Many Republicans support abortion. Are they switching parties because of it?

GOP leadership has floundered on the issue, and members have conflicting answers on party loyalty

Carter Sherman
Sat 13 Jan 2024

The first time Carol Whitmore ever had sex, she got pregnant.

It was 1973, and Whitmore was a teenager. Whitmore’s parents were in and out of trouble with the police, Whitmore said. When they told Whitmore they would help her raise the child, she thought, nope.

Instead, Whitmore got an abortion. That same year, the US supreme court legalized abortion nationwide in Roe v Wade.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/13/abortion-republican-voters-presidential-election

USA – Conservatives move to keep abortion off the 2024 ballot

“We don’t believe those rights should be subjected to majority vote.”

by ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN and MEGAN MESSERLY
12/18/2023

Conservatives are testing new tactics to keep abortion off the ballot following a series of high-profile defeats.

In Arizona, Florida, Nevada and other states, several anti-abortion groups are buying TV and digital ads, knocking on doors and holding events to persuade people against signing petitions to put the issue before voters in November.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/18/first-rule-of-the-anti-abortion-playbook-dont-let-the-public-vote-on-abortion-00132049

USA – Anti-Abortion Groups Undeterred by Election Losses, Press On in Courts

Abortion opponents are seeking ways to work around voters and cancel out victories at the polls for reproductive rights.

By Rachana Pradhan , KFF HEALTHNEWS
November 23, 2023

Anti-abortion groups are firing off a warning shot for 2024: We’re not going anywhere.

Their leaders say they’re undeterred by recent election setbacks and plan to plow ahead on what they’ve done for years, including working through state legislatures, federal agencies, and federal courts to outlaw abortion. And at least one prominent anti-abortion group is calling on conservative states to make it harder for voters to enact ballot measures, a tactic Republican lawmakers attempted in Ohio before voters there enshrined the right to abortion in the state’s constitution.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/anti-abortion-groups-undeterred-by-election-losses-press-on-in-courts/

How Many Abortions Did the Post-Roe Bans Prevent?

The first estimate of births since Dobbs found that almost a quarter of women who would have gotten abortions carried their pregnancies to term.

By Margot Sanger-Katz and Claire Cain Miller
Nov. 22, 2023

The first data on births since Roe v. Wade was overturned shows how much abortion bans have had their intended effect: Births increased in every state with a ban, an analysis of the data shows.

By comparing birth statistics in states before and after the bans passed, researchers estimated that the laws caused around 32,000 annual births, based on the first six months of 2023, a relatively small increase that was in line with overall expectations.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/upshot/abortion-births-bans-states.html

22.11.2023

News

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Daniel Dench

Dr. Alison Norris

forced birth

Institute of Labor Economics

Kristan Hawkins

Mayra Pineda-Torres

online abortion pills

Roe v. Wade

Students for Life of America

United States

Human Rights

Law

Anti-Abortion Groups Are Coming for Birth Control—Just as Reproductive Rights Activists Warned

Dark money anti-abortion and pay-to-play groups are predictably responding to the FDA’s over-the-counter birth control pill decision with disinformation.

8/17/2023
by ANSEV DEMIRHAN

In July, the FDA approved the first over-the-counter contraceptive pill, Opill (norgestrel). Opill is expected to be available for purchase online, in pharmacies, and convenience and grocery stores, without a prescription in early 2024.

With barriers to reproductive healthcare increasing—especially for Black, Latino and poor people—and more than 19 million women in the U.S. living in “contraceptive deserts” without easy access to reproductive health clinics, Opill will be a vital tool in the fight for reproductive justice.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/08/17/anti-abortion-pro-life-over-the-counter-birth-control-women/

With growing abortion restrictions, Democrats push for over-the-counter birth control

May 22, 2023
Sarah McCammon

If there was ever a time for Republicans to back efforts to expand birth control access, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington thinks this should be it.

