in 2022 that Lake said she was “thrilled” by the 1864 law. But like all Republicans at this point, she can see the writing on the wall. Arizona Sen. Ken Bennett, for example, told the Post that Republicans wouldn’t “have a chance” if they didn’t do something to reverse or repeal the ban.
Gov. Katie Hobbs, however, says that Republicans had it coming. Correct!
“They own this. They voted for a bill that had this explicit language in it. They had the ability to not vote for this law in the first place.”
The anger of Arizona’s ban goes far beyond political junkies; people across the country, women especially, are outraged and afraid. On Monday, Kelly Clarkson interviewed Hillary Clinton about the law, with the former secretary of state calling the ban “cruel.” Clarkson called the law “insane” and “backwards,” and got emotional sharing her own difficult experience with pregnancy.
All of this comes as a new poll shows that Arizona Republican voters are split on the ban, with 49% opposing the law. (Something else interesting from this polling: voters continue to think that the president has very little to do with setting abortion policy. That means that the Biden Administration should be hitting a little harder on the danger of the Comstock Act.)
Finally, in just about the least surprising news ever, Arizona-based traffic has jumped at Plan C, a website that helps people obtain abortion medication.
In the States
A Kentucky judge is allowing a lawsuit to move forward that seeks to remove a buffer zone from a Louisville abortion clinic. The anti-abortion activists who brought the suit say that the protective zone is a violation of their free speech rights. As you may remember, we’re seeing these kinds of suits more and more–anti-choicers claiming that harassing patients and staff is a First Amendment right.
I’ve been raising the alarm about this strategy since last year, and it’s an important one to watch—especially since the suits are coming alongside Republican efforts to repeal the FACE Act. (That’s the federal law that makes it illegal to do violence to an abortion clinic or block patients from gaining access.) As violence and harassment against abortion providers and clinic staff increases—by a lot—it’s vital that we’re doing everything we can to protect them.
Some good news in Kansas, were Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed anti-trans and anti-abortion bills—including one that would have made it illegal to ‘financially coerce’ someone who had an abortion. The language there was so broad that even divorcing someone could be seen as financial coercion. Anti-abortion groups have responded by trying to give Gov. Kelly a Trump-esque name, “Governor ‘Coercion Kelly.’” They’re really reaching these days.
This week, the Associated Press reports on something Abortion, Every Day flagged last month: how Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita is pressuring the governor and legislature to bring back publicly available individual abortion reports. Now that there are virtually no abortions in Indiana, the state switched to aggregate reports in order to ensure that patients aren’t identifiable.
But Rokita—best known for his harassment campaign against Dr. Caitlin Bernard, the abortion provider who treated a 10-year-old rape victim—says that without the reports, he’s not able to get tips from anti-abortion snitches anymore. Rachel Jones, researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, tells the AP that the move is all about intimidating patients and providers. “There’s no public health or even legal purpose for trying to impose this,” she said.
Remember: Abortion reports are a growing conservative strategy, so make sure to keep an eye on stories like this.
Quick hits:
Tennessee Democrat Sen. London Lamar is pushing legislation that would establish a maternal mortality committee;
A former Marine has been sentenced to nine years in prison for firebombing a California Planned Parenthood;
And we’re keeping an eye on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Democrats’ 2024 Weapon: Women’s Stories
If you’re a regular reader, you know how powerful abortion stories have been for Democrats since Roe was overturned. We watched Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, for example, bring home his reelection thanks in large part to a campaign ad featuring a young woman talking about being raped and impregnated as a child. And just a few weeks ago in Alabama, Democrat Marilyn Lands flipped a state House seat by sharing her own abortion story.
The Associated Press says it’s becoming a trend. Tennessee Rep. Gloria Johnson, for example, talked about an abortion she had at 21 years old at a Republican-controlled House panel. “The reality is that we're in a situation where people act like stories like mine are one in a million when actually they happen every day,” she later said.
The Biden-Harris campaign are bringing some of those compelling personal stories on the campaign trail. Amanda Zurawski, the Texas woman who went septic after being denied an abortion, and Kaitlyn Joshua, the Louisiana woman denied miscarriage treatment, both campaigned for the president in North Carolina last week. This week the pair are in Wisconsin. (This also follows a heart-breaking ad featuring Zurawski that Democrats are pushing out in Arizona.)
