Democratic debate spends 10 minutes on abortion
Plus the abortion pill, an abortion ban lawsuit, and a new ballot initiative
Welcome to The Roe Report! It’s Thursday, Oct. 17—here’s what’s been going on.
In the News
Abortion rights and reproductive freedom finally made it into a Democratic debate on Tuesday night, and not just because Kamala Harris brought it up. During a debate on universal health care, she argued “women will die” as a result of Republican anti-abortion laws. Later, moderators at the CNN/New York Times debate in Ohio asked two questions on abortion, and the candidates for the most part coalesced around a plan to enact a federal law protecting broad abortion rights. Other ideas to counter the pro-life movement included changing the make-up of the U.S. Supreme Court, creating an office of reproductive rights in the White House, expanding a vision of reproductive justice and reinstating federal reproductive health funding for Planned Parenthood. Tulsi Gabbard drew backlash for dipping into decades-old talking points by saying she wants abortions to be “rare”—a phrase in the repertory of *no* reproductive rights or justice groups in the U.S. and roundly criticized as stigmatizing. Two notes on this: 1) Pro-life groups pounced, as one would expect, slamming the Democrats as the “party of death” and decrying *any* exceptions for anti-abortion laws, including saving a woman’s life; 2) The debate lasted about ten minutes—the first dedicated time to reproductive rights in any of the six debates so far (and a marked difference from the amount of time Republicans spend excoriating the evils of abortion). Here’s what has been getting a lot of air time.
Last Friday, California became the first state to require abortion access on college campuses for free. Christian conservatives are decrying the new law, and we should expect a lawsuit.
EMILY’s List, endorsed Mississippi’s Democratic candidate for attorney general, Jennifer Riley Collins. It’s big news because EMILY’s List is a major fundraiser in Democratic politics, spending tens of millions of dollars every year to elect pro-choice Democratic women—but it only endorses candidates it believes can win, and those are rarely statewide Southern offices. Riley Collins, a supporter of abortion rights, could refuse to defend the state’s extreme abortion bans in lawsuits. She’d also be the first state-wide African American elected since the late 1800s.
A federal appeals court recently heard arguments over Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, enacted in 2018. Mississippi (probably unsuccessfully) claimed the law *isn’t* a ban.
ALSO in Mississippi, anti-abortion groups are fighting rules that prevent them from getting too close to that state’s only abortion clinic.
Colorado anti-abortion groups are gathering signatures for a potential ballot initiative to ban third-trimester abortions, which only a handful of states allow, often depending on the medical situation. Read this and this to understand the issue.
Minnesota is fighting a lawsuit launched against its suite of anti-abortion laws. It’s one of a number of states facing broad legal challenges to abortion laws passed by pro-life politicians.
San Fransico is black-balling 22 anti-abortion states from city business deals, including travel bans for city employees and bans on contracts with companies headquartered in those states. It’s the lastest in efforts to financially punish anti-abortion states (a tactic not all agree with).
And here’s a look at how bad TV and movies are at depicting abortions.
Photographic interlude
Here’s something pretty: a bush overloaded with blooms.
The 2020 SCOTUS case—a crash course
Your weekly dive into a pivotal case, this week, beginning with the basics.
OVERVIEW: June Medical Services v. Gee is a lawsuit filed by abortion doctors and an abortion clinic in northeast Louisiana against the state of Louisiana over a 2014 law (the clinic’s legal name is June Medical Services, and the state’s secretary of health, and thus the defendant, is Rebekah Gee). The clinic and doctors say the law is purely aimed at closing abortion clinics, and it would succeed at that, shuttering at least two of Louisiana’s the last three clinics if it takes effect (the state has been barred from implementing the law thus far).
THE HEART OF IT: The law requires abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic where they work—essentially, the doctors need a formal agreement that allows them to admit patients in the event of an emergency, agreements which are entirely at the discretion of hospitals to give. The state’s abortion doctors testified during the trial that they cannot get these privileges for a few reasons: 1) Hospitals aren’t interested in giving them privileges because they very, very rarely admit patients, since abortions are extremely safe; 2) They can’t complete the needed applications because they don’t have histories of admitting patients; 3) Hospitals aren’t interested in giving them privileges because of institutional anti-abortion views (for instance, the wide network of Catholic hospitals).
THE BACKGROUND: The law is identical to one struck down in the major SCOTUS case Whole Women's Health v. Hellerstedt in 2016. Based on that precedent, a district judge struck down Louisiana’s law in 2017, finding that it created an undue burden on women’s access to abortion while simultaneously having no impact on improving women’s health. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision in the fall of 2018, finding for itself a dramatically different set of facts than the district judge had concluded. A full panel of the appeal court’s judges agreed in January. Then SCOTUS stepped in and stayed the law, preventing it from taking effect.
THE STAKES: In early October, SCOTUS agreed to hear two aspects of the case. One is whether the law is constitutional. The other is whether abortion clinics are allowed to file lawsuits on behalf of their patients. Finding in Louisiana’s favor in either case could have a massive impact on abortion access around the country and the ability of pro-choice advocates to fight anti-abortion laws in federal courts. The court will likely hear the case in January or February of 2020.
Resources
For research on abortion and reproductive health in the U.S. and internationally, including abortion laws and regulations, see the Guttmacher Institute and Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH).
For information on abortion clinics and providers, see the National Abortion Federation, which has an incomplete list of providers nationally. Physicians for Reproductive Health Care works on policy, lawsuits and advocacy.
SisterSong advocates for reproductive justice for women of color, non-binary and minority folks. There’s also the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health.
The Center for Reproductive Rights and the ACLU fight reproductive rights lawsuits.
NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood Federation of America advocate for reproductive health and rights.
(Let me know if you think you know a national organization that should be listed here.)