As millions were stripped of abortion rights, mainstream outlets uplifted these five anti-choice leaders behind Roe’s reversal

WRITTEN BY JASMINE GEONZON
PUBLISHED 01/09/23

2022 marked an unprecedented assault on abortion rights, as the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June and multiple states quickly moved to restrict or outright ban abortion and other reproductive care. While millions of Americans navigated under these new harsh abortion restrictions, the largest newsrooms in the country gave their platforms to the leading figures behind the effort to reverse Roe and demonize abortion care.

Marjorie Dannenfelser (Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America)
As the president of anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Marjorie Dannenfelser has been key in backing anti-choice political candidates and supporting the passage of legal restrictions against reproductive rights. Late last year, for example, Dannenfelser stood alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) when he introduced legislation to implement a 15-week national abortion ban.

Continued; https://www.mediamatters.org/health-care/millions-were-stripped-abortion-rights-mainstream-outlets-uplifted-these-five-anti

USA – The Anti-Abortion Movement Is More Conspiracy-Addled Than Ever

From rampant antisemitism to groomer panic, pro-life activists are knee-deep in the far-right fever swamp.

Audrey Clare Farley
December 13, 2022

The “pro-life” movement has gone full groomer. Scroll the Twitter feed of the movement’s darling, Live Action founder Lila Rose, and you’ll find as many recent posts about the sexualization of children as you will see missives that are singularly about abortion. Take a gander at the feed of Students for Life, and you’ll find people calling Planned Parenthood staff “groomers.” Turn the television channel to EWTN, a staunchly anti-abortion Catholic network and the largest religious broadcast in the world, and you’ll find hosts decrying Disney’s “transgender grooming” of kids.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/169461/anti-abortion-movement-antisemitic-conspiracy

Anti-abortion groups don’t think they lost the midterms

The major reflections, arguments, and spin.

By Rachel M. Cohen
Nov 17, 2022

When he was campaigning for governor of Minnesota, Scott Jensen first said he’d ban abortions with no exceptions for rape and incest. Later, he said the governor couldn’t do anything about abortion anyway, given Minnesota’s constitutional protections. Last weekend, in a 22-minute Facebook Live video reflecting on his bruising loss, he made a new argument.

“This election was not about inflation, and crime and education...for so many Americans across the country this election was about an intrusion into a person’s autonomy,” he said, referring to abortion. “In the future I think the lesson is clear — at least it should be to Republicans. If you infringe on someone’s freedom, you may well lose. You’ll probably lose.”

Continued: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/11/17/23462040/abortion-groups-midterms-dobbs-reproductive-rights

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.

October 8, 2022

When the Supreme Court’s decision undoing Roe v. Wade came down in June, 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 contraceptives like IUDs and birth control pills to be illegal. The fast-growing group has built a social media campaign spreading the false idea that hormonal birth control is an abortifacient. Reveal’s Amy 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/

Abortion Rights Activists Fight Back With Mutual Aid and Direct Action in 2022

BY Michelle Farber, Truthout
January 5, 2022

It is difficult not to feel an overwhelming sense of defeat and fear for the year ahead in reproductive health and abortion rights as the Supreme Court deliberates on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case. Brought against Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which runs the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, this case could reshape abortion law countrywide. Among the many restrictions being challenged, the one abortion advocates are watching the closest is a 15-week ban. If upheld, this 15-week restriction would represent the first pre-viability abortion ban upheld by the Supreme Court. The landmark Roe v. Wade case set the precedent that states could not outlaw abortion prior to the viability line, which currently sits around 23 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. Should the court uphold this ban, dozens of states would be in position to unleash similar, or possibly even more restrictive laws.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/abortion-rights-activists-fight-back-with-mutual-aid-and-direct-action-in-2022/

05.01.2022

Commentary

Featured

15-week abortion ban

abortion clinic defense

abortion funds

Abortion Rights Preservation Act

Amelia Bonow

Anne Rumberger

Benita Ulisano

Chicago for Abortion Rights

Clinic Vest Project

Democratic Socialists of America

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Everett Clinic Defense

Feminists for Life

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act

Hayley Archer

Illinois Choice Action Team

Jackson Women’s Health Organization

Naral Pro-Choice America

National Organization for Women

New York City For Abortion Rights

Abortion rights advocates call for California to become a true ‘Reproductive Freedom State’ if Roe v. Wade is overturned

By Steve Almasy, CNN
Thu December 9, 2021

(CNN) A coalition of more than 40 organizations, including abortion rights advocacy groups, issued a report on Wednesday with 45 recommendations to "protect, strengthen and expand abortion services" in California.

