The War on Birth Control

Republicans are starting to get very explicit about their plan to ban birth control—closing in on a strategy Abortion, Every Day has warned about for years: redefining certain kinds of contraception as ‘abortifacients.’

On Friday, the Trump administration told The New York Times that contraception like IUDs and the Pill aren’t birth control at all—but abortion. The stunning admission came in a statement about a $10 million stockpile of IUDs, oral contraceptives, and hormonal implants the administration plans to incinerate rather than distribute to women abroad:

“President Trump is committed to protecting the lives of unborn children all around the world. The administration will no longer supply abortifacient birth control under the guise of foreign aid.”

Despite how long I’ve tracked this tactic, I was still shocked—not only that the administration didn’t bother to hide what they’re up to, but that the Times treated the comment as a throwaway quote to be corrected rather than interrogated. After all, an administration official openly declared that the president believes some of the most common forms of birth control are abortions! Surely that deserves its own headline.

Earlier in the week, AED covered a similar—though less obvious—attack on contraception. In Amy Coney Barrett’s new book, the Supreme Court justice says she believes birth control is a fundamental right. But check out how she responded when CBS Sunday Morning asked her how Dobbs might impact medical care other than abortions—like emergency contraception and IUDs:

“Let’s see, those are issues inherent in medical practice. And sure, they surround pregnancy care and the care of women. And those are issues that are left now to the democratic process. And the states are working those out. We have not had those cases on our docket.”

Why say that IUDs and emergency contraception are a state issue if she thinks birth control is a fundamental right? Because to conservatives like Barrett, IUDs and emergency contraception are not birth control!

This is why AED obsessively tracks Republican language games—and why I’m always asking for your support to make sure we can keep at it.

Policing Pregnancy, Criminalizing Care

As you all know, Republicans are desperate to jail providers who ship abortion pills into anti-choice states—but shield laws are standing in their way. That’s why Republican attorneys general are filing suits against providers: they’re angling for the kind of legal fight that could put those protections before the Supreme Court. This past week, New York Attorney General Leticia James announced she’ll intervene in Texas’ suit against abortion provider Dr. Maggie Carpenter—making that interstate showdown far more likely.

Speaking of Texas: six months ago, we told you about Houston-area midwife Maria Margarita Rojas, the first person charged under the state’s abortion ban. Last week, we learned that Rojas has been charged with 15 felonies—including a charge declaring she killed an ‘unborn child.’ Read the full story here.

In other criminalization news, a 58-year-old Iowa woman was arrested and charged with first degree murder—32 years after police uncovered remains from her pregnancy in a landfill. Pregnancy Justice has a powerful video about how cops are increasingly using new DNA technology—and even companies like 23andMe—to track women down through their relatives.

Finally, AED is still digging into the Laken Snelling case. The Kentucky college student was arrested for ‘abuse of a corpse’ after police say they found an “infant” in her closet. But when AED reporter Kylie Cheung spoke to the county coroner overseeing the case, he said that “infant” could mean fetus—leaving open the possibility that Snelling has been arrested for a miscarriage. We hope to have more for you soon.

Help Us Keep Reporting & Fighting

In Better News

Before we move on, let’s take a brief pause to focus on some of the good (and great!) news we reported over the last week.

First, California passed a key expansion of its shield law—allowing abortion providers and patients to keep their names off prescription labels for abortion pills. This protection couldn’t have come at a better time: Republicans have been ramping up their attacks on abortion providers, bringing civil suits and criminal charges against those who ship abortion pills into anti-choice states. (That’s to say nothing of the increasing violence and harassment against providers.)

And as we noted this week, shield state providers all over the country are using California pharmacies to ship abortion pills; so abortion rights advocates have been especially eager to see this law passed.

In other terrific news, Illinois just passed a law mandating that public universities make abortion accessible to students either through their health centers or external providers. With pro-choice states inundated with out-of-state abortion-seekers, it’s become harder for college students to easily obtain care; this law aims to change that. Even better—the law was passed thanks in part to college activists. You love to see it!

Finally, I reported this week that Washington will destroy 30,000 doses of mifepristone because the state’s stockpile is set to expire. Since then, I’ve spoken to a few key folks who assure me that Washington leaders are working hard to keep that from happening, and that they’re thinking through some creative ways they can dispense the medication. I’ll keep you updated as I learn more.