Zurawski said what she went through was “nothing short of barbaric,” and it happened “because of Donald Trump.” Joshua talked about her doctors being afraid to treat her:
“They instead sent me home, sent home on prayers. I remember the young lady said ‘We’ll be praying for you and you’re just gonna have to handle this at home.’”
So now we’re giving “thoughts and prayers” to miscarriages, apparently. Nightmare.
Ballot Measure Updates
Montana abortion rights advocates officially launched their ballot measure campaign this week, after being held up by Republicans for months. Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights will need to get 60,000 signatures by June 21 to qualify for the ballot.
The ballot measure initiative in Missouri has raised nearly $5 million in the past three months. Abortion rights advocates there just have a few weeks left to gather the signatures they need to get abortion on the ballot. In addition to the absolutely bonkers attacks from Republicans, the group has had to contend with an anti-abortion “decline to sign” campaign.
This week, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch debunked that groups’ (outrageous) claims, most of which we’ve seen before in places like Ohio. A new one, however, is saying that the pro-choice measure would stop women from bringing malpractice claims against abortion providers—which, of course, is untrue. Remember, these groups are desperate to seem as if they give a shit about women’s health, even as they work to endanger it.
In Nebraska, a Republican state senator just donated half a million dollars to the anti-abortion ballot measure being pushed in the state. If you don’t remember this, it’s similar to what the Arizona GOP is floating: an anti-choice group, using a similar-sounding name to the pro-choice ballot measure campaign, is pushing an amendment to ‘protect’ abortion rights until the end of the first trimester.
But wait! Doesn’t Nebraska have a 12-week abortion ban? It sure does.That means this amendment—which just so happens to be supported by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Nebraska Right to Life, and the Nebraska Family Alliance—would actuay enshrine an abortion ban into the state constitution. Tricky, tricky.
In the Nation
The Texas Tribune has a really good piece on the EMTALA case headed to the Supreme Court. It always feels weird to write this out: justices will decide if states can deny women life-saving and stabilizing abortions in hospital emergency rooms. I wanted to flag this, though, because there’s a particularly important quote from George Washington University professor Sara Rosenbaum. She points out that a ruling in favor of Idaho would essentially allow hospitals to exclude certain classes of people from EMTALA protections:
“Now you've opened the door to excise any disfavored condition. What if, ‘We're going to prohibit our hospitals from providing emergency care unless someone’s dying from a drug overdose, because we think that by offering emergency care, we're encouraging people.’ Or hospitals are now barred from treating populations with HIV unless they're dying. There's no endpoint to this.”
I was so busy complaining about the coverage of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act’s abortion provision, that I didn’t take proper time to celebrate! A refresher: this federal regulation ensures that workers have time off and accommodations for pregnancy-related medical conditions like miscarriage, stillbirth, abortion and more. That’s great news. Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju says, “Nobody should have to sacrifice their reproductive health for their job.”
And Kimberly Inez McGuire, executive director of URGE (Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity), tells Salon that the regulation is a reminder that “the struggles and the needs of pregnant people, whether they're going to become parents, or whether they need an abortion, are very deeply connected.”
Glad to see The New York Times covering the trend of people sharing their abortion stories on TikTok, because it really is so important and cool. But you probably know what I’m going to say: I wish it wasn’t framed as something “divisive,” given we know that abortion rights are incredibly popular in the U.S. I think there’s a way to cover the fact that videos like this get gross anti-abortion pushback while making clear that those opposing voices are in the minority. (Am I forever complaining? Maybe!)
Finally, Andrew Warren, the prosecutor ousted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for declining to prosecute abortion cases, has an op-ed in The Hill about prosecutorial discretion and how it relates to abortion rights. The short version? Punishing state attorneys—who are elected officials!—for not wanting to arrest providers and patients is a democracy issue.
Quick hits:
CNN looks at why corporate America has been relatively quiet on abortion rights;
The San Francisco Chronicle on how abortion bans violate religious freedoms;
The Center for American Progress outlines 5 connections between the attacks on abortion rights and gender-affirming care;
And Mother Jones spoke to law professor Mary Ziegler about how Donald Trump could use the Comstock Act to enact a national backdoor ban.
