1). “Texas Bill Would Ban Pro-Choice Websites”, Nov 15, 2024, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, Includes an embedded 4:43 min long video, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
2). “Ten Actions Dems Can Take to Protect Abortion Before Trump Takes Office: Repro experts tell AED what they want to see from pro-choice politicians”, Nov 14, 2024, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
3). “How abortion funds are preparing for another Trump presidency: Even in the face of a hostile administration, abortion funds are prepared to help people access care”, Nov 14, 2024, Nicole Karlis, Salon, at < https://www.salon.com/2024/11/
4). “Post-birth abortions? Alabama is specializing in them: Alabama lawmakers know that hundreds of newborns are dying each year. They know that many could be saved with basic care”, Nov 15, 2024, Josh Moon, Alabama Political Reporter, at < https://www.alreporter.com/
5). “Make no mistake: this Trump presidency will continue to attack abortion rights: Just because Trump is publicly distancing himself from abortion does not mean Republicans won’t enact a national ban”, Nov 12, 2024, Moira Donegan, The Guardian, at < https://www.theguardian.com/
6). “Don't Believe Trump's Promises. Birth Control, IVF and Abortion Are All at Risk: The president-elect said he would veto a federal abortion ban. But his actions could further restrict access to family planning”, Nov 14, 2024, Mary Ziegler, U.S. News & World Report, at < https://www.usnews.com/
7). “The Christian Right Voted for Trump. Will He Deliver ‘A Kingdom of Christ’? Conservative Christian activists have been preparing half a century for this day, says journalist Talia Lavin”, Nov 13, 2024, Brianna Navarre, U.S. N,ews & World Report, at < https://www.usnews.com/
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista: Let's make no mistake, we will be governed by an extremely hard-line fascist cabal of miscreants and sycophants from January 20th, 2024, onward. Despite his PR statements to the contrary Trump is dedicated to mounting increasing attacks on access to Abortion and other Reproductive Health Care rights, if only to mollify the significant faction of Forced-Pregnancy / Forced-Birth fanatics who people his fascist coalition. Here are 7 articles that, to one degree or another, analyze the horrific conditions we will soon face. Item 1)., “Texas Bill Would Ban ….”, discusses, among many other issues, the move to make websites that provide abortion information illegal. In an Orwellian named bill “The Women and Child Safety Act” introduced by arch reactionary Texas Rep. Steve Toth would make those sites illegal and sic the Fascist Texas Bounty Hunters on them. Included in Item 1). is a 4:43 video in which one of the Wisconsin Supreme Court justices questions arch-reactionary lawyer involved in an attempt to reimpose the harsh 1849 abortion law. In an article aimed at practical issues, Item 2)., “Ten Actions Dems Can Take ….”, proposes 8 actions suggested by different experts, and 2 actions that Jessica Valenti proposes herself, that the Democratic Politicians and operatives can take between now and Jan 20. In Item 3)., “How abortion funds are preparing ….”, looks at the actions and problems in Abortion Funds that help low-income women access abortion services.
Item 4)., “Post-birth abortions? ….”, Item 5)., “Make no mistake: ….”, Item 6)., “Don't Believe Trump's Promises ….”, and Item 7)., “The Christian Right ….” all look at different aspects of the far-right political pressure operations to impose their Christian / Taliban visioin of U.S. society on the great majority of the population. Item 4). points out that in Alabama hundreds of babies die during their first year of life every year. The Alabama State government will not take the Medicaid expansion money from the Federal Government, and as a result 4 hospital maternity departments have closed in the past few years, along with a number of local clinics. The Alabama ruling class could not care less. Items 5 & 6 both look at the likelihood of increased attacks on Abortion Access and other Reproductive Health Care rights from a standard political type of viewpoint, both conclude that there will be significant reductions in Abortion Access and other Reproductive Health Care rights. Finally Item 7). looks at the religious right's role in all this and their expectation that Trump will enact policies that would impose their Dark Ages social conditions on the American populace.
We need to get busy to ameliorate the horrific conditions the right wants to impose on us and prepare ourselves for a long period of fascist rule. Every Corporate Controlled media outlet acts as if we will have standard elections in 2026 & 2028. Hmmmmmh......
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Texas Bill Would Ban Pro-Choice Websites
Click to skip ahead: In Anti-Abortion Strategy, Texas lawmakers wants to ban pro-choice websites. In The Cruelty is the Point, a look at Idaho’s strategy in a challenge against the state’s ban. In the States, news from North Carolina, Wisconsin, Texas and more. Ballot Measure Updates details a new proposed amendment in Virginia. Appointment Madness delves into Matt Gaetz and RFK Jr. In the Nation, some quick hits.
Anti-Abortion Strategy
Well, they’re back at it! Texas Rep. Steve Toth introduced a bill this week that would ban pro-choice websites. Under the “Women and Child Safety Act,” internet service providers would be forced to block any site that contains information about how to obtain abortions or abortion medication. That means the websites of pro-choice organizations and abortion funds would be banned—even Abortion, Every Day would be illegal under the bill.
The bill even includes a list of specific websites that would be banned in the state, including: Aid Access, Hey Jane, Plan C Pills, Just the Pill, and Carafem.
If passed, the law would allow citizens to bring civil suits against internet service providers that don’t block these websites. (Which is sort of Texas’ thing—they love to incentivize communities turning on each other over abortion.)
But it doesn’t end there: Toth’s legislation would charge anyone who raises money for abortion care with a felony—with a particular eye towards targeting abortion funds. In fact, the legislation prompts the state Attorney General to investigate and charge abortion funds using the RICO Act, which is meant to go after organized crime. (If you’ve read my book, you know all about this; Republicans are eager to go after ‘the helpers.’)
If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because Toth introduced a near-identical bill last year. And he’s not alone. Iowa Republicans also tried to pass legislation to ban pro-choice websites last year; their legislation would have also allowed citizens to sue internet service providers and prosecute abortion funds under the RICO Act.
