Contraception in the Crosshairs
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** CfA's April 7, 2024 Newsletter
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With your support, Campaign for Accountability is working to expose corruption and hold the powerful accountable.
** This Week's Updates:
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Senate Republicans Use HELP Hearing to Take Aim at IUDs, Plan-B
This week, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) held a hearing regarding abortion bans and the threat those laws pose to women’s health. The hearing began with testimony ([link removed]) from a Texas resident named Mady Anderson, who had to drive 720 miles, round trip, in order to reach an abortion provider. She spent almost $3,000 on travel to and from Mississippi. If Anderson ever needed another abortion, she would have to travel even farther, because the clinic she went to has since been shut down ([link removed]) .
For some anti-abortion advocates, though, these bans don’t go far enough. Reproductive rights organizations have tracked the steady growth of an anti-contraceptive ([link removed]) movement, which aims to ban or severely restrict emergency contraceptives and devices like IUDs. During the HELP hearing, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) asked ([link removed]) Republican witness Dr. Christina Francis if she believed women should have access to IUDs and next-day medications like Plan B. Rather than answering the Senator directly, Dr. Francis characterized IUDs as “abortifacients,” which her organization opposes. While this position might seem fringe and outlandish, Dr. Francis is the CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and has appeared alongside ([link removed]) congressional Republicans at multiple events. Sen.
Murray, speaking directly to Dr. Francis, observed that her organization had been “working behind the scenes” with Republican lawmakers to craft abortion policy, with the ultimate goal of classifying certain contraceptives as abortifacients. Ultimately, these medications and devices could also be subject to bans.
YouTube Tightens Policies on Firearms
This week, without much fanfare, YouTube updated its firearm policies to age-restrict content featuring 3D-printed guns and automatic weapons. These changes follow research ([link removed]) from CfA’s Tech Transparency Project (TTP) which revealed that YouTube was recommending real firearms videos to accounts registered as young boys, none of whom had expressed interest in this content. Instead, the accounts had been “trained” on playlists of clips from video games, watching them the way actual children would. The videos recommended by YouTube included weapons modification tutorials and dramatized reenactments of school shootings. When the test accounts clicked on these videos, YouTube began serving them more and more violent content, none of which was age restricted.
In response to TTP’s report, the organization Everytown for Gun Safety urged ([link removed]) YouTube to age restrict firearms content and enforce its existing policies, which were being openly violated by channels using the platform to sell weapons or weapon accessories. Later, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg called on YouTube ([link removed]) to stop recommending 3D-printed gun videos to children.
YouTube’s old firearms policies ([link removed]) were primarily concerned with preventing gun sales and stopping the circulation of particularly harmful videos, such as tutorials for weapons manufacturing and the conversion of weapons to automatic fire. The new policies finally acknowledge ([link removed]) that content featuring firearms can be inappropriate for children, and represent a shift in YouTube’s approach to weapons content. Age restrictions may ultimately reduce viewership, which reduces ad revenue for YouTube – a trade-off that many online platforms are unwilling to make without significant outside pressure.
WATCH NOW: TP Director Katie Paul Discusses Facebook Militias with Former FBI Official Frank Figliuzzi and Host Chip Franklin
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What We're Reading
As AI booms, Microsoft’s deal with a startup comes under federal investigation ([link removed])
US state abortion ban exemptions aren’t vague by accident. Uncertainty is the point ([link removed])
States are already collecting more abortion data. And HIPAA won’t always keep it private ([link removed])
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Be on the lookout for more updates about our work in the upcoming weeks. Thanks again for signing up to be a part of CfA!
Sincerely,
Michelle Kuppersmith
Executive Director, Campaign for Accountability
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