You Love to See It
This is awesome: Philanthropist and model Karlie Kloss, who has been collecting signatures for the pro-choice ballot measure in Missouri, has a really good op-ed in The Washington Post today. Kloss not only calls out Republicans for their attacks on reproductive health, but for their assault on democracy:
“This is all part of a nationwide playbook to rip away our freedoms. In Kansas, antiabortion politicians tried to confuse voters with convoluted language on an abortion referendum. In Ohio, they tried to make it harder for a majority of voters to change the state’s constitution to protect abortion rights. Their efforts failed spectacularly, but that isn’t stopping lawmakers in Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida and Montana from trying similar tactics. Activists in those states are trying to give voters a voice on abortion this November, and politicians are trying to silence them.”
I especially appreciate that Kloss name-checks a few organizations she’s been working with and learning from. This is the kind of action we need to see from celebrities and other folks with large platforms. It’s great to see people sharing news and outrage on social media, but if you have the ability to garner national media attention and make a big fuss—now is the time.
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Defunding Schools -- Rolling Back Child Labor Laws and Reproductive Rights
If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know I speak about education a lot, but lately, the push toward defunding public schools at the same time we see a rolling back of child labor is more than upsetting…and it’s materializing in front of us.
Missouri is considering a bill right now to ban restrictions on child labor laws. Yes, ban them.
So, what do child labor laws have to do with vouchers and defunded schools? Well, everything.
Lawmakers in 11 states have either passed or introduced laws to roll back child labor laws — a push that’s come from industry trade organizations and mostly conservative legislators as businesses scramble for low-wage workers.
In the past two years, those states have moved to extend working hours for children, eliminate work permit requirements and lower the age for teens to handle alcohol or work in hazardous industries. At the same time, there has been a 69% increase in children employed illegally by companies since 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Kids at work, by Ariana Figueroa, April 7, 2023.
In Missouri, under that new Senate bill, kids as young as 14 would not need to get a special permit to go to work and the idea is to clear the way for more people to enter the workforce in Missouri — even if those people are children.
Missouri Republican lawmakers have received their mandate from their donors—pass a school voucher scheme and defund public schools in this 2024 session. For those who haven’t been paying attention, this is done with “school choice” and vouchers.
In Florida, a “career and technical education” bill would have allowed employers to hire 16- and 17-year-olds for work in roofing, in violation of federal laws that prohibit work in occupations known to be particularly dangerous for young workers.
This is happening under the guise of “education”, as they placed child labor under tech school status, in a state that has already defunded its public schools. All the while the Florida Capitol is swarming with “school choice” lobbyists vying to send taxpayer money to religious schools and even homeschools. They have successfully defunded the schools and are now working to fill dangerous positions with child labor.
In Iowa, a House bill would allow 16-year-olds to care for four infants or seven toddlers without supervision. Iowa also introduced a bill to allow minors as young as 14 to obtain a special driver’s license to drive up to 25 miles to or from work without an adult in the vehicle despite data showing Iowa having the highest share of young driver fatalities.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds’s school voucher scheme was passed and it is already devasting the state with $127,939,695 in taxpayer funds going to private and mostly religious schools in the first year. These schools are able to pick and choose their students and often do not enroll children from rural or LGBTQ communities and likely do not have services for children with disabilities. They can discriminate on the taxpayer’s dime.
School vouchers are a strategy to offload the burden of paying for education onto parents. Defund the public schools with vouchers for private schools and then remove the vouchers or raise private school tuition. If a parent can't afford to cover the new price of a previously public and free education, their child goes to work.
One of the earliest proponents of school vouchers was Milton Friedman, a famous Libertarian and notorious financial crank. School vouchers represented taxpayer money sent to White parents after the Brown vs Board decision. The vouchers were to be used at “segregation academies.” Vouchers were created to promote segregation in schools after the Supreme Court deemed it unconstitutional. Vouchers were born in racism and hate, but they are also useful for cheap labor.