The bills are part of a broader attack on free speech about abortion. Idaho and Tennessee, for example, both passed laws recently that make it illegal to help teens access abortion. Under these policies, even texting a teen the url to an out-of-state clinic would be considered criminal ‘abortion trafficking.’ (Both laws are currently blocked on First Amendment grounds.)
The Republicans trying to pass this kind of legislation all say the same thing: that helping someone get an abortion isn’t protected speech. Remember Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall? He’s obsessed with targeting abortion funds—or anyone, really, that shares information about abortion. Here’s what he argued in a legal brief:
“One cannot seriously doubt that the State can prevent a mobster from asking a hitman to kill a rival because the agreement occurred through spoken word. So too here for conspiracies to obtain an elective abortion.”
All of which is to say: the legislation in Texas isn’t a one-off anomaly. It’s part of a bigger strategy attacking our ability to help each other.
The Cruelty is the Point
Let’s talk about what’s happening in Idaho. Four women are suing the state after being denied abortions despite having pregnancies with fatal fetal anomalies. That’s because Idaho’s total abortion ban doesn’t have an exception for nonviable pregnancies—the state forces women to carry doomed pregnancies to term.
Earlier this week, I told you about the women’s gut-wrenching testimony—including one plaintiff who cried while describing delivering her nonviable pregnancy in a hotel bathroom after having to drive seven hours out-of-state.
You’d think that given the clear trauma these women have been through, that state attorney James Craig might take an empathetic approach to the case. (If for nothing else, to not seem like he’s bullying devastated women!)
Instead, Craig went all in with gory anti-abortion rhetoric, blasting abortions as “gruesome and barbaric” in his opening statement, claiming that they involve “tearing a baby apart limb from limb…and crushing its skull to pull it out of the mother.” Again, he is saying this in a courtroom with women who had abortions, all under tragic circumstances.
As Idaho Statesman reporter Nicole Blanchard points out, the strategy is a “different approach” for Idaho attorneys, who have faced multiple lawsuits over the state’s ban. (Like the suit brought by the Biden administration, for example, over Idaho’s noncompliance with EMTALA—a federal law requiring hospital emergency rooms to provide life-saving care, including abortions.)
Craig’s other tactic has been to try to stop the women from sharing their stories by frequently objecting during their testimonies. He even called the details of their pregnancies “irrelevant” to the case. Which tells you all you really need to know, doesn’t it?
What’s remarkable about this full-on attack strategy from the state is that the Center for Reproductive Rights—which brought the suit on behalf of the women—isn’t even asking for the law to be repealed! They’re simply asking for clarity. From CRR senior attorney Gail Deady:
“The critical question is: Who should be able to receive abortions under the medical exceptions? Two years after the laws were passed, no one has offered an answer.”
The other bit of cruelty I had to point out comes from the anti-abortion movement. Much as we saw with Kate Cox—the Texas woman who had to flee the state to end her dangerous and nonviable pregnancy—anti-abortion activists are attacking the women in Idaho. They claim that the women have “killed” their “disabled babies.” (If you need links to the quotes, you can email me; I refuse to put them in the newsletter.)
This particularly heinous attack is part of a broader language strategy: anti-abortion activists have started to refer to fetuses with fatal abnormalities as “children with disabilities.” It’s a way to shame women who don’t want to be ‘walking coffins.’ I spoke about the tactic in my “Anti-Abortion Glossary” collaboration with The Meteor:
In the States
I think we could all use a palate cleanser after that, so let’s talk anti-abortion assholes getting their comeuppance. (Or at least, having to face a hint of accountability.) Earlier this week, I told you about North Carolina Sen. Danny Britt, who told a woman with a genetic disorder concerned about the state’s abortion ban to "move to China immediately.” Thanks in large part to the AED community here and on socials, Britt’s nastiness went viral—shining a light on just how little these Republicans actually care about women.
I was especially happy to see this story covered in North Carolina media—from the News & Observer to local television stations. To no one’s surprise, the guy who was oh-so-brave in a letter to his constituent doesn’t have anything to say now that everyone can see what a coward and bully he is.
No need to move on from anti-abortion men being exposed quite yet! Let’s take a look at a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice skewering the lawyer who wants to enforce an 1849 law to ban abortion. This is the case I told you about a few days ago that will determine the future of abortion in Wisconsin. But there’s a difference between reading about an anti-abortion lawyer being humiliated and watching an anti-abortion lawyer be humiliated, so tune in below and enjoy. (For more on Wisconsin’s abortion law and this case, get background here.)
I wish I could end there, but we have to talk about Texas a bit more. In addition to legislation that would make pro-choice websites illegal, Republicans want to classify abortion medication as a controlled substance. State Rep.-elect Pat Curry has filed a bill that would do just that, following in the footsteps of Louisiana.
It was just last month that Louisiana made abortion pills a controlled substance—and endangering women’s lives in the process. (Hospitals had doctors running timed drills to see how long it would take them to get the locked-up medication to a hemorrhaging woman.)
Making abortion medication a controlled substance doesn’t just make it harder to get and up the criminal penalties around the medication—it allows state officials to track the patients and providers who take and dispense the pills. If you’re a regular reader, you know this kind of data and tracking is a major centerpiece to anti-abortion strategy going forward.
That’s why it’s the perfect time to order advance provision abortion medication. You don’t need to be pregnant to buy the pills right now. Trusted sources for abortion medication: Aid Access, Plan C Pills, Abortion Finder, I Need An A.
Quick hits:
The Alabama Political Reporter points out the hypocrisy of Republicans talking about ‘post birth abortion’ while ignoring Alabama’s sky-high infant mortality rate;
Local media coverage of the pregnant woman challenging Kentucky’s abortion ban;
And pro-choice states are worried about what a Trump presidency means for their abortion policies: Local media in Maryland, Colorado, and Michigan all ask what the risks are.
Ballot Measure Updates
Virginia Democrats have started the process to protect abortion rights in the state constitution. The resolution, advanced by a state House of Delegates committee, would need to pass both chambers twice before winning voters’ approval. In other words, this is an effort that will take a few years.
