Republicans Already Cracking Down On Abortion, In Big Surprise To 'Pro-Choice' Trump Voters
Hope you enjoyed your ballot initiatives while they lasted.
One of the things I, for one, never got tired of seeing both before and after the election were the interviews with people who said they were pro-choice but voting/voted for Trump and other Republicans because they wanted to “send a message” and he said he wanted to leave everything to the states anyway. I mean, I guess I understand it slightly more than I understand the former Democrats who say they voted for Trump out of a personal dislike of people on the Left who were not even running for office, but not by much. Especially because anyone with any sense could tell you that electing Trump and giving Republicans control over the Senate and House was always going to lead to people losing their reproductive rights.
The people in Kansas and Missouri who thought they could have their Republicans and keep their reproductive rights, too, by virtue of ballot initiatives, may soon find out the hard way that this was never a very solid plan — as a Texas judge has just ruled that legislators in Kansas, Missouri and Idaho can ban mifepristone not just for their own states, but for all of us.
That judge? Our old pal, Trump appointee Matthew Kacsmaryk, whom you may remember from the last time he tried to ban mifepristone.
The Republican Attorneys General of Missouri, Kansas and Idaho brought their cases to the federal court of Amarillo, Texas, where Kacsmaryk is the only judge around, asking him to let them proceed with their lawsuit against the FDA for their approval of the drug, which he happily obliged.
This is technically the same lawsuit as the one previously filed by the ever-so-wacky anti-abortion doctors’ coalition, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which argued that the FDA did not have the authority to approve mifepristone 24 whole years ago and wanted to ban the drug from being prescribed through telehealth or by nurse pracitioners.
That case, in which Kacsmaryk himself had previously found in favor of the plaintiffs, was unanimously shot down by the Supreme Court, which decided that the doctors didn’t have standing because they were not personally harmed by the FDA’s approval of the drug. Three male Republican Attorneys General — Raul Labrador of Idaho, Kris Kobach of Kansas and Andrew Bailey of Missouri — claim that their states are personally harmed by mifepristone, because women not having to drive 500 miles to get an abortion will cause their states’ birth rates to drop, which will reduce the states’ political power and federal funding.
No, really. The lawsuit states:
Defendants’ efforts enabling the remote dispensing of abortion drugs has caused abortions for women in Plaintiff States and decreased births in Plaintiff States. This is a sovereign injury to the State in itself.
One study highlighted that the removal of in-person follow-up visits has an effect on birth rates. In Missouri, state laws result “in an average increase in driving distance of 2.2 miles” for an in-person out-of-state dispensing of abortion drugs, “compared to a 453-mile increase in Texas, illustrating that states with the greatest increases in driving distance also tend to have the greatest estimated increases in births. That is because it is relatively easy for a Missouri woman to drive to Illinois or Kansas than for a Texas woman to drive to New Mexico or Colorado. Reflecting the ease of driving to another state to receive abortion drugs, it is estimated that just 2.4 percent of abortion-minded women were prevented from getting abortions” in Missouri after Dobbs. This data thus reflects the FDA’s removal of a requirement for three in-person doctor visits. […]
A loss of potential population causes further injuries as well: the States subsequent “diminishment of political representation” and “loss of federal funds,” such as potentially “losing a seat in Congress or qualifying for less federal funding if their populations are” reduced or their increase diminished.
And if you think that’s bad, Missouri is also complaining that banning abortion didn’t net them an increase in teen moms.
These estimates also show the effect of the FDA’s decision to remove all in-person dispensing protections. When data is examined in a way that reflects sensitivity to expected birth rates, these estimates strikingly “do not show evidence of an increase in births to teenagers aged 15-19,” even in states with long driving distances despite the fact that “women aged 15-19 … are more responsive to driving distances to abortion facilities than older women.” The study thus concludes that “one explanation may be that younger women are more likely to navigate online abortion finders or websites ordering mail-order medication to self-manage abortions. This study thus suggests that remote dispensing of abortion drugs by mail, common carrier, and interactive computer service is depressing expected birth rates for teenaged mothers in Plaintiff States, even if other overall birth rates may have been lower than otherwise was projected.
Feel free to take a moment to scream into your nearest pillow.
The attorneys general are specifically asking for Kacsmaryk to issue an injunction against the FDA that will end telemedicine prescriptions for the drug, require three in-person visits to a doctor (not a nurse practitioner) to get it, rescind the FDA’s approval of mifepristone for minors and only allow patients to use the pill up to 7 weeks into a pregnancy instead of 10.
