Is The Term 'Pro-Life' The Problem, Or Do People Just Want Abortion Rights?

Your weekly reproductive rights round-up!

Florida Real Close To Getting Abortion On The Ballot

Today, Florida’s state supreme court will hear arguments in a case challenging the state’s 15-week abortion ban, on the grounds that it violates the state constitution. A lower court initially found that the state’s constitution more explicitly guaranteed a right to privacy than the US Constitution and the ban was briefly suspended, but the state appealed that decision and it went back into effect later the same day.

If the state wins, it won’t just get a 15-week abortion ban — the ruling will trigger the six-week ban that Ron DeSantis signed earlier this year, and that will go into effect instead.

But even if that does happen, there is a ray of hope! A group called Floridians Protecting Freedom is working to get abortion rights on the ballot next year, and they have reached the signature threshold needed on their petition for the state supreme court to do a review of the ballot question's language. Yay!

So far they have nearly 300,000 signatures, though they will need almost 900,000 signatures to get on the ballot. That actually shouldn’t be too difficult, as the state of Florida has over 14 million registered voters and 56 percent of them believe abortion should be legal in all or nearly all circumstances. This also makes it pretty darn likely that if Florida does get abortion on the ballot, abortion will win just as it has in every other state it’s been tried in.

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Republicans Aren’t Sure ‘Pro-Life’ Terminology Is Working Out All That Well For Them

The term “pro-life” has always been some bullshit — especially considering how many “pro-lifers” become “pro-who-gives-a-fuckers” upon birth, as well as how many tend to be very big on the death penalty. There’s never been a real poll on the latter, but one study did find that “individuals who express a strong commitment to punishment are more likely to oppose abortion and also to favor capital punishment,” which tracks.

Given what a ridiculous and false term it is, those of us who support abortion have always been in favor of coming up with more apt descriptions — anti-choice, pro-forced birth, etc. But surprisingly enough, it’s now Republicans who feel that the term is hurting them and are looking for something to replace it with.

Why? Because they saw a study showing people “assume” that being “pro-life” means that a candidate is not in favor of any exceptions for abortion, usually because they are not, and Republicans want people to know that “pro-life” can mean all kinds of things. It can mean being anti-abortion or pro-houseplant! It can mean believing that women should be given the death penalty for having abortion, or it can mean just really liking cereal.

The possibilities are truly endless and also mean you should probably just vote for “pro-life” candidates regardless of what you are into!

Via NBC:

“What intrigued me the most about the results was that ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ means something different now, that people see being pro-life as being against all abortions ... at all levels,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said in an interview Thursday.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said the polling made it clear to him that more specificity is needed in talking about abortion.

“Many voters think [‘pro-life’] means you’re for no exceptions in favor of abortion ever, ever, and ‘pro-choice’ now can mean any number of things. So the conversation was mostly oriented around how voters think of those labels, that they’ve shifted. So if you’re going to talk about the issue, you need to be specific,” Hawley said Thursday.

“You can’t assume that everybody knows what it means,” he added. “They probably don’t.”

Oh, wow, I guess people are really stupid then! They’re probably looking at Josh Hawley, going around pushing for abortion bans, and Josh Hawley’s wife going around trying to get medication abortion banned and think “Wow, these people sure do want to ban abortion!” and then voting accordingly. Weird how that works!

Another legislator suggested that they should turn the focus to how very much they love babies.

Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., summarized Wednesday’s meeting as being focused on “pro-baby policies.”

Asked whether senators were encouraged to use a term other than “pro-life,” Young said his “pro-baby” descriptor “was just a term of my creation to demonstrate my concern for babies.”

Ooh, that is also gonna be a tough one, given that Todd Young also voted no on a $540 million childcare investment just for his state provided by the American Rescue Plan. Perhaps he should stick to “pro-fetus.”

It seems pretty unlikely that this is a branding issue so much as an issue of “people don’t want to be forced to give birth or force others to give birth,” and there’s not a lot that can be done to fix that, other than no longer trying to force anyone to give birth.

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Shocking: Abortions Went Up In States That Didn’t Ban Abortion, Especially Those Near States That Did

A study coming out of the Guttmacher Institute shows that abortion rates increased in pretty much every state where abortion is legal, probably because people from states where it was banned are now going there to get abortions.

The study also found that, nationwide, abortions had decreased by about 25,000 — though it obviously does not count self-managed or otherwise illegal abortions.

This is probably very surprising news to people who thought that if they banned abortion, women would just say “Okay fine, guess I’ll just have a baby!” as if it were nothing. Unfortunately for them, that is not the way things tend to work in real life. Banning abortion doesn’t get rid of abortion, it just shuffles it around. It just makes it more likely that people will try to deal with it in ways that are not especially safe.

Here’s Another Story About OB-GYNs Fleeing Red States

If you happen to be an OB-GYN — particularly one who specializes in high-risk pregnancies — the last place you probably want to be is in a state that not only bans abortion, but where you could very well be sent to prison for doing your job correctly.

Red states are now dealing with a dearth of OB-GYNs leading to labor and delivery unit closures, making things more difficult for anyone who gets pregnant whether they want to have a baby or not. Luckily, in Idaho, they have smart state legislators who are taking this problem very seriously, by disbanding their maternal mortality review board and just pretending that everything is fine.

Via New York Times:

[Rep. John] Vander Woude also dismissed doctors’ fears that they would be prosecuted, and he expressed doubt that obstetricians were really leaving the state. “I don’t see any doctor ever getting prosecuted,” he said, adding, “Show me the doctors that have left.”

Well, Rep. Vander Woude can now read the article he was quoted in, which names two doctors that have left, or consider a survey of 117 Idaho OB-GYNs in which 75 of them said they were considering leaving the state, 73 of them specifically due to the state’s draconian abortion laws. Oh, or this article noting that “five of the state’s nine full-time maternal-fetal medicine specialists have left or will leave their jobs by the end of this year.”

It’s not going to end well, and it’s certainly not going to be very “pro-baby.”