The measure states that “every individual has the fundamental right to reproductive freedom, including the ability to make and carry out decisions relating to one’s own prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, abortion care, miscarriage management, and fertility care.”
Republicans, naturally, claimed that the amendment would undermine parental consent for minors seeking abortions. (Conservatives’ big play around these pro-choice amendments has been to hone in on parental rights.) And GOP Minority Leader Todd Gilbert said, “They tried to say it basically embodies state law and Roe v. Wade. It goes well beyond both.”
“In state after state, the majority of voters were clear and unequivocal: People are dying. People are suffering. Fix this. The results prove what we’ve known all along: People across backgrounds, states and political affiliations believe that politicians have no place in their personal health decisions.”
-Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood on the pro-choice ballot measure wins
Appointment Madness
Ugh. Okay, let’s talk about Donald Trump’s appointments.
As I said on Wednesday, I’m wholly unsurprised that the disgraced former president tapped fellow sexual predator Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. It came out this week that the girl at the center of the ethics probe into Gaetz testified that the congressman had sex with her when she was just 17 years-old and still in high school. (ABC News has a comprehensive breakdown of the case for those interested.)
And while I really don’t want to think or write about another sexual abuser, I have to stress the obvious here: Seventeen is a child, and I don’t just mean legally. Sometimes I think that people forget how little and young teenagers look because we’re so accustomed to seeing mid-20s actors playing high schoolers on television. She was a child.
Gaetz also has a mean streak when it comes to feminists and abortion rights activists. At a 2022 conference, he laid into pro-choice women, asking, “Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions?
“Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb,” he said. What made the comments particularly egregious was that they came at the same time that the story of a 10 year-old rape victim forced to get an out-of-state abortion was going viral.
The only glimmer of hope here? GOP legislators—who are actually quite miffed by the announcement—are telling reporters they’re not so sure that Gaetz will make it through the confirmation process.
Okay, onto brain worms. RFK Jr.’s nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services has raised concerns among some conservatives, we’re told, who question his anti-abortion bonafides. Former Vice President Mike Pence, for instance, called on Republicans to oppose the nomination, claiming that “Kennedy would be the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in modern history.”
I have no doubt that Pence—an absolutist—genuinely believes Kennedy isn’t sufficiently ‘pro-life.’ But I’m skeptical of the mainstream media narrative forming around Kennedy and abortion. CBS News describes the anti-abortion movement as “divided” over his appointment, while POLITICO claims his abortion record has “riled” the right. To me, this reeks of media manipulation—it reminds me of what we saw with the GOP platform, when anti-abortion groups feigned disappointment with the abortion plank to distract reporters from how extreme the language actually was.
In Kennedy’s case, I think the anti-abortion movement wants Americans to believe that they’re conceding or losing something with his appointment. Because while it’s true that he had conflicting statements in the past over the issue, Kennedy’s most recent stance indicates that he was groomed by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA PLA) into being a good little soldier.
Back in August 2023, for example, Kennedy told an Iowa reporter that he supported a national abortion ban after three months of pregnancy. His campaign quickly issued a reversal, claiming that he misspoke and that the then-presidential candidate believed “that it is always the woman’s right to choose.”
SBA PLA president Marjorie Dannenfelser saw her opening, and issued a statement calling Kennedy “one of the few prominent Democrats aligned with the consensus of the people today.” (Remember that word, ‘consensus.’) She also said she believed that he was getting bad advice from consultants and that voters “deserve to hear directly from Kennedy on where he really stands given the conflicting statements from him versus his campaign.”
Then in May, Kennedy expressed support for abortion rights in a podcast interview this May, but reversed course almost immediately after. Check how he clarified himself on Twitter:
“Abortion has been a notoriously divisive issue in America, but actually I see an emerging consensus—abortion should be legal up until a certain number of weeks, and restricted thereafter.”
There’s Dannenfelser’s favorite word—consensus! I think he’s been taking his most recent cues from her and SBA PLA, which is why the group isn’t opposing his nomination. It’s also worth remembering that Students for Life has shaped an entire anti-abortion strategy around RFK Jr’s appointment. I reported early this week that the extremist group is pushing a bogus claim about abortion medication in the groundwater using Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” language.
All of which is to say: I don’t think the anti-abortion movement is nearly as “divided” on Kennedy as the media is reporting.
In the Nation
The politically powerful Southern Baptist Convention is already pushing Trump to restrict abortion and reverse protections for LGBTQ people;
The 19th took a look at the counties that swung both for Trump and abortion rights;
Salon on how abortion funds are preparing for another Trump presidency;
Law professor and author Mary Ziegler lays out the danger Trump poses not just to abortion, but birth control and IVF;
And Bloomberg breaks down what the Trump administration could do at HHS to attack abortion.
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Ten Actions Dems Can Take to Protect Abortion Before Trump Takes Office
It’s easy to feel powerless right now. We know that this country is in for some very difficult years ahead, especially when it comes to abortion rights. But I’m a consummate fixer, so I’ve spent the last week talking to abortion rights lawyers, researchers, academics and activists, asking what Democrats could do before Donald Trump takes office to lessen the impact of Republican attacks on abortion.
I’ve shared eight of their recommendations below, along with two of my own.