The Week in Numbers

A new report from the Fairness Project found a 95% increase in legislation aimed at stopping or complicating the ballot measure process. This year alone, state lawmakers introduced 150 bills to try to “make ballot measures less accessible and harder to pass.” (As if on cue, we learned this week that Missouri Republicans are fighting to require that ballot measures win in every congressional district in order to pass—effectively giving Republican districts the power to veto an amendment.)

NBC News published a new poll on Gen Z that expanded on the growing political gender gap among young Americans. We already know that young men are skewing conservative while their female counterparts lean more liberal. But get this: when young people are asked about how they define ‘success’, men rank getting married and having children much higher on their list than women do. What’s more, young men who voted for Trump cited “having children” as their number one definition of success. For young female Harris voters, having children was their second-least important response.

Here’s what I found most interesting, though: even young women who voted for Trump placed having children low on their list. It polled behind things like “achieving financial independence” and “having a job or career you find fulfilling.” No wonder Republicans are spending so much time, money, and energy trying to convince young women that they’d love being housewives!

Finally, a new study in the American Journal of Public Health shows that infant deaths rose by 7.2% in states that enacted abortion restrictions after Dobbs. No surprise there, of course. Study after study keeps showing that more infants are dying in states with bans. But what’s especially notable here is that researchers found abortion ban ‘exceptions’ didn’t meaningfully bring down that infant mortality rate. That’s something Democrats should be shouting from the rooftops.

Republicans Attack Healthcare—Again

While we’re talking about the devastating impact of Republican policies, a reminder that the House Appropriations Committee advanced a bill that eliminated Title X funding entirely. Title X provides affordable reproductive health care—like birth control and STI testing—to low-income and uninsured patients. The bill also cut the nation’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, among other horrors.

We also learned that a judge has allowed the Trump administration to move forward with ‘defunding’ Planned Parenthood. This is just the latest in an ongoing court battle over the portion of Republicans’ budget law that prohibits Medicaid patients from getting care at clinics that provide abortions—even if that care is birth control or cancer screenings. (To understand the far-ranging impacts of the GOP law, read AED’s explainer.)

State News

• In Pennsylvania, Republican gubernatorial candidate Stacy Garrity is trying to make voters forget that she’s an anti-abortion extremist, claiming she supports “exceptions” and would “respect the current law on the books.”

• Kentucky’s Republican attorney general Russell Coleman says he’s “reviewing” the ad campaign that Mayday Health put up in gas stations telling people how to get abortion pills.

• The Louisiana Illuminator reports that Gov. Jeff Landry’s administration has failed to provide even basic oversight into the millions of dollars given to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.

• Tennessee state attorneys are fighting to keep their ‘abortion trafficking’ law on the books—including the portion blocked by a judge for violating free speech rights. (Under that section of the law, you could be arrested for texting a teenager the url to an abortion clinic.)

• In similar news, Indiana was in court fighting on behalf of a law that prohibits healthcare providers from even giving minors information about abortion.

• Finally, South Carolina abortion advocates are still trying to raise the alarm about SB 323—a bill that would punish abortion patients as murderers, ban certain kinds of birth control, and even make pro-choice websites illegal. (Consider signing or sharing this petition.)

Normalizing Misogyny

Reporting the “news” that Donald Trump said something awful feels ridiculous—but I still think this story is worth mentioning: while speaking to the press on Monday, Trump complained that domestic violence is counted in crime statistics:

“Things that take place in the home they call crime…If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this is a crime.”

Also last week, we saw the card that Trump gave to notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein—a hand-made drawing that appears to depict a preteen girl’s body.

Again, this sort of feels like reporting that water is wet. Still, we have to make a big deal out of each and every one of these stories, because they are a big deal!

It’s too easy to fall into this rhythm of finding out that Trump did something misogynist, shaking our head, and moving onto the next terrible thing. Before you know it, we’re a dozen news cycles deep and people have forgotten that the president of the United States said that hitting your wife shouldn’t be a crime. Sorry, “a little fight.” (ಠ_ಠ)