Dear John,
Even as we wait for U.S. Supreme Court decisions in two cases set to come down this month that could have massive impacts on abortion access, I fear that a court decision out of Texas and a new law passed in Louisiana foreshadow how the Court might rule. The cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court involve whether federal law requiring hospitals to provide emergency abortions in cases when a woman’s health—not only her life—is threatened supersedes state abortion bans, and whether the FDA acted properly in its decision to ease regulations making it easier to dispense abortion pills without in-person visits.
The Texas Supreme Court ruling stems from the Zurawski v. Texas case filed last year by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of two doctors and 20 Texas women with pregnancy complications denied abortion care as a result of the state’s near-total ban on abortion, including some who almost died. The plaintiffs argued the ambiguous language in the law had resulted in “pervasive fear and uncertainty among doctors as to when they can provide legal abortions.” Doctors face up to 99 years in prison and at least $100,000 in fines and loss of their medical license for violating the abortion bans.
On Friday the court ruled that the state’s abortion bans are clear in providing an exception for abortions in cases where in the physician’s “reasonable medical judgment” an abortion is necessary. Moreover, the court rejected the argument that abortions should be allowed in pregnancies when the fetus would not survive after birth. The court’s decision is shocking in its cruelty and callousness toward women facing critical medical complications and carrying fetuses with lethal conditions. But I guess none of us are surprised by the outcome in a court stacked with reactionary justices.
What’s more, we are witnessing a new line of attack against abortion pills, or mifepristone, a proven, safe method of medication abortion that is used in over half of abortions performed in the U.S. today. In Louisiana last week, Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill that will reclassify mifepristone, along with misoprostol (another abortion medication) as controlled substances. The mere possession of abortion pills without a prescription in the state could result in up to five years in prison.
“Abortion opponents … know they will lose on the merits if they’re honest,” wrote Jill Fillipovic of the situation in Louisiana. “And so they lie. Which is exactly how we get bills that suggest abortion pills are addictive, and threaten to jail women who haven’t had abortions, but who simply possess extremely safe and common medicines.” Check out Jill’s full piece below for more analysis.
Given the jury verdict in Trump’s New York trial on felony violations of campaign finance laws, take a moment to read our American Autocracy series in collaboration with Just Security, where we track the former president’s comments on gay and trans rights, his political enemies and abortion (Spoiler alert: He’s not a big fan). In the words of the series’ authors, “We ignore leaders who promise dictatorship—and those who enable them—at our own peril. The United States, like many other functioning democracies, is hardly immune from backsliding and lurching toward autocracy.”
On the latest episode of Ms. Studios’ On the Issues with Michele Goodwin: Fifteen Minutes of Feminism, Goodwin is joined by feminist writer Moira Donegan to discuss why the New York trial was about more than just “hush money”—it’s about a coverup, election interference and mistreatment of women. As Donegan explained: “Paying somebody to shut up is actually not illegal. … Having her sign an NDA in exchange for $130,000 was not illegal conduct. What was illegal was the coverup. This is what they always say: It’s not the underlying conduct that they get you. It’s the coverup … So, because Donald Trump did not want … anybody to know that he had had this encounter with Stormy Daniels and he did not want that going public at the time of his first presidential campaign, not only did he pay her to cover it up, he also falsified the records of that payment.”
“We’re looking at decades upon decades going back nearly a century in New York of prosecuting for things just like this, including at a much lower [payment] amount,” explained Goodwin, referencing “Survey of Past New York Felony Prosecutions for Falsifying Business Records” from Just Security.
“It is shameful that any of these events happened,” said Donegan. "It is sad that somebody so unworthy of power achieved so much of it. But this is a rare, inspiring moment where institutions that have not seemed particularly strong lately showed a degree of strength. I think that’s a silver lining.”
Finally, on the cover of our latest print issue, on newsstands later this month, we declare that menopause is fueling a movement. The new, modern menopause movement is being “mobilized by a diverse coalition of doctors, journalists, and social and racial justice activists, and through the openness of influential leaders including Michelle Obama, Tracee Ellis Ross and Oprah Winfrey, among others,” wrote Ms. executive director of partnerships and strategy Jennifer Weiss-Wolf in the cover story. For these women, menopause is not an afterthought. Learn more about the movement—plus a number of book recommendations if you want to learn more about menopause—in the story below.
Stay tuned! You can count on Ms. to keep you informed about these and other defining issues of women’s lives and this year’s election—because threats to women are threats to our democracy.
Onward for equality,