The FDA should approve mifepristone for miscarriage management
“There was a report in October that Danco would seek mifepristone’s approval for miscarriage management. If any such application has been filed, the FDA should follow the science and approve it before Biden leaves office. If mifepristone was approved for another use, it would be much harder for the Trump administration to harm access to it. Even if the FDA under Trump tried to remove mifepristone from the market for abortion, it could remain on the market for miscarriage and used off label for abortion.” - Greer Donley, law professor and legal reproductive rights expert
President Joe Biden should pardon people for abortion-related ‘crimes’
“The Democrats need to figure out how to Cancel Comstock before the next administration takes power or its resurrection will be the party’s legacy and cause decades of harm. President Biden has the opportunity to add protecting abortion providers to his legacy. He needs to tap into his inner Gerald Ford and pardon all abortion providers for past present and future criminalized care.” - Pamela Merritt, Executive Director, Medical Students for Choice
“In order to prevent rogue prosecutions from the new Attorney General, President Biden needs to pardon anyone for abortion-related crimes under the Comstock Act. Pardons can’t look forward, so this would not fix the problem into the future, but it would give assurances to everyone who has mailed anything related to abortion over the past five years that they will not be prosecuted by the Trump DOJ.” - David Cohen, law professor
Protect abortion pills and providers
Abortion pills have been a vital resource for people across our country, especially in states with abortion bans. Now would be a great time to pass shield laws anywhere and everywhere we can to protect clinicians in states where abortion is legal so that they can prescribe abortion pills via telemedicine to people in all 50 states. - Cecile Richards, co-founder of Abortion in America and Charley
Help Prepare for the Comstock Act
“Comstockpiling: Quickly distribute abortion equipment, supplies, medications, etc to permissive states. If the Trump admin enforces Comstock, it will take some time to develop work-arounds. Helping to get things that could be restricted under Comstock into friendly states and create stockpiles that don’t have to be shipped across state lines would help ensure a continuity of care. - Garin Marschall, co-Director of Patient Forward
“Honestly, asking President Biden to do anything is a fool’s errand. We had to beg him to say the word ‘abortion’ so I’m not going to hold my breath that he’s going to be anyone’s lame duck savior. But, if I had the chance to yell at him, I would say this: ‘REMOVE LOUIS DEJOY FROM RUNNING THE UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE YESTERDAY! YOU JUST NEED TO DO IT SO DO IT!” - Renee Bracey Sherman, author of Liberating Abortion
Push through judicial nominees & prep blue states
“The Senate must fight in the lame-duck session for judges who will protect reproductive freedom. In addition to holding Trump and Congressional Republicans accountable once they take office, we have to work with state lawmakers and attorneys general in blue states to find different avenues to protect access and minimize the damage from anti-abortion politicians.” - Mini Timmaraju, President and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All.
“Blue state leadership can increase funding for abortion care, provider training, and practical support organizations; take steps to increase the number of providers; and repeal TRAP laws to make it easier for abortion clinics to operate.” - Spokesperson, Center for Reproductive Rights
“There are 47 vacancies total—could anyone else be nominated now with confirmation by January? I also think there is merit in issuing all guidance and filling all slots when and where possible, making it less straightforward process of changing course in the transition of Administrations.” - Rachel Rebouché, reproductive law scholar
Biden should sign an anti-fetal personhood executive order
“In 2021, Americans United for Life put out a short paper on an executive order that argues the president is charged with interpreting the constitution. It argues the president could/should interpret the constitution to include fetuses as legal persons under the protection of the 14th Amendment. This would mean there would be fetal personhood with respect to many federal agencies under control of the executive branch. This is in line with personhood language in the 2024 RNC platform, Project 2025, etc. They are trying to advance fetal personhood.
Biden should do the opposite before leaving office: he should sign an executive order clarifying that the 14th amendment only applies to people who are born (as it says). This could be immediately overturned when Trump gets into office, but it would mean that he would have to actually do it. They couldn’t just quietly write personhood into agency policies.” Garin Marschall, co-Director of Patient Forward
State AGs can exclude pregnancy outcomes from criminal law
“State Attorneys General can issue a legal alert or advisory opinion stating that the criminal laws of their state cannot apply to pregnancy or pregnancy outcomes. California AG Rob Bonta of California did this in 2022 after improper prosecutions of women who were charged with ‘fetal murder’ after having stillbirths. He sent a legal alert to all state law enforcement making clear that the criminal code in California was not meant to punish people who suffer the loss of their pregnancy.”
- Dana Sussman, Senior Vice President, Pregnancy JusticeFor all of us: “buddy up”
“I need everyone to buddy up—to prep for the next administration like you would in a big brother/big sister program where if you live in a safer area, you pick one state or city to really pay attention to and support. Think of it as your reproductive rights Sister City. Pick an activist or org there to pen pal, make a promise that you will be sure that their news—who is being harmed, what orgs are choosing to or being forced to close, where outreach or outside funding or pressure can help —will make it out of their state and out to the rest of the country.
Our media landscape has been crippled. Our local news is mostly gone. Our social media is finally but slowly on a path of rebuilding, and we need y’all to make sure we don't get isolated and ignored, because that's what abusers do to people in their power. Don't let it happen. Don't let anyone be alone.” - Robin Marty, Executive Director of West Alabama Women's Center and author of the New Handbook for a Post-Roe America.
From Jessica:
Flood pro-choice states with abortion medication
We need to push out as much abortion medication as possible before Trump takes office and starts to enforce the Comstock Act. Governors in pro-choice states have been stockpiling the medication; now is the time to dispense it in a massive state-funded advance provision campaign. Get it out there, protect as many people as we can, and make it that much harder for the anti-abortion movement to track who has the medication.
Democrats need to force the GOP’s hand on travel bans
Remember when Republicans blocked legislation that would have protected access to contraception? That happened because Senate Democrats forced their hand: they introduced a bill to protect birth control, knowing it would fail, in order to show American voters exactly how extreme the GOP is. They did the same with legislation to protect the right to IVF, too.
Republicans have had their eye on travel restrictions to stop women from getting abortions, but their attacks are largely flying under the radar. Democrats should introduce legislation to protect the right to travel, regardless of pregnancy status. Let’s get these assholes on the record admitting that they want to trap women in anti-abortion states.
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How abortion funds are preparing for another Trump presidency
On Halloween night, as kids went trick or treating across the U.S., the Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF) hosted an emergency gathering for supporters and funders. The goal was to raise more funds to meet the increasing demand to access abortion care, regardless of who would win the presidential election the following week.
“CAF has spent all year growing our development capacity and sounding the alarm of the abortion access current crisis, and specifically the funding crisis,” Qudsiyyah Shariyf, the interim executive director of the Chicago Abortion Fund, told Salon. “We knew then that regardless of the election’s outcome, we need increased investment in our organization.”