"Women in many states today, because of the decision by the Supreme Court, are really worried about their access to be able to have birth control pills as a way of making sure they don't become pregnant, because in their states, they won't have access to abortion care," Murray, a Democrat, said in an interview with NPR.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/22/1177336068/patty-murray-birth-control-over-the-counter-abortion

22.05.2023

News

Affordable Care Act

Congressional Pro-Life Caucus

Food and Drug Administration

medication abortion

mifepristone

over-the-counter birth control

Patty Murray

Students for Life of America

United States

Contraception

Politics

USA – The Long Campaign to Turn Birth Control Into the New Abortion

Now that the fall of Roe v. Wade has ended the constitutional right to abortion, many in the religious right have a new goal: undermining trust in, and limiting access to, hormonal contraception – including the pill.

May 20, 2023

When the Supreme Court’s decision undoing Roe v. Wade came down, anti-abortion groups were jubilant – but far from satisfied. Many in the movement have a new target: hormonal birth control. It seems contradictory; doesn’t preventing unwanted pregnancies also prevent abortions? But anti-abortion groups don’t see it that way. They claim that hormonal contraceptives like IUDs and the pill can actually cause abortions.

One prominent group making this claim is Students for Life of America, whose president has said she wants such contraceptives to be illegal. The fast-growing group has built a social media campaign spreading the false idea that hormonal birth control is an abortifacient. Reporter and producer Alaa Mostafa teams up with UC Berkeley journalism and law students to dig into the world of young anti-abortion influencers and how medical misinformation gains traction on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, with far-reaching consequences.

Continued: https://revealnews.org/podcast/the-long-campaign-to-turn-birth-control-into-the-new-abortion-update-2023/

20.05.2023

Commentary

anti-choice misogyny

birth control

hormonal contraception

Jolene Brighten

Roe v. Wade

Students for Life of America

United States

Anti-choice

Contraception

USA – Here’s what abortion foes have been up to in the year after Dobbs draft leak

Anti-abortion activists have flooded state legislatures with proposals to criminalize pregnancy termination or to add burdensome regulations

BY: SOFIA RESNICK
MAY 3, 2023

Anti-abortion leaders could not stop paraphrasing Winston Churchill last June after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a victory that took 50 years to realize.

“While we celebrate the momentous ruling in Dobbs, we must remember that overturning Roe was not the beginning of the end, but it was the end of the beginning,” said Kristen Waggoner, CEO of the leading anti-abortion law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, on a webcast days after the Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Continued: https://www.penncapital-star.com/civil-rights-social-justice/heres-what-abortion-foes-have-been-up-to-in-the-year-after-dobbs-draft-leak/

‘We need to read the room’: GOP divided on abortion as Democrats unite for 2024

Democrats center abortion rights in early stages of presidential campaign while Republicans waver over unpopular position

Lauren Gambino in Washington DC
Sun 30 Apr 2023

Hours after Joe Biden announced his re-election campaign on Tuesday, his vice-president and 2024 running mate, Kamala Harris, delivered a fiery call to action for voters alarmed by the loss of constitutional protections for abortion.

“This is a moment for us to stand and fight,” she said to a packed auditorium at Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington and her alma mater. To the “extremist so-called leaders” rolling back access to reproductive rights, Harris warned: “Don’t get in our way because if you do, we’re going to stand up, we’re going to organize and we’re going to speak up.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/30/republicans-divided-abortion-democrats-united-2024-election

USA – Next frontier in the abortion wars: Your local CVS

The emerging strategy could further limit the Biden administration’s already limited policy.

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN and LAUREN GARDNER, Politico
01/11/2023

Fresh off winning their decades-long battle to overturn Roe v. Wade, abortion-rights opponents are pinpointing their next targets: the nation’s biggest pharmacy chains.

Anti-abortion advocates are organizing pickets outside CVS and Walgreens in early February in at least eight cities, including Washington, D.C., in response to the companies’ plans to take advantage of the Food and Drug Administration’s decision last week allowing retail pharmacies to stock and dispense abortion pills in states where they’re legal.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/11/pharmacies-anti-abortion-pills-00077349