The report comes as the US Supreme Court weighs new laws in Texas and Mississippi that are much more restrictive than 1973's Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion nationwide and says states can't ban abortion unless a fetus is viable or can survive outside the womb.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/09/us/california-abortion-report-reproductive-freedom-state/index.html

We Need a Left Strategy for Confronting the Anti-Abortion Movement

The anti-abortion movement has grown increasingly militant in recent years — and increasingly successful. The liberal pushback isn’t cutting it. We need a leftist strategy to defend abortion rights.

BY ANNE RUMBERGER
July 14, 2021

Abortion access has been uneven and inadequate for decades. But with the recent announcement that the Supreme Court will hear a major abortion case next term concerning a Mississippi state law that would ban almost all abortions after fifteen weeks of pregnancy, the threat has reached new levels.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization strikes at the heart of the precedent set in Roe v. Wade in 1973 that abortion is permitted until fetus viability, generally at around twenty-four weeks. As it hears the case, the Supreme Court will consider one clearly delineated question: whether or not “all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.” Mary Ziegler, author of Abortion and the Law in America, said recently that the court taking up the case could result in overturning Roe, but it could also get rid of viability as the point at which states can ban abortion.

Continued: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/07/anti-abortion-movement-choice-reproductive-justice

14.07.2021

Commentary

Featured

Alliance Defending Freedom

Anne Rumberger

anti-choice intimidation

anti-choice protests

anti-choice restrictions

anti-choice terrorism

anti-choice violence

At the Well

Bevelyn Beatty

Child Evangelism Fellowship

clinic blockades

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Edmee Chavannes

Father Fidelis Moscinski

Flip Benham

Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act

Marjorie Dannenfelser

Mary Wagner

Mary Ziegler

Monica Migliorino Miller

National Abortion Federation

Operation Rescue

Operation Save America

overturning Roe v. Wade

Anti-abortion movement bullish as legal campaign reaches US supreme court

A case that could undermine the landmark Roe v Wade ruling and a punitive Texas law are the culmination of a decades-long push

Jessica Glenza, Reuters Tue 25 May 2021

The anti-abortion movement in the US is emboldened and optimistic after the supreme court announced it would hear a direct challenge to laws underpinning the right to abortion in the US, and Texas enacted a law intended to ban abortion after six weeks.

The high court decision to take up the case and the Texas move come during the most hostile year for reproductive rights in the nearly half-century since pregnant people won the constitutional right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy in the landmark 1973 case Roe v Wade.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/25/anti-abortion-movement-bullish-us-supreme-court

Planned Parenthood Goes to Hollywood

Planned Parenthood Goes to Hollywood
The group is winning in L.A., even as it’s losing in D.C. Can entertainment ultimately make a difference in the abortion wars?

Story by Nora Caplan-Bricker
September 23, 2019

It’s 10 a.m. on a Tuesday at Planned Parenthood’s New York headquarters, and I’m watching TV. Specifically, I’m watching a series of scenes clipped from movies and TV shows, all of which have two things in common: The woman beside me, Caren Spruch, had a hand in them, and each one features an abortion.

Spruch and I began our viewing session with her most recent such project, the Hulu series “Shrill.” Now, seated at a table in a white-walled conference room, we’re watching the first movie she worked on, 2014’s “Obvious Child.” Spruch is petite and animated, with a long face and dark bangs, like a more pixie-ish Anjelica Huston. She calls “Obvious Child” — a romantic comedy about an unemployed 20-something who finds herself pregnant after a one-night stand — “the one that changed the world,” setting a new standard for stories about abortion. She has seen it, she estimates, more than 25 times.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/magazine/wp/2019/09/23/feature/planned-parenthoods-woman-in-hollywood/

USA – Facebook took down our fact-check on medically necessary abortions. That’s dangerous.

Facebook took down our fact-check on medically necessary abortions. That’s dangerous.

By Daniel Grossman and Robyn Schickler
September 15, 2019

As practicing obstetricians, we know how miraculously wonderful pregnancy can be. Having the privilege of caring for a woman during such an important and incredible time in her life is one of the reasons we chose to pursue careers in OB/GYN. And unfortunately, we also know how things can go tragically wrong during pregnancy. Sometimes when tragedy strikes, the best medical treatment involves abortion, because that’s the fastest and safest way to save the pregnant woman’s life.

But nowadays, even these basic facts are highly politicized — so much so that a company such as Facebook has become unwilling to stand up to those pushing misinformation on the subject. This is a dangerous development.

Continued: https://beta.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/15/facebook-took-down-our-fact-check-medically-necessary-abortions-thats-dangerous/