This weekend marks the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. All indications are that the landmark Supreme Court ruling won’t make it to 50.
On Friday, the Supreme Court ignored standard legal procedure when it declined to block Texas’s six week abortion ban and refused to expedite the case through the legal system. In doing so, the court stripped millions of women in Texas of their constitutional rights — potentially forever. The case will take months to untangle, and in June, the Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority is likely to toss out most if not all of the protections guaranteed by Roe when it issues a ruling on Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.
That 70% of Americans are opposed to Roe being overturned hardly matters — after all, the Supreme Court has repeatedly displayed its disdain for democracy over the past decade.
Roe, which legalized abortion across the United States, has been under assault from the moment it was handed down in 1973. Overturning the case has been the organizing principle of the religious right, a focal point of the conservative movement’s decades-long takeover of the federal judiciary, and the ultimate GOP fundraising tool. The right-wing justices are all products of that vicious tradition, and with the endgame in sight, Republican legislators nationwide have been teeing up restrictions and prospective outright bans on abortion.
In New Hampshire, a new state Republican trifecta passed a draconian ban on abortion last June, sneaking it through the budget process so that Gov. Chris Sununu had no choice but to sign it — not that he took all that much convincing. By barring abortions after 24 weeks, the bill was presented as a “moderate” compromise, but it was the hidden details that made it so pernicious.
The ban, which went into effect on January 1st, includes no exceptions for incest or rape and mandates that pregnant women undergo invasive ultrasounds before obtaining an abortion. It also creates criminal liability for doctors that perform abortions after 24 weeks or without having performed an ultrasound.
“The future of abortion access is telemedicine and getting abortion pills delivered right to your door,” Josie Pinto, the co-founder and executive director of the Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire, told Progressives Everywhere. “There's no real need to have an ultrasound early on in your pregnancy, so you can have a video chat with a doctor and they can send in a prescription for the medication.”
The new law, however, makes it impossible for women to access abortion medication with a simple Zoom conversation. Instead, they’re required to visit doctors’ offices, which can present serious complications for women in rural areas, women who work jobs with long and inconvenient hours, and women living with people who do not respect their right to choose. The transvaginal ultrasound can also be triggering for assault victims, and physically violating for anyone that does not want or need it.
A House committee voted on Tuesday to approve a bill that would narrow the ultrasound requirement, limiting its application to scenarios in which “the provider either knows or is conscious of a substantial risk that the fetus has a gestational age of at least 24 weeks.” Any relief provided by that law’s passage would likely be limited, however; Republicans rejected Sununu’s request that they eliminate criminal liability for doctors, meaning that many physicians would still be hesitant to prescribe the pill or perform the abortion without an ultrasound with up to seven years in prison still theoretically possible.
The governor also asked that the legislature create exceptions for rape and incest, requests that Rep. Beth Folsom, who wrote the ban, parried with two truly jaw-dropping explanations.
Rape victims, she said, do not require an exception because they closely track their menstrual cycles and therefore have more than enough time to terminate their pregnancies. As for victims of incest, Folsom assured that they’ll simply be cared for by their familial rapist.
“If they are still under the control of that aggressor, that aggressor is going to make sure that young girl or woman has an abortion before anyone finds out,” Folsom reasoned.
Folsom revealed that she had been a victim of rape many years ago, but did not get pregnant and did not face the difficult decision that other women face. A deeply religious conservative Christian, she projected her experience and beliefs on every woman in the state.
A day later, pro-choice advocates offered much more moving and reality-based testimony on behalf of two abortion-related bills filed by Senate Democrats. One bill would repeal the 24-week ban, while the other would codify Roe v. Wade in the New Hampshire state constitution. Women from across the state took turns relaying deeply personal experiences in three minute intervals, undaunted by either the teleconference setup or the long odds facing the legislation’s success.
Every bill filed in the New Hampshire legislature receives at least one hearing, and so at some point in the next few weeks, House committees will consider two anti-abortion proposals that would edge the state closer to Gilead.
The first, HB 1181, would establish “biological rights” for fathers, which would allow men to request a court injunction that blocks a woman from getting an abortion and forces her to give birth. A judge would have two weeks to decide whether or not to grant the injunction, and if the woman insisted the man trying to ruin her life is not the father, he would have two more weeks to provide a sperm sample — the bill does not include any initial DNA proof of paternity.
In short, this bill would allow a random man to use the power of the state to put a pregnant woman through hell for up to a month, and, if timed correctly, stop her from obtaining an abortion even if a judge ultimately decided against handing down an injunction.
The second bill, HB 1477, would establish a bounty hunter-enforced abortion ban like the one in Texas. Sununu has said that he opposes such a scheme, but he’s also called himself pro-choice throughout his career.
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Abortion Funds Step Up
For many women, an invasive government regime not only makes abortion care harder to access, it can also make it more expensive.
An in-person consultation appointment is always going to cost more than one conducted over video chat. Doctors can incur more legal costs. Clinics close in more rural areas. And if they live in a state where restrictions on abortion are especially draconian and cruel, women are often forced to travel to other states to undergo the procedure or obtain the medicine.
Even without the government-imposed hurdles, abortion care can be a costly proposition. The median abortion winds up costing just over $500, making it prohibitively expensive for many women, be they working-class, teenagers, abuse victims, or dealing with other financial complications; 40% of Americans say they’d struggle to pay a $400 bill for an unexpected medical emergency. If travel is required, the price can skyrocket.
Abortion funds have proliferated in recent years as mutual aid organizations that try to fill in the gaps and assist women who don’t have the means required to terminate their pregnancies. The Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire, which Pinto co-founded last year, has already directed $65,000 to help 170 low-income or otherwise vulnerable women in the state receive abortion care.
It’s an around-the-clock operation that acts as a crucial lifeline for women in what is often their most difficult hours. There are four clinics providing abortions in New Hampshire, each of which work closely with RFFNH.
“Almost all of our referrals come directly from the clinics,” Pinto says. “They leave a voicemail with us, and whoever's on hotline shift calls them back as soon as they can. It’s always within 24 hours, but we've tried to get back to them as soon as possible.”
The paucity of clinics in the state sometimes results in weeks-long waiting lists, so the fund also sends women to Massachusetts, especially when time is of the essence. With anti-abortion laws proliferating and old bans ready to trigger when Roe is overturned, Pinto is preparing for an influx of applicants in states with even harsher restrictions than what’s been passed in New Hampshire.
“I’m ready to start looking at what will it look like to fund people who are traveling to New Hampshire from other states,” she says. “What’s so hard about abortion funds is that it’s just so unpredictable. A lot of other organizations can budget out a whole year and feel pretty confident, but we just have to do our best every single week to meet the need.”
Progressives Everywhere has raised over $150,000 for abortion funds in Texas and states across the south. Now, we’re adding the Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire to our list of supported funds. Every donation will help a woman in need.
CLICK HERE to Donate to Abortion Funds via ActBlue!
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