In a paper, Nancy MacLean found that the father of school choice, Milton Friedman, hoped “school choice” and forcing low-income folks to pay for their child’s education would discourage low-income parents from having children in a form of economic social engineering reminiscent of eugenics. He predicted that once poor parents had to pay the entire cost of schooling from their own earnings, they would make different reproductive decisions.
But, how can poor folks make different reproductive decisions in states that teach no Sex-Ed curriculum and have draconian abortion bans?
Good grief! This is connected to abortion and the reproductive freedom that is also under attack in the same Republican-dominated states rolling back child labor and defunding schools? The exact same politicians and wealthy folks who want to subjugate women and girls, also want to close public schools and have access to child labor?
Yup. These points also have a lot to do with immigration policies, but that will have to be another post.
I could talk for years on the attack on working-class folks in these red states, and honestly I have. For years. It’s class warfare at its base and it’s so hard to show the folks in my community the plot, but here it is: marginalized and oppressed groups are supposed to stay that way by the creation of a permanent underclass.
Deny children an education unless their parents can pay for it. Create laws that allow corporations to hire children. Take away bodily autonomy and there you have it…a class of billionaires ruling over the rest of us who are too tired and too uneducated to do better or know better.
Stand up against the defunding of public schools, friends. Speak out against rolling back child labor laws. Link arms to fight for bodily autonomy.
We can do this.
~Jess
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Kids at work: States try to ease child labor laws at behest of industry • Missouri Independent
A bill eliminating work permits for teens cleared a Missouri Senate committee earlier this year, and legislation that would extend working hours for teens 16 and older, from 7 p.m. on a school night to 10 p.m., has advanced in the Missouri House.
In Arkansas, the legislature passed a law that eliminates age verification requirements for children under 16 to prove their age to get a job.
Ohio legislators reintroduced a bill to extend the working hours for teens year-round from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Minnesota lawmakers introduced a bill to roll back requirements that bar 16- and-17-year-olds from working in construction.
The Iowa Legislature is currently considering a bill that would allow exceptions to state law prohibiting children aged 14 to 17 from working in more dangerous industries, such as roofing and mining, among other provisions that have drawn scrutiny from labor and children advocacy groups.
“We got a bill that’s written by industry groups and multinational corporations that are looking for cheap labor out of our kids, and it’s really disappointing,” said Charlie Wishman, the president of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.
But Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, said there’s valuable experience to be gained as teens work in business and learn communications skills, as well as the importance of showing up for a job on time. “It, you know, teaches the kids a lot, and if they have the time to do it, and they want to earn some additional money, I don’t think we should, you know, discourage that,” she said.
Georgia Republicans introduced and then withdrew a bill that would eliminate work permits for minors 18 and younger, among other things. South Dakota Republicans introduced a bill to extend working hours for children 14 and under. But lawmakers quickly withdrew it.
Farming, logging
Maki argued that child labor laws need to be strengthened, particularly relating to work in agriculture. Children as young as 12 can work on a farm because agriculture workers and domestic workers were put in a separate category in the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 that established federal child labor laws.
That distinction was due to racist policymaking by Southern Democrats because during the 20th century, farmworkers were predominantly Black, Maki said.
“We think it’s a legacy of racism, and you know, a lot of the kids working now in factories, and in the field are brown,” he said. “And I think that’s part of the reason why the law hasn’t been fixed.”
The Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs estimates that there are between 400,000 to 500,000 children working on farms in the U.S.
Meanwhile, there’s also a bipartisan push in Congress to allow teens to work in family logging businesses. Members from states with logging interests are backing it as is the logging industry.
Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, a Republican, and Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent, have introduced the “Future Logging Careers Act” that would permit 16-and-17-year olds to “work in certain mechanized logging operations under parental supervision.” In the House, it’s sponsored by Maine Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat, and Pennsylvania Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Republican.
“Idaho’s logging industry has long been a family trade, but current law is hampering its future by preventing young men and women from working in their family’s businesses,” Risch said in a statement.
Teens in restaurants
Jennifer Sherer, who published a report for the non-profit, left-leaning Economic Policy Institute with Nina Mast tracking states rolling back child labor laws, said in an interview that some industry groups have different interests when it comes to child labor laws, but they share a common desire to ease restrictions.