Related
Despite bans and anti-abortion policies, the actual number of abortions aren’t decreasing. According to a Monthly Abortion Provision Study, researchers found that the number of abortions in the U.S. increased by 10 percent in 2023 compared to 2020 and that year, abortion numbers were at their highest in over a decade. The Guttmacher Institute attributed the increased access to telehealth and financial support to the rise in spite of abortion bans.
More recently, a report published by #WeCount in October 2024 found a small but consistent increase in the national monthly number of abortions since October 2023, even in states with restrictive gestational limits.
“As abortion bans strip away access, the need for abortion care continues,” said Alison Norris, MD, PhD, #WeCount Co-Chair and professor at The Ohio State University’s College of Public Health and co-principal investigator of the Ohio Policy Evaluation Network.
"Abortion funds are committed no matter what, to ensure that people still have access to the abortion care that they want and need on their own terms,"
But an impending Trump presidency comes at a time when abortion funds have already been forced to slash budgets as the reproductive rights landscape has rapidly changed across the U.S. In 2024, the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood’s Justice Fund had to cut their budgets from giving 50 percent assistance to people to 30 percent with no exceptions. When asked how abortion funds are preparing, Oriaku Njoku, the executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF), told Salon that abortion funds are resilient. This time around, as they have before, they will rely on their community and network of supporters. It’s both “familiar,” and “unfamiliar terrain,” Njoku said.
“Abortion funds are committed no matter what, to ensure that people still have access to the abortion care that they want and need on their own terms,” Njoku said. “It may look different, it may feel different, but that's the reality — even in the most restrictive times, people have still found a way to navigate through increasingly complex barriers to access abortion care.”
When one or two states make abortions harder to access, it affects states where abortions remain legal. A 2023 study published in JAMA Network Open found the number of out-of-state residents seeking abortions in Massachusetts rose to 37 percent in the four months after Dobbs. Some patients traveled from as far away as Texas. That’s where abortion funds come in. They help arrange travel, which can cost thousands of dollars, and provide funding for people who need to access care in states where abortion care is no longer accessible. But over the last couple of years, since the Supreme Court ruled on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization which led to more abortion bans across the country, abortion funds have been pushed to the brink. Some are even running out of money.
Alisha Dingus, the development director at the DC Abortion Fund, told Salon the effects over the last two years will take decades to overcome.
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“Even if we weren't dealing with a hostile administration, someone couldn't snap their fingers and restore all the access we have lost over the past two years,” Dingus said. “There are now states with no clinics or abortion providers — it will take years or decades to make abortion accessible again in places like Missouri, which voted to overturn their abortion ban."
Now, in the aftermath of the election, abortion funds also have to prepare for a landscape where abortion access is severely limited. For example, in Florida since the state’s Amendment 4 didn’t pass, despite 57 percent of voters in favor of it. It wasn't enough for the measure reach its 60 percent majority threshold, therefore abortion access will remain limited in the south. According to Florida’s law, it remains a felony to perform or actively participate in an abortion six weeks after gestation, with limited exceptions that are designed to be difficult to use and frequently act as another burden for patients to overcome. Njoku said the next step for abortion funds in the wake of the Amendment 4 results is to gain more support for the next time a similar vote comes up, and that requires a deeper understanding of why some voters cast ballots for Trump as president and in favor of Amendment 4.
“Is the shared value between those voters autonomy, and self-determination, which is inherently a reproductive justice value?” Njoku said. Once organizers can tap into those values and find a “shared understanding,” the goal is to have an “overwhelming majority” to win a similar measure in the future.
In the state of Missouri, Amendment 3 passed, which will enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution and overturn the state’s current ban. Despite a loss in Florida, this would hypothetically ease the pressure on abortion funds by expanding access. However, as Dingus said, advocates say it will likely take time for that to be felt throughout abortion fund networks.
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“It is undeniable that abortion access is popular,” Shariyf, from CAF, told Salon. “However, the long-term impacts of clinic closures on the abortion access ecosystem, means that despite the win of the Missouri ballot measure, it will be years before Missouri is able to offer abortion care at the scale that Missourans need.”
Shariyf pointed out how there was only one abortion clinic in the state before the total ban went into effect.
“Hope Clinic in Granite City, Iliinois, just across the river from St. Louis, continues to see the vast majority of their patients traveling from out of state, most of them from Missouri,” Shariyf said. “We do not anticipate that the Missouri ballot initiative will have an immediate or drastic impact on those numbers.”
In Arizona, voters passed Proposition 139 amending the state constitution to provide a fundamental right to abortion. Shariyf said hopefully this state will serve as “an essential resource” in the Southwest, including Texas.
Ultimately, abortion funds are focused on the future and maintaining access where and when they can throughout the United States.
“A lot of money was spent on political campaigns and ballot initiatives and now we are in a reality where for the next four years, all we can hope is for things not to get worse,” Dingus said. “And that means many people will still be forced to travel to places like DC for abortion care.”
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Opinion | Post-birth abortions? Alabama is specializing in them
Alabama lawmakers know that hundreds of newborns are dying each year. They know that many could be saved with basic care.
By
(STOCK)Alabama is killing babies. By the hundreds.
It is doing so intentionally and callously, turning a blind eye to the known suffering of both mothers and their newborn infants, leaving them to die in record numbers.
In 2023, according to statistics released Thursday by the Alabama Department of Public Health, the state saw a dramatic increase in its already much-higher-than-the-U.S. average rate of infant mortality. It spiked to 7.8 deaths per 1,000 live births – up from 6.7 in 2022 – with 449 newborns dying before reaching their first birthday.
The causes were the same as they’ve always been, only with the addition of a forced-birth mandate in this state thanks to our draconian abortion ban and the subtraction of several birthing centers and further limitations on access to prenatal medical care for impoverished mothers.
These were all things our lawmakers promised to address in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade’s right to abortion care in this country. Our elected officials, particularly the Republican women who were trotted out in front of media repeatedly in the weeks after the decision, promised to devote more funding to prenatal care and maternal access to health care.
