Dear John,
It’s been a week of downs and ups.
On Tuesday night, in a one-day special session, the Iowa state legislature voted to ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. A similar ban is currently on the books in Georgia, and an additional 14 states have total bans on the books.
As with all six week abortion bans, this ban flies in the face of medical best practices—as Ms.’s Jen Weiss-Wolf noted earlier this year, most women don’t even know they’re pregnant at six weeks. “A person is four weeks pregnant on the first day of a missed period, thereby allowing a mere two weeks to obtain an abortion—a sliver of a window even for the most resourced among us,” Weiss-Wolf observes. “And for those who live in places where abortion and other health care services are few and far between—or are subject to hurdles imposed by legislatures like mandatory waiting times, or just the economic and logistical challenges of daily life—that two-week timeframe is a legally-proscribed impossibility.”
The Iowa legislature, made up of majority Republicans and 70 percent men, passed the ban despite widespread opposition from the people of Iowa. Seventy-three percent of U.S. adults oppose abortion bans in the first six-weeks—including 58 percent of those living in states with the strictest bans—according to a recent AP-NORC poll.
With Republican-dominated state legislatures continuing to propose and pass anti-abortion legislation across the country, federal action to preserve women’s rights is more essential than ever. That’s why this week we were pleased to see Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) introduce a joint resolution in Congress to compel the national archivist to immediately publish the ERA as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. “In light of Dobbs, we’re seeing vast discrimination across the country,” Gillibrand told the New York Times. “Women are being treated as second-class citizens. This is more timely than ever.”
A different venue also played host to an ERA action this week—with Former Rep. Carolyn Maloney and ERA Coalition CEO Zakiya Thomas taking to the floor to ring the closing bell of NASDAQ this Friday and spotlight the ERA. Students from Hunter College joined Maloney and Thomas on stage to promote the Sign 4 ERA petition drive and the fight for equality. (You can join the campaign by signing the petition here).
Finally, this week the FDA issued approval for the country’s first over-the-counter birth control pill. The pill, called Opill, is a “progestin-only” pill—which is 93 to 99 percent effective at preventing pregnancy. It’s expected to be available in stores and online beginning early next year, and the price is still unknown.
“Birth control is safe, effective and essential—women across America have known that for decades, and I’m glad the FDA has followed the science to finally put over-the-counter birth control on the shelves,” said Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.). “For the first time ever, women in this country will be able to walk into a pharmacy and pick up birth control without a prescription. But it’s not enough for an over-the-counter birth control pill to be available to women—it has to be affordable... [and we must] make certain insurers fully cover over-the-counter birth control, without any out-of-pocket costs.”
You can count on Ms. to keep you informed on the latest battlegrounds for abortion access and strategies for fighting back, including the urgency of finally securing the Equal Rights Amendment.
Onward,