Oh! Guess what they’re also arguing! Just like their predecessors, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the Attorneys General are claiming that mailing mifepristone violates the Comstock Act. You know, just like Project 2025 — the thing all the Republicans insisted was a kooky liberal conspiracy theory that would have no impact on Trump’s presidency or other Republican legislation whatsoever — recommended.
These fellas went out of their way to take their case to Kacsmaryk, who they knew would rule in their favor, and purposely avoided having it sent to the Supreme Court, which would likely say they didn’t have standing, just like they found that the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine didn’t have standing.
Of course, given the fact that Republicans now control every branch of government and that Trump is going to get to pick the new head of the FDA, it’s pretty damned unlikely that these guys won’t get their way, if not through the court system, then by some other means.
But Wait! There’s More Foolishness from Missouri!
Missouri’s new Lt. Governor, David Wasinger has announced that his main priority, other than going after “illegals,” is killing the abortion ballot initiative that people in his state voted for this past November.
“We intend on working hand in glove to repeal and replace Amendment 3, which should have never passed in the state of Missouri,” Wasinger said. “I think because we’re building these good relationships, we are going to get good conservative legislation across the finish line and again.”
His other main priority is increasing tourism, which he will certainly do if he gets his way and bans abortion in the state again — just not tourism to Missouri so much as tourism from Missouri. To Illinois. Where people will still be able to get legal abortions.
Senate Republicans Once Again Want To Ban Abortion Thing That Isn’t A Real Thing
This week, Senate Republicans, led by Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) introduced the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, a completely insane piece of legislation with no purpose beyond making it look like those of us who support abortion rights are really just in it for the baby murder.
“No child should be denied medical care simply because they are ‘unwanted.’ Today, if an abortion procedure fails and a child is born alive, doctors can just ignore the crying baby on the table and watch them slowly die of neglect. That’s not an abortion, that’s infanticide,” Lankford said on that social media site we don’t link to.
This is not a thing.
Except in extreme situations, abortions are performed prior to viability. If there were, somehow, a case in which a viable baby came out during an abortion procedure and it were possible to save it, it would be both illegal and fucking insane for doctors to just let it die on the table.
For the 80 millionth time, it is illegal to kill a newborn baby. What these people are pretending to be worked up about, as usual, is the fact that when a baby is born that has no chance of survival, parents can decide if they want doctors to perform painful and ultimately pointless life-saving procedures on it, or if they want to make the child warm and comfortable until it passes naturally. There’s no “Let’s just let this totally viable baby that we could save die, because we, as doctors that specialize in obstetrics, just really hate babies” happening.
Oh! And Check Out This Gross Ass Piece Of Legislation From Andy Biggs
Earlier this month, Andy Biggs (R-Arizona), introduced a resolution titled “Recognizing the importance of access to comprehensive, high-quality, life-affirming medical care for women of all ages.” Can you guess what it is about? Did you guess an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center? Then you would be correct!
Specifically, Biggs wants a consortium of crisis pregnancy centers called Pro Women’s Healthcare Centers that not only do not provide referrals for abortions, but do not even provide birth control, to become the “new standard of care” for women’s health across the nation.
As if that isn’t weird enough, the resolution also includes this little tidbit:
Whereas health care for women should also address the needs of men, families, and communities as they relate to women’s health care
I’m sorry, what? Is that code for “Don’t do abortions or birth control because abortions and birth control are bad for men, families and communities?” Or what? Does he want women’s health clinics to also offer breast implants? Is it just that everything now must address the needs of men, including women’s healthcare? I’m honestly perplexed here. Does he also want men’s healthcare to address my needs as a woman? Because I will tell you, Andy Biggs, not once have I ever thought “But what’s in a prostate exam for me?”
As for the “I did it to send a message!” pro-choice Trump voters? I’m still not sure what the hell kind of “message” they thought they were sending to Democrats, but it’s becoming quite clear that the Republicans sure as hell interpreted it as “please take our reproductive rights away!,” so it doesn’t seem to have worked out too well for them, now does it?
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
>>One of the things I, for one, never got tired of seeing both before and after the election were the interviews with people who said they were pro-choice but voting/voted for Trump and other Republicans because they wanted to “send a message” and he said he wanted to leave everything to the states anyway. <<
And the message they sent, quite clearly, was "I am a breathtakingly gullible moron, and how I manage to get through my days without sticking my tongue into live electrical outlets is an intractable mystery."
None of the "plaintiff" states are even in the same *circuit* as Judge Dipshit. So let's take a case dismissed for lack of standing and now bring a case that should be immediately dismissed for lack of personal and subject-matter jurisdiction.
And yet it's *liberals* who are accused of "lawfare" and "frivolous litigation" and "forum shopping".