Oh boy, were we ever going to get this health care issue fixed and make sure these babies that we were saving received the appropriate health care, and that their mothers — many of whom were in no position, either financially or mentally, to carry a pregnancy to term — were going to be taken care of. The churches who fought for this ban, the religious zealots who had spent day after day harassing women out front of abortion clinics and the pandering politicians were going to make sure that those babies were taken care of. They told us so.
They’ve all done diddly squat.
Today, two years after the Dobbs decision, mothers have far less access to care in Alabama. Impoverished pregnant women in some counties have to travel nearly an hour to receive basic care and wait weeks to receive necessary, routine tests.
Just in the past year, at least four maternity wards have been closed in this state due to a lack of funding, leaving entire counties without labor and delivery services. The March of Dimes issued a report last year that noted more than a third of Alabama mothers live in “maternity care deserts.” Nearly one-third of mothers don’t have a birthing hospital within 30 minutes of where they live, compared to the national average of NINE PERCENT, and in some areas in south Alabama mothers have to travel more than an hour to find a labor and delivery hospital.
Still, our state leaders have refused to expand Medicaid – a move that almost certainly would have saved those labor and delivery units, along with the dozens of rural hospitals that have closed over the past decade.
But then, our lawmakers were busy focusing on the important stuff, like belittling transgender kids and taking public tax dollars from public schools to pay for rich kids to go to private schools.
In the meantime, we’re one of the top-five unhealthiest states in the nation, we have an infant mortality rate that would shame third-world countries and there are likely undiscovered native tribes in undeveloped countries with better access to health care.
And none of this is new.
We’ve been talking about the lack of access to care, the closing of rural hospitals (even Republicans often refer to it as “a real crisis” when in front of a camera) and the incredibly high rate of uninsured people in this state for multiple decades now. And always with the vague indication that the people with the ability to fix all of it – or even just attempt at any point to meaningfully address it – were going to do … something.
Then they went and built a billion dollar-plus prison. And told us at the same time that the money just ain’t there for that dadgum Medicaid expansion.
Except it is and we all know it. What they lack, however, is the political will and political courage to step up and do a complicated thing, maybe even an unpopular thing among the base supporters of ALGOP politicians. So, instead, we’re cool with letting babies and mothers die by the hundreds, even though most of them could be saved by simple, basic care.
You know, back during the run up to the 2024 presidential election, there was a lot of talk of so-called “post birth abortions.” Donald Trump, and other Republicans, kept insisting that “tha lib’ruls” in blue states were killing babies even after they were born alive – intentionally withholding necessary medical care until the newborn died. Democrats and news outlets pressed Trump and others for any example of this, and when none could be provided, the whole thing was written off as yet another Trump lie designed to fool susceptible people into anger.
But guess what?
As it turns out, post-birth abortions are indeed real. And Alabama is specializing in them.
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Make no mistake: this Trump presidency will continue to attack abortion rights | Moira Donegan
‘Donald Trump … will move to restrict abortion access nationwide when he returns to the White House next year.’ Photograph: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock Abortion rights initiatives were on the ballot in 10 states on Tuesday, and won in seven of them. One of the losers was prop 4, Florida’s abortion rights measure, which received a whopping 57% of the vote but failed to meet the state’s unusually high 60% threshold, meaning that the state’s six-week ban will remain in place. Asked about the Florida abortion rights proposition ahead of the election, Trump said that when he went to cast his ballot near Palm Beach, he would vote against it.
It has always been a little hard to believe that Donald Trump personally hates abortion, even if it is abundantly clear how little he thinks of women. Trump, after all, has claimed to have numerous conflicting positions on abortion rights throughout his life. And his brand of masculinity is boorish, vulgar, and above all, sexually entitled – far from the priggish, repressed moralism of more classical anti-abortion figures like Mike Pence.
Maybe this is why, though Trump appointed three of the six justices who overturned Roe v Wade and has boasted about his role in ending the right to an abortion, many voters seem to not quite believe that he will continue to suppress the procedure further in his coming second term. Abortion rights measures won in several states that Trump carried on Tuesday – including Arizona, Nevada, Montana and Missouri, all states that Trump won. A lot of people, it seems, voted for abortion rights in their own states, and then also voted for Donald Trump – who, make no mistake, will move to restrict abortion access nationwide when he returns to the White House next year.
Trump, of course, has insisted that this will not happen – which on its own might be a decent indication that it will. But there is evidence that the new Trump administration will pursue a broad agenda restricting women’s rights, including nationwide attacks on abortion access, even beyond that offered by Trump’s habitual pattern of self-serving dishonesty.
Republicans have won control of the Senate and are likely to capture the House of Representatives; if they do, they may well advance legislation to ban abortion nationwide. (And to pass it: there is no reason to believe that a Republican governing trifecta will preserve the filibuster.) A bill like this would probably not be termed a “ban” by its sponsors: Republicans, wary of the public disapproval of abortion bans, have started calling their new abortion restrictions by chillingly imprecise euphemisms, such as “standard” or even “protection”. But the effect of the laws are the same: to outlaw abortions. This could take the form of a gestational limit, or of the federal recognition of fetal personhood. Trump may well sign such legislation into law, eliminating abortion rights even in Democratic-controlled states and those that have recently passed abortion rights referendums with the stroke of a pen.
But Republicans do not even need to manage to pass a bill through Congress to make abortion much more difficult to get. Trump can simply restrict abortion through federal agencies. He will soon be in control of the FDA, for example, which regulates the abortion drug mifepristone, part of a two-drug regimen that now accounts for most abortions in the United States. Mifepristone is a safe, effective drug that allows abortions to be performed in the privacy of patients’ homes, with little of the expensive clinical involvement and overhead that makes surgical abortions more time-intensive and costly for providers and patients alike.
