Anti-Abortion Centers Raked in $1.4bn in Year Roe Fell, Including Federal Money
The Guardian, February 14, 2024
Anti-abortion facilities raked in at least $1.4bn in revenue in the 2022 fiscal year, the year Roe v. Wade fell – a staggering haul that includes at least $344m in government money, according to a memo analyzing the centers’ tax documents that was compiled by a pro-abortion rights group and shared exclusively with the Guardian. These facilities, frequently known as anti-abortion pregnancy centers or crisis pregnancy centers, aim to convince people to keep their pregnancies. But in the aftermath of Roe’s demise, the anti-abortion movement has framed anti-abortion pregnancy centers as a key source of aid for desperate women who have lost the legal right to end their pregnancies and been left with little choice but to give birth. Accordingly, abortion opponents say the centers need an influx of government cash. “Those are the centers that states rely on to assist expecting moms and dads,” Mike Johnson, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, told anti-abortion protesters at the March for Life in January. The Louisiana Republican praised the centers for providing “the important material support that expecting and first-time mothers get from these centers.” Earlier this year, under Johnson’s leadership, the House passed a bill that would block the Department of Health and Human Services from restricting funding for anti-abortion pregnancy centers. State governments are also in the midst of sending vast sums of taxpayer dollars to programs that support anti-abortion pregnancy centers. Since the demolition of Roe, at least 16 states have agreed to send more than $250m towards “alternative to abortion” programs in 2023 through 2025. Those programs funnel money towards anti-abortion pregnancy centers, maternity homes and assorted other initiatives meant to dissuade people from abortions.
More ‘Navigators’ Are Helping Women Travel to Have Abortions
The 19th, February 12, 2024
Chloe Bell is a case manager at the National Abortion Federation. She spends her days helping people cover the cost of an abortion and, increasingly, the interstate travel many of them need to get the procedure.“What price did they quote you?” Bell asked a woman from New Jersey who had called the organization’s hotline seeking money to pay for an abortion. Her appointment was the next day. “They quoted me $500,” said the woman, who was five weeks pregnant when she spoke to Bell in November. She gave permission for a journalist to listen to the call on the condition that she not be named.“We can definitely help,” Bell told her. “We can cover the cost of the procedure. You just tell them you have a pledge from the NAF.” Bell is one of a growing network of workers who help people seeking abortions understand what’s legal, where they can travel for care, and how to get there. These “navigators” can often recite from memory the names and locations of clinics throughout their region that offer abortion services at a given point in a pregnancy. Often, they can then name the hotel closest to the clinic. And some are so familiar with the most common airports for connecting flights that they can help patients find their next departure gate in real time. State abortion laws have always varied, so helping people access legal abortion services isn’t new, but the amount of travel needed to get care has risen sharply. In the first six months of 2023, nearly 1 in 5 abortion patients traveled out of state to get care, compared with 1 in 10 in 2020, according to an analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, a national nonprofit that supports abortion rights. That increase in travel, even for early-pregnancy abortions, has sparked a corresponding rise in the need for case managers like Bell.
South Carolina Bill Would Offer Compensation to Women Denied Abortions
ABC News, February 9, 2024
A South Carolina bill would offer women who would have sought abortion care, if not for the state’s ban, compensation for continuing their pregnancies to term. The proposal is currently being considered by a South Carolina Senate subcommittee. The bill, called the South Carolina Pro Birth Accountability Act, will require the state to provide women who would have obtained abortion care if not for the ban with “reasonable living, legal, medical, psychological, and psychiatric expenses that are directly related to prenatal, intrapartal, and postpartal period,” according to the bill. “It provides just compensation to women and girls who are eligible under South Carolina law. Now that we have the six-week abortion ban, I thought it only fitting and appropriate for the state to help cover the escalating costs of prenatal and postnatal care, from conception to college,” South Carolina state Sen. Mia McLeod, the sponsor of the bill, said in a video statement at Wednesday’s subcommittee hearing that was posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I’m a mom and both of my pregnancies were high risk,” McLeod, who left the Democratic Party in January 2023 to become an independent, continued. “I did have complications but I have also lost friends and South Carolina has one of the highest maternal mortality rates, also one of the highest infant mortality rates and a lot of our women and girls in this state will be thrown into vicious cycles of poverty by the six-week abortion ban.” “And I just wanna make sure that for those of us who call ourselves ‘pro-life’ that we are doing something to help the living. and my bill does that. It also gives my colleagues who refer to themselves as ‘pro-life’ an opportunity to prove it,” McLeod said.