For example, the restaurant, hospitality and retail industries have been vocal in wanting to extend hours for teens to work during the school year and during vacation, as well as revising “restrictions on the age at which teens can begin … serving alcohol in restaurants and bars.”
“They’ve been very clear about hoping to access larger numbers of young workers and also to be able to work them for longer hours,” Sherer, a senior state policy coordinator at the Economic Policy Institute, said.
In September, the National Restaurant Association expressed its support for legislation by U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act and allow 14-and-15-year-olds to work between the hours of 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. year round, as well as allow up to 24 hours of work a week.
“If a high school student can play in a football game until 9 p.m., or play video games late into the evening, they should also be allowed to hold a job if they wish to,” Johnson said in a statement.
If a high school student can play in a football game until 9 p.m., or play video games late into the evening, they should also be allowed to hold a job if they wish to.
– U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D.
Last year, two states — New Hampshire and New Jersey — passed laws that would extend working hours for minors and lower the age for minors to serve alcohol.
In New Hampshire, lawmakers passed a bill that lowers the age limit for students to bus tables where alcohol is served from 15 to 14 and increases the hours most 16- and 17-year-olds can work when they’re in school. That bill was supported by the New Hampshire Lodging and Restaurant Association and state Liquor Commission.
In New Jersey, teens no longer need parental consent to obtain work permits, and those 16- and 17-year-olds are allowed to work up to 50 hours a week — up to 10 hours each day — when they aren’t in school. The bill signed into law by Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy also updates the hours 14- and 15-year-olds can work — a total of 40 hours a week during the summer months.
It was supported by tourism industry groups like Six Flags and the New Jersey commerce associations.
In Wisconsin, the Legislature tried to expand working hours for children as young as 14, but Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the bill in 2022.
Lower wages for youth
Lawmakers in Nebraska introduced legislation that would allow children to be paid less, a minimum wage of $9 for 14-to-17-year olds compared to the state’s minimum wage of $10.50 for 2023. That bill would also set a minimum training wage for employees between 18 and 20 at $9.25 per hour through 2023, and 75% of the regular minimum wage from 2027 onward.
“There is a view out there, amongst many people, that you can pay kids less because … their labor must be worth less because they’re kids,” said the Iowa Federation of Labor’s Wishman.
“We definitely disagree with that,” he said.
The Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Nebraska Grocery Industry Association have expressed their support for that bill.
Mast, with the Economic Policy Institute, said that Nebraska proposal would go against a ballot measure that the state voted on last year agreeing to raise the minimum wage from $9 to $15 an hour.
Migrant minors at risk
Other industries, such as meatpacking, construction and other manufacturing sectors, are “clearly looking to open up more job categories to youth, sort of dipping their toes into whether they can peel back some of those hazardous orders that have kept certain work sites or specific occupations off limits (to youths),” Sherer said.
Particularly vulnerable to child labor law violations are migrant youth who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border alone.
A year-long investigation by the New York Times found hundreds of unaccompanied migrant children working dangerous jobs in violation of child labor laws.
From October 2021 to September 2022, there were about 130,000 unaccompanied youth who were released to sponsors in the U.S., according to data from the Office of Refugee Resettlement. States that have seen some of the biggest increases in unaccompanied children are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio and Texas, according to data from the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
“What we’re really seeing is employers hoping to take advantage of a broken immigration system and then roll back child labor standards, so that there are no consequences for violating the sort of bare minimal protections that are in place to prevent exploitation of youth,” Sherer said.
Annie Smith, a law professor who directs the Civil Litigation and Advocacy Clinic at the University of Arkansas School of Law, said children who are undocumented or have family members who are undocumented may be afraid to report worker violations for fear of deportation.
“What I can say from representing undocumented clients and other forms of labor exploitation, is that there’s just a higher risk of all forms of exploitation among those who have tenuous or no immigration status, so that’s certainly also true for children,” Smith said.
Investigations, violations on the rise
The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division said that since 2015, the agency has seen “increases in child labor investigations and violations.”
During fiscal 2022, there were 835 companies that employed more than 3,800 children in violation of labor laws. That’s an increase from fiscal 2015, when 542 companies employed more than 1,000 children in violation of labor laws.