Naturally, the anti-abortion movement hates it. Since Dobbs, a coalition of anti-choice groups and Republican attorneys general have been suing the FDA, seeking to overturn the agency’s 2000 approval of the drug. Trump will be able to rescind access to it almost immediately, taking the drug off the legal US market. If he gives the anti-choice movement what they want, he may also direct the FDA to revoke approval of the most reliable forms of female-controlled contraception, like Plan B, IUDs, and certain birth control pills, which the anti-choice movement falsely claims cause abortions.
Trump is likely to also revive enforcement of the Comstock Act, a long-dormant 1873 law that bans the shipment of anything that could be used to induce an abortion through the US mail. The Comstock Act has not been enforced in decades – parts of it were repealed in the 20th century, and other sections were long rendered moot by supreme court precedents like Roe and Casey – and would have the effect of criminalizing much abortion care. Since Dobbs, several Democratic-controlled states have passed what are called shield laws, which protect doctors who mail abortion drugs from states where the procedure is legal into states that have bans. This mail-order abortion operation is, for now, technically legal: it has preserved women’s independence and dignity and no doubt saved thousands of lives.
But when the Comstock Act is enforced, much of this sector of abortion provision will disappear. Combined with the revocation of FDA approval for mifepristone, this will inevitably mean that many women seeking abortions will turn to black market surgical abortion providers, and suffer the risks attendant to such procedures. A return to pre-Roe levels of abortion ban-related mortality could probably follow.
Trump is also likely to reverse the Biden administration’s guidance on Emtala, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, a federal law that requires emergency rooms to provide stabilizing care to all patients facing health crises. Emtala has been the subject of much post-Dobbs litigation, as states like Idaho and Texas have sought to argue that their abortion bans supersede the federal law, thus requiring hospitals in their states to withhold emergency abortions from women in medical emergencies who will suffer or die without them. The US supreme court declined to decide the issue last summer; a Trump administration may help to resolve it for them.
This is all just what Trump could do on his own in his first years back in office. But the impact of a Trump term on American women’s access to abortion will be felt long after Trump himself is no longer with us. Trump will probably appoint at least two supreme court justices to lifetime seats in his coming term; he will also fill an unknown number of vacancies on the lower federal courts, whose judges also serve for life. These judges are all likely to be anti-abortion zealots, as are the federal bureaucrats Trump will bring in to staff agencies such as the FDA, CDC and Department of Health and Human Services.
We are already living in an era when abortion access is restricted more than it has been in decades. Now, it will be restricted more. We may well never have as much reproductive freedom as we do now ever again.
American women are well advised to prepare for this, to not wait for the Trump administration to restrict the tools they use to control their own bodies. Sterilization and long-acting birth control remain accessible, for now; women who want these should move quickly to get them. Plan B and abortion pills can both be purchased ahead of time and kept on hand in the privacy of a medicine cabinet; such purchases may provide security and peace of mind to those staring down the barrel of another Trump term. Abortion, as we know, will never be eliminated; it can only be less safe, and less dignified. But there are few things as strong as women’s determination to control their own lives. That determination is certainly stronger than the law.
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Don't Believe Trump's Promises. Birth Control, IVF and Abortion Are All at Risk.
The president-elect said he would veto a federal abortion ban. But his actions could further restrict access to family planning.
By Mary Ziegler | ContributorNov. 14, 2024, at 11:58 a.m.
Your Access to Birth Control? Be Afraid.
JIM WATSON|AFP via Getty Images
Reproductive rights activists demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court on June 24.
With Donald Trump headed back to the White House, abortion-rights advocates are afraid. People who rely on IVF or contraceptives have reason to be scared, too.
However much the president-elect downplayed abortion on the campaign trail because of fears that it might cost him support with women or independents, he will soon have the power to reshape the judicial landscape to diminish access not just to abortion, but to IVF and contraception as well for years to come.
Trump will likely face pressure from right-wing, anti-abortion factions who helped bring him to power to impose further restrictions at the federal level, despite having said during the campaign that abortion laws should be left up to each state. We may be on the cusp of an unprecedented era in the criminalization of reproductive rights.
Republicans have won control of the Senate and the House, and they could seek to impose sweeping new federal restrictions. Trump doesn’t have to run again, but his congressional allies do, and a federal abortion ban would almost certainly be unpopular, considering that two-thirds of Americans think abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey.
At the very least, Trump is likely to undo some protections that President Joe Biden put in place after the repeal of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Trump could reinstate his own 2019 prohibition on federal family planning dollars going to any organization that counsels patients about abortions. He could also reverse the Biden administration’s 2022 guidance that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act requires hospitals and doctors to provide certain emergency abortions even in states with abortion bans.
Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Trump presidency created by prominent right-wing activists and former Trump officials, has proposed taking advantage of an obscure 1873 law called the Comstock Act to ban mailing or receiving any abortion-related drug, information or paraphernalia. In one fell swoop, that could make it illegal to send or receive mifepristone, a medication that is used now for nearly two-thirds of abortions in America. The law, which makes it a crime to mail or receive items for “indecent or immoral use,” could also be used against IVF medications and contraception under similar legal reasoning.
Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services could also try to limit the availability of mifepristone. Even though the drug has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, there is precedent for HHS barring the distribution of a drug. For example, when the FDA in 2011 decided to make emergency contraception more widely available over the counter, then-President Barack Obama’s HHS secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, blocked the move.
Project 2025 lays out steps for limiting access to emergency contraceptives by designating the morning-after pill as a medication that causes abortion. Such moves by Trump would raise legal questions and invite litigation, but they could nonetheless have an immediate effect if conservative judges decline to issue injunctions to stop such measures while challenges move slowly through the courts.
Trump is also sure to build on his transformation of the federal courts.
After his three Supreme Court appointments in his first term, the conservative-dominated high court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, turning back the clock on a half-century of abortion protections. That allowed states to enforce sweeping bans or tight restrictions on abortion, as 19 states have already done.
Trump also made numerous nominations to federal appellate and district courts that have also restricted reproductive rights. For example, Texas District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk as well as members of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have entertained arguments that could put a wide range of reproductive services in jeopardy. Those include arguments that the FDA lacked the authority to approve mifepristone, that the Comstock Act is a de facto abortion ban and that “unborn human beings” have constitutional rights.
