This Week in Abortion: Abortion Pill Reversal (plus Supreme Court news!)
This Week in Abortion: Abortion Pill Reversal (plus Supreme Court news!)
Welcome back to your weekly roundup of good reads, legal updates, and legislative tracking on abortion.
Welcome back to your weekly roundup of good reads, legal updates, and legislative tracking on abortion. Of course, we are talking about the good news that came from the Supreme Court yesterday. But, we are also sharing some really excellent Good Reads. And, at the end is a short read with everything you hoped you’d never need to know about abortion pill reversal.
Good Reads
Recently, we’ve seen a number of interesting long-form pieces on strategies anti-access folks are utilizing:
States Newsroom’s Sofia Resnick walks through a strategy to push the most extreme laws to the limit and to cut off all access inside and outside states.
The Atlantic’s Elaine Godfrey profiled the new breed of anti-access leaders for whom “without Roe, they reason, anything is possible.” The group profiled included a suspicious amount of information about the environmental dangers of birth control in a recent petition asking that the FDA require mifepristone (Mife) distributors to supply a medical waste kit with the drug. (Shout out to @garnethenderson for posting the full complaint.)
In Slate, Christina Cauterucci says, “If you look closely, attempts to restrict contraception are already in the works.”
Media Matters has a great collection of views from the other side following the Mife ruling.
Governing nerd Dan Moynihan puts the abortion pill rulings in context with general judicial overreach that undermines agency independence and government expertise. He says, “Judge Kacsmaryk is swimming with an anti-expertise tide, testing how far it may go.” This concept of activist judges, which has implications beyond abortion, is a tool used on both sides - for example, a State’s Attorney in Florida refused to enforce the abortion laws and is now in court, while fifteen republican Attorneys General issued an opinion on the removal of elected judges this week.
On the topics of infant and maternal mortality:
A South Carolina local paper analyzed infant death rates and found the state’s infant death rate in 2021 was 7.3 per 1,000 live births, compared to the U.S. average of 5.4 per 1,000. The trend looks especially bad for Black mothers and babies who likely have less access to OBGYN services in the state.
Arkansas’s legislative session is just about over. Tess Vrbin wrote a thorough round-up of reproductive health legislation proposed and passed this year in the state, which has the highest maternal mortality rate in the country.
Axios breaks down a new report from the Association of American Medical Colleges, which found that new doctors are avoiding residency programs in states with abortion bans. This isn’t surprising since reporting from the DOJ shows an increase in abortion-related violence, mostly against providers.
And Wired’s Kate Knibbs highlights the impact of Mife and misoprostol (Miso) uncertainty on telemedicine, which the CDC estimates over 40% of women utilize in some form.
Events of the Week
The Supreme Court has maintained full access to mifepristone (Mife) while the appeal winds its way to D.C. This means access to Mife will be maintained until at least October when the Supreme Court calendar starts over (assuming it moves that quickly through appeals).
North Carolina is now considering a 12-week ban and all eyes are on recently converted Republican Representative Tricia Cotham. If she decides to vote in line with her new party she will deliver a veto-proof vote.
North Dakota banned abortion at six weeks of pregnancy, even in cases of rape or incest. Three Republicans opposed the bill and some complained that it went too far. The state’s current ban has been blocked by the State’s Supreme Court, which should also apply in the case of the new legislation. ND recently passed another bill that requires North Dakota school districts to show students (unclear what age) a high-definition ultrasound video of fetal development and a rendering or animation of “every stage of human development.” The sponsor of the bill (and likely winner of this year’s anti-access awards) very helpfully provided a demonstration video to her colleagues of what she expects schools to show their students. It’s not subtle.
South Carolina Rep Nancy Mace (R) was targeted by pro-life demonstrations because she disagrees with the Kacsmaryk FDA ruling, despite voting for a national fetal heartbeat ban (aka she is not pro-access). Goes to show how little room for nuance some of the anti-access camps are willing to recognize.
Tennessee budget officials announced they would decrease funding of crisis pregnancy centers from a proposed $100 million to $20 million. This still would make TN the second largest funder in the country, Texas is the largest at $50 million. Not to be left out, Mississippi’s Governor signed off on providing tax credits for donations to pregnancy centers. Reminder here on why crisis pregnancy centers perpetuate harm. In the same week, legislators in Tennessee also approved a process for making doula services a reimbursable expense under the state’s Medicaid program. Even if it doesn’t fix the bigger problem, it’s finally some good news for reproductive health advocates.
The Montana health department is set to implement a changed internal rule that will restrict access for low-income individuals. We have not covered a lot on the role of rulemaking (as opposed to lawmaking), but it is a vital part of how laws get implemented and we anticipate targeting rulemaking will be an increasing part of the anti-access strategy.
Pennsylvania launched an awesome one-stop shop, Freedom to Choose PA. This resource is a good model for what other pro-access states can do to reduce barriers.
Legal Update
A case against West Virginia’s abortion ban was dropped this week. While this doesn’t mean the law can’t be challenged in the future, it’s a bummer today.
A city in New Mexico is leading the judicial ridiculosity train, asking a court to wield the Comstock Act against abortion providers operating in its borders. Enforcement of the long-defunct, but still on the books, Comstock Act is a key tactic of the anti-access movement. As one supporter of the lawsuit says, “Unconventional legislative and litigation strategies have paid handsome dividends for pro-lifers in the recent past.”
Feature: Abortion Pill Reversal
Depending on your state, “abortion pill reversal” education could soon be completely banned or be required as part of routine healthcare. For example, Colorado recently passed a law against providing this information that is now caught up in court. And, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly just vetoed legislation that would have forced clinics to tell patients that a medication abortion can be stopped. Here is a surprisingly helpful breakdown of the laws from The National Right to Life Committee.
If, like us, you have heard of abortion reversal but are wondering what the heck it is, Claire Lampen reviewed the method and the research surrounding it back in 2019. Spoiler, it’s shots of progesterone, which is the hormone that mifepristone (Mife) is designed to block.
Anti-access advocates generally call these rules “informed consent” and argue that women might have a change of heart and therefore should be informed that there are options out there if they make that choice. Science, however, has a different opinion. First, there is a lack of evidence that the treatment does anything, so informed consent is more like false hope should a person actually make that choice in the single day after she’s had an abortion. Second, in addition to it being false, it’s potentially dangerous as the safe and common abortion protocols are Mife + misoprostol (Miso) or just Miso; there is no commonly accepted protocol that recommends taking Mife alone.
Of course, the underlying goal of the anti-access movement is always to decrease the number of abortions. On this measure, we are actually not sure whether these laws are helping. On the one hand, they introduce confusion and remove practitioner independence, which is never good. But, on the other hand, if you were on the fence about doing something, perhaps you would be more likely to do it if you thought you could change your mind later. A simple messaging study of some of these laws might show they are not as “pro-life” as they claim to be.