The number of children reported working in hazardous occupations such as roofing also has risen. In fiscal 2015, there were 355 children working in violation of hazardous occupations and in fiscal 2022, there were 688, the highest number since fiscal 2011.
The Department of Labor recently issued civil fines for Packers Sanitation Services Inc, a company that cleans meatpacking plants, for $1.5 million for employing children as young as 13 to work in dangerous conditions.
The agency investigated 13 plants in eight states, including Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska and Tennessee. Packers employed more than 20 children at three meatpacking plants in Nebraska, Kansas and Minnesota.
The agency found that children ages 13 to 17 spent overnight shifts cleaning equipment such as head splitters, back saws and brisket saws, and were exposed to dangerous chemicals such as ammonia. Three of those 102 kids were injured on the job.
U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, and Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, on March 30 wrote to the CEO of Packers, asking if the company had implemented changes to prevent hiring underage workers.
Sen. Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, has introduced a bill to establish criminal penalties and increase maximum fines for child labor violations. But it appears it won’t get far.
The bill has no Republican co-sponsors and is unlikely to pass Congress with a Republican-controlled House and a 60-vote threshold needed to pass the Senate.
Child labor laws date to 1836
Laura Kellams, the Northwest Arkansas director for the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, said child labor laws are not only meant to protect a child from partaking in hazardous work environments, but also to guarantee that children go to school.
“The laws are designed to prevent injury, and they’re also designed to protect a child’s ability and opportunity for education,” she said.
Massachusetts was the first state to pass child labor laws in 1836 that required children under 15 who worked in factories to attend school for a minimum of three months out of the year.
It would take a little over a century to have a national labor law protecting children.
But in Arkansas, advocates fear education for vulnerable students is at risk.
In a new Arkansas law that overhauls public education, there is a provision that allows eighth-grade students to take a “career ready pathway,” in which one of those paths is “immediately enter a career field.”
Josh Price with the nonprofit immigrants’ rights group Arkansas United said the language allows schools to recommend that a student in eighth grade — about 13 to 14 years old — can drop out of school and go straight to work instead.
“We fear this will happen all too often, particularly to Black and brown children and especially if they are from the immigrant community and English is not their first language,” Price said.
Robin Opsahl and Casey Quinlan contributed to this report.
Abortion in Missouri: A look at key claims in the ‘decline to sign’ effort
JEFFERSON CITY — With less than three weeks left for advocates to gather enough signatures to put abortion-rights on the Missouri ballot this year, opponents are urging people not to sign the petition, saying the proposed constitutional amendment would allow for a radical and unregulated expansion of the procedure.
Among the opponents’ claims: the constitutional amendment, if approved by voters, would eliminate health and safety standards for abortion clinics, allow people to perform the procedure without a health care license, bar malpractice lawsuits against abortion providers, allow minors to get abortions without parental consent, and permit abortions after fetal viability.
Those claims — disputed by supporters of the amendment and legal experts — are being widely circulated by some anti-abortion groups.
Top Republican lawmakers, including the three leading GOP candidates for governor, have appeared in a series of “decline to sign” videos, sponsored by Missouri Stands with Women, a political action committee launched this year to fight any abortion-rights initiative petitions.
Missouri Right to Life, an affiliate of National Right to Life, has produced “decline to sign” literature, including flyers listing 10 reasons to oppose the proposed amendment.
Coalition Life, another anti-abortion group, is running radio ads warning listeners to “think twice” before signing: “That innocent petition is not a replacement for Roe v. Wade.”
And Missouri’s Roman Catholic bishops have issued their own statement urging against signing the petition, saying the amendment would remove long-standing health and safety standards for women. Parishes in the Archdiocese of St. Louis are sponsoring “life chain” demonstrations to support the effort.
Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the well-financed coalition working to get the proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot, says anti-abortion groups are spreading misinformation.
“It’s no surprise that the other side is spreading untruth, and that’s because their position is so deeply unpopular,” said Tori Schafer, spokeswoman for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom.
Since January, the coalition has held dozens of events across the state to gather the thousands of signatures required for the abortion-rights ballot question.
They have until 5 p.m. Sunday, May 5, to submit 171,592 valid signatures to the Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s office.
Missouri is among several other states, including Arizona, Florida, Michigan and Ohio, that are now using or have used ballot initiatives to place abortion protection in the state constitution. The cascade of ballot initiatives was spurred by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned the federal constitutional right to abortion previously guaranteed by Roe v. Wade, and left abortion regulation up to each individual state.
Here’s a closer look at key claims by Missouri’s anti-abortion groups about the proposed constitutional amendment and how lawyers and legal experts assess them.
Health regulation and licensure
Missouri Stands with Women spokeswoman Stephanie Bell said the basis for concerns over regulation of abortion clinics comes from amendment language that says “any denial, interference, delay, or restriction of the right to reproductive freedom shall be presumed invalid.” Under this language, Bell said, existing laws that protect women’s health would be presumed invalid.
Missouri Right to Life, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment, contends health and safety standards for abortion clinics and licensure requirements for abortion providers would be eliminated if the amendment is passed by voters.
But Schafer, with Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, said that’s wrong.
“Our amendment, when it’s passed, requires that any health regulations put in place are truly legitimate, and they will be allowed if they truly advance the health and safety of the patient,” she said.
Schafer said the amendment responds to “TRAP laws” — targeted regulation of abortion providers — that were in place before Missouri’s near-total abortion ban took effect with the Dobbs decision.
“(TRAP laws) weren’t actually medically necessary. They were medically inappropriate, and they were intended to make abortion unavailable,” Schafer said.
For example, under one Missouri law, only physicians can perform abortions, and other health care providers such as nurse practitioners who perform the procedure face felony charges. And while not all doctors have clinical privileges allowing them to treat patients at a hospital, abortion providers must have clinical privileges at a hospital located within 30 miles and that offers obstetric or gynecological care. Not all hospitals offer this kind of care.
Some say laws like these protect women’s health. Abortion-rights supporters say, and courts in some instances have found, that they aren’t medically necessary and primarily serve to restrict abortion access.
The amendment sets a clear and high bar for the kinds of abortion regulations that can pass muster — or withstand a legal challenge. Any regulation must have the purpose and effect of improving or maintaining the health of the patient in way that’s “consistent with widely accepted clinical standards of practice and evidence-based medicine.”
A lawyer who is not involved with either side of the ballot initiative said the constitutional amendment would allow for abortion and reproductive health care laws that legitimately seek to protect the health of people receiving care and ensure quality care.
Gina Bertolini, a North Carolina-based attorney with K&L Gates who advises health care providers on issues related to regulatory compliance, said the government has a “compelling interest” in protecting the safety of individuals who receive health care service.
“So there will always be the ability of the government to take steps to ensure that the care is delivered in a safe manner,” she said. “Having licensed providers in licensed facilities that meet certain quality standards, those are all the kinds of things that would meet the compelling governmental interest test.”
“This is much more about protecting the individual’s personal decision as it relates to reproductive health care, and ensuring that there are paths for people to get the health care they need. But it doesn’t remove the ability of the government of the state of Missouri to appropriately regulate those services to ensure the safety and quality of care and to protect people receiving care.”
Bertolini said that, under the amendment, health regulations should stand as long as they legitimately seek to further the safety and quality of care, aren’t overly restrictive, and don’t have as their sole purpose deterring a person’s ability to receive care.
Nicole Huberfeld, a Boston University law professor specializing in health law and reproductive rights, said the constitutional amendment addresses “abortion exceptionalism.”
“The idea is that states have treated abortion differently from other kinds of health care. And so what this constitutional amendment would do is make it much harder for the state to engage in special restrictions for abortion‚” Huberfeld said. “But that wouldn’t mean that the doctor couldn’t still be regulated like all other doctors or a nurse couldn’t still be regulated like other nurses or that a physician’s office or a hospital or a clinic wouldn’t still be regulated in the same way as any other health care providers.”
Malpractice claims
Missouri Right to Life also claims that the proposed amendment would deny women the right to sue abortion providers for malpractice.
Bell, with Missouri Stands with Women, said concerns related to malpractice stem from language in the proposed amendment that would prohibit the punishment or prosecution of those who assist others with reproductive health care.