That last argument could in practice imperil in vitro fertilization, better known as IVF, if a court were to conclude that frozen embryos have rights. It’s worth noting that appellate judges often have the final word, since most cases never reach the Supreme Court.
It is a near certainty that Trump will continue to nominate judges vetted by conservative allies who fervently oppose abortion. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, the court’s most conservative and oldest members, may decide to retire during Trump’s term so he can replace them with firebrands who have decades more years of service ahead. Democrats have also raised concerns that health issues might force one of the court’s few liberal voices, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, into early retirement during Trump’s second term.
Whatever executive actions Trump may take, the biggest treat to reproductive rights in his second term will come through the courts.
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The Christian Right Voted for Trump. Will He Deliver ‘A Kingdom of Christ’?
Conservative Christian activists have been preparing half a century for this day, says journalist Talia Lavin.
By Brianna Navarre | Associate EditorNov. 13, 2024, at 6:46 p.m.
Trump’s Vow to the Christian Right
KEVIN WURM|AFP via Getty Images
Attendees wear hats reading "Make America Pray Again" before President-elect Donald Trump addresses Christian broadcasters at the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) International Christian Media Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, on Feb. 22, 2024.
From banning books with LGBTQ characters to mandating Bibles and the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, conservative Christians have gained steam since Donald Trump was first elected in 2016. In his first term, Trump appointed conservative federal judges and allied himself with evangelical politicians and activists who want 21st-century America to be reshaped into a conservative Christian nation.
A right-wing coalition that includes evangelicals, Catholics and Mormons has been working for decades to erode the separation between Church and State and establish their vision of a “kingdom of Christ,” says journalist Talia Lavin, author of the new book, “Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America.”
Since the 1970s, an ultra-conservative Christian political agenda began to emerge to counter progressive societal changes, including reproductive freedoms and gay rights.
By the 1980s, the movement even managed to tangle the country up in the satanic panic, a phenomenon centered on baseless claims of satanic ritual abuse happening in day care centers.
U.S. News spoke with Lavin about the foundations of the politically active Christian right, their ascendance in conservative American politics since the 1970s and their curious relationship with Donald Trump, a twice-divorced businessman who was for decades better known as a playboy who frequented New York nightclubs, owned casinos and presided over several business bankruptcies. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
U.S. News: Who makes up the Christian right today?
Talia Lavin: You're looking at a coalition of white evangelical Protestants – about 14% of the U.S. population – plus a big contingent, some tens of millions more right-wing Catholics, plus some Mormons, who may have disputes about doctrine, but have very similar political goals. [These groups] have managed to work together over the past 50 years to get a tremendous amount of their agenda accomplished.
Courtesy of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
What does that agenda look like?
The biggest one was overturning Roe v. Wade. But in general, a lot of it is just overturning all the social revolution and changes that have happened in the U.S. since the 1960s. So we're talking about racial equality, feminism, gay rights – the whole slate of social progress. They want to erase it. If you look at the people who are pushing abortion bans, who are censoring books in schools that have content about gay people, if you look at Republican policies about no-fault divorce or anti-trans laws that are being passed, we really get a sense that this is a group that very much wants to turn back time.
What was the influence of the Christian right in Trump's win this year?
This is a very politically motivated group, and one of the big stories of this election was low turnout, particularly low turnout in the Democratic base. So this very large, very motivated voting block of white evangelical Protestants, coupled with an increase in support from reactionary Catholics, means that this brand of religion – this totalizing theocratic spirit of imposing God's will onto the populace as a whole, regardless of public opinion – really made a huge difference in the outcome of this election. Abortion [protections] passed in several states where people wanted to enshrine abortion rights. But I think the evangelical Christians that voted for Trump were gambling on a national ban, [which they] seem very likely to get.
Your book opens with an overview of the satanic panic of the 1980s. Tell us about that.
All across the U.S., there was a moral panic about day care providers. The social background to it was that a lot more women were entering the workforce because of newly liberalized policies and more feminist acceptance. Suddenly you had these mothers of young children who needed a place for their kids, so you have this proliferation of day care.
At the same time, there's a trend happening in psychology called recovered memory therapy. The satanic became a trend in psychology at the time, and the idea of satanic ritual abuse was really mainstreamed. You had numerous incidents [claiming day care workers were satanically abusing children]. What you had was these parents, psychiatrists and psychologists working together, prompting the kids, and not believing them if they said, “Well, nothing happened.”
But the argument I make in the book is that the satanic panic never really ended. Yes, these prosecutions of day care teachers slowed to a trickle and then stopped. But panic about the devil being present in American life and politics, and particularly in American education, never went away. We see that in the way people talk about groomers in schools and the satanic queer agenda. If you look at stuff that Moms for Liberty says at school board meetings, it doesn't sound all that dissimilar to some of these parents from 1985.
So when did the Christian right really start to intertwine with politics and infiltrate the Republican mainstream particularly?
Essentially, the rise of the Christian right really started not with abortion at all, but actually with Brown v. Board of Education [the 1954 Supreme Court decision that ruled that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional]. Schools were getting desegregated, so all over the South, whole counties – all the white children withdrew from schools – and you have these heavily subsidized church schools springing up all across the South.
Fast-forward to 1971, Green v. Connally. This Supreme Court case is brought by Black parents suing an all-white Christian school saying, “How can you be tax-exempt if you won't let us in?” And at that point, the Supreme Court makes a decision to revoke the tax-exempt status of religious schools that are segregated and don't have a meaningful minority student representation.
In the ‘70s, the IRS started trying to enforce this new law. So you had some titans of the evangelical faith, like [Baptist pastor and televangelist] Jerry Falwell, who was going to be audited by the IRS because his Lynchburg Christian Academy was all-white. And this was the issue that woke the sleeping giant [and] really politically mobilized this population. They were ready to vote for whoever would give them the freedom to segregate as much as they wanted – and keep their tax exemptions.
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