Mental Health Emerges as a Dividing Line in Abortion Rights Initiatives Planned for State Ballots
AP News, February 13, 2024
The weeks after Kaniya Harris found out she was pregnant were among the hardest in her life. Final exams were fast approaching for the college junior. Her doctors told her she had an ovarian cyst, and the risk of ectopic pregnancy was high. The wait times for abortion clinics near her city of Bethesda, Maryland, seemed impossibly long. And she couldn’t visit her family in Kentucky because of the state’s abortion ban. Harris was having regular panic attacks. It all felt like too much, she said. “My mental health was at the lowest point it’s ever been in my life,” said Harris, who had an abortion last May. As advocates push this year for ballot measure initiatives aiming to protect abortion rights, key differences have emerged in the language of proposed measures. Among them is the inclusion of mental health exceptions. A Missouri proposal would allow lawmakers to restrict abortions after a fetus is considered viable, except if an abortion “is needed to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.” A similar measure has been proposed in Arizona. In 2022, Michigan voters passed an abortion rights amendment with a mental health exception for viability limits. Meanwhile, proposed ballot measure language in Arkansas only says “physical health,” excluding a mental health exception. Proposed abortion rights initiatives in other states, including Florida, Montana and Nebraska, don’t explicitly mention mental health.“It’s heartbreaking to hear about these policies ignoring mental health,” said Harris, now 21. “An abortion can save someone’s life, including when they’re in a mental health emergency.” Most states with abortion bans include exemptions for life-threatening emergencies, but only Alabama’s includes an exception for “serious mental illness” that could result in the death of the mother or fetus.
‘Abolished From Coast to Coast’: Anti-Abortion Movement Looks to Cities as Target for Bans
USA Today, February 9, 2024
Jana May was at a barbecue dinner for a local politician in Lubbock, Texas, in 2020 when she first heard about the wave of ironclad abortion laws being pushed in the state. At the time, May, then president of the High Plains Republican women, had no idea what a sanctuary city was until a fellow dinner guest explained to her that movement was afoot to get one established in Lubbock. “When he did, I mean, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up,” May, 67, said. Across the country, 67 cities and seven counties have passed so-called “sanctuary cities for the unborn” ordinances — local laws that seek to ban abortions in the area. The means vary by community, with some blocking the shipment of drugs used to perform an abortion and others making it punishable to perform or aid in an abortion on their residents. Lubbock, a town in northwest Texas of about 260,000 people, passed their own ordinance by citywide vote in 2021, a year after May’s dinner conversation. The Lone Star State has been the testing ground for conservative efforts to scale back abortion access nationwide. And in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision nearly two years ago reversing the federal right to an abortion, these ordinances have spread beyond Texas, into neighboring states like New Mexico and even liberal strongholds like Illinois. The debate over abortion rights stands to be a key issue in this year’s elections, whether on the ballot or the top of voters’ minds. As local and legal challenges mount, the battles have already begun in cities and towns across America. May returned home that evening back in 2020 to Amarillo, Texas, about 120 miles straight north of Lubbock.
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
Giving birth in America can be dangerous if you’re Black or Indigenous, live in a rural area, or have a low income. Carol Sakala & Megan Burns, discuss how changing how we pay for maternity care can drive improved maternal health outcomes. https://t.co/ymIfTnIucG pic.twitter.com/UHm3GzcUhB
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