That language says: “No person shall be penalized, prosecuted, or otherwise subjected to adverse action based on their actual, potential, perceived, or alleged pregnancy outcomes, including but not limited to miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion. Nor shall any person assisting a person in exercising their right to reproductive freedom with that person’s consent be penalized, prosecuted, or otherwise subjected to adverse action for doing so.”
“It would shield those performing abortions and other providers from any liability for any sort of prenatal care,” Bell said.
Schafer said the idea that patients can’t sue for malpractice under the amendment is a “fallacy.”
“Our amendment allows for people who are seeking abortions or get reproductive freedom care to not be criminalized or penalized, and people who are supporting those individuals in seeking that care to not be penalized,” Schafer said.
“I think it’s a little ambiguous,” Bertolini, the health care attorney, said of the language in this section. “If people are concerned that this would mean there would not be recourse for, say, professional malpractice by a health care provider, it may require a court’s interpretation. But there is a compelling government interest in allowing those kinds of laws to protect individuals from bad actors and from negligent health care providers.”
Dennis Harms, who chairs the Health Law Practice Group at St. Louis-based Sandberg Phoenix and represents health care providers in malpractice cases and administrative matters, also said there is ambiguity.
“The language could certainly be clearer as to what conduct the proposed amendment seeks to prohibit,” Harms said in an email to the Post-Dispatch. “Presumably, the effort is to protect against criminal prosecution. Missouri has the power to regulate the provision of health care services as part of its constitutional police power. It will be up to the courts to decide whether the proposed ballot language limits in any way Missouri’s power to regulate medical care.”
David Cohen, a constitutional law professor at Drexel University and abortion and reproductive rights scholar, rejected the idea that the amendment would bar malpractice claims.
“I just can’t imagine that that would be used to upend the entire basis of tort law, which is that there can be malpractice for when you act negligently,” Cohen said. “There is no way this would be interpreted by any court to upend malpractice and tort law.”
He said the anti-abortion movement’s claims about malpractice and elimination of health regulation are arguments seen in other states, calling it “run-of-the-mill fearmongering.”
Fetal viability
Under the amendment, health care providers would be able to perform abortions after fetal viability — the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb — if a health care professional determines the procedure is needed to protect the life or health of the mother.
While the Legislature could enact regulations for post-viability abortions, it could not bar the procedure when “in the good faith judgment of a treating health care professional (it) is needed to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.”
“These abortions are incredibly rare,” said Cohen, the Drexel constitutional law professor. “Not many providers are skilled and trained to do them. And when they do do them, it’s because someone’s life or health is really seriously at risk. And so, this constitutional language would allow a provider to make that judgment, which none of them take lightly.”
Dr. Sarah Horvath, an OB-GYN and complex family planning physician in Pennsylvania, said the “overwhelming majority” of people who have an abortion do so very early in pregnancy. And for those who access abortion care later in pregnancy, it’s in the context of unique life and medical circumstances.
“People do not access abortion care lightly,” said Horvath, a member of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “They have thought about their decision long before they get to an abortion care clinic, long before they’re actually having the procedure or taking the pills. This is a well-considered decision for folks. This isn’t something that’s happening on a whim.”
Parental consent
Parental involvement laws define if and how minors must get consent from parents before an abortion.
According to one Missouri Right to Life flyer, the constitutional amendment “would allow abortions to be performed on pregnant minors without notice to or consent from the minor’s parents.”
In the decades following Roe, “the majority of states enacted parental involvement laws, and these were permitted even though there was a federal constitutional right to abortion,” said Rachel Wechsler, a law professor at the University of Missouri.
This is largely because the Supreme Court has recognized that parents have a fundamental constitutional right to the care, custody and control of their minor children, Wechsler said. But an exception must also be available for cases such as incest or abuse. Known as a judicial bypass procedure, the process for these exceptions allows a court to decide if a minor should be permitted to have an abortion without parental consent or notification.
“If Missouri passes this constitutional amendment, it can also enforce the existing parental involvement law on the books, which requires the consent of one parent, notification of the other parent, and provides for a judicial bypass procedure,” Wechsler said.
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