You Can't Make Us Procreate!
New Age of Disruption. In early August, the Coalition for Life in St. Louis hosted a major fundraiser. Events like these take an enormous amount of planning — from identifying the venue to sending out invitations, hiring the caterer, and inviting speakers. At the same time, a group of eighteen protestors were also carefully preparing to infiltrate the event by posing as volunteers and guests. Midway through the event, the protestors took the stage and began to chant, “F*&k the church! F*&k the state! You can’t make us procreate!
Here is a video of the guerrilla protest:
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The best part, in my opinion, was a middle-aged woman telling the cops that the Coalition for Life didn’t want to press charges. It turns out that she was one of the activists!
This kind of protest is an important part of what it means for us to go on offense. It is bold and surprising and strategic. It reminded me of Greenpeace hanging a great big “Resist” banner behind the White House five years ago:
Of course, this kind of activism isn’t for everyone, and it doesn’t have to be, but it does have to be part of our toolbox. Efforts like these are signals, ways to put the antis on notice that they cannot pretend to be safe and comfortable any longer.
Still playing defense (sigh.) The National Abortion Federation (NAF) helps fund abortions for individuals in need. They put out a new ruling last week requiring people taking abortion medication to pledge that they won’t take any of the abortion pills they are prescribed in a state that has banned abortion.
According to this Washington Post article, “These patients usually take the mifepristone in the clinic before driving home with the misoprostol, to be taken between 24 and 48 hours later.” For low-income patients, this means having to extend an extra day or two adding to hotel costs and childcare. Again, according to the Post, “These new restrictions go beyond what is explicitly required by abortion bans enacted since Roe was reversed. The various bans in antiabortion states prohibit providers from performing abortions within the state’s borders, but don’t bar providers elsewhere from prescribing pills to out-of-state patients they know will be returning home.”
My guess is that this kind of timidity is caused by lawyers warning that something bad could possibly happen in the future if a woman takes a pill in a banned state. We cannot afford to be timid right now.
Getting the story wrong. Paige Casey, a nurse practitioner, has filed suit against her former employer, CVS pharmacy, for wrongful termination for refusing to provide abortion medication. At least that’s what the headlines from about a dozen news sites around the country said. One of the many clickbait headlines reads: Va. nurse practitioner files lawsuit, says CVS fired her for not providing abortion drugs
There’s just one problem . . her complaint doesn’t list being forced to fulfill prescriptions for abortion medication, perhaps because CVS doesn’t dispense. Her complaint actually says that she objected to “providing, prescribing, or facilitating the use of any drug, device, or surgical procedure that can cause abortion—including drugs like certain hormonal contraceptives, Plan B, and Ella.” In other words, this nurse objected to filling prescriptions for contraception, not abortion medication.
We need editors and headline writers to be more careful. We need influencers to understand the difference between Plan B (emergency contraception) and Plan C (abortion medication), and we all need to keep educating them as needed.
Google gets clearer. Google heard the outcry from politicians and activists about the misleading ads by which ‘37 percent of Google Maps results and 11 percent of search results for “abortion clinics near me” and “abortion pill” in states with abortion trigger bans were for anti-abortion clinics.’ They pledged to make sure that the particular facilities are labeled as “provide abortions” or “don’t provide abortions” in the future.
Things To Do Today
Reach out to the National Abortion Federation at naf@prochoice.org and urge them to rescind their directive on where patients take their pills.
Listen to The Focus Group with Sarah Longwell podcast, Make Politics Boring Again. It’s a focus group featuring swing state suburban women from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Georgia backed Trump in 2016, but flipped in 2020. And hear how abortion is moving them to vote for Democrats this fall. (Thanks for the heads up, Micah!)
Go to Yelp (using DuckDuckGo for your own security!), pick a city, and search for abortion crisis centers. These are places that advertise that they provide abortion services, but their goal is to talk people out of having an abortion. Comment on these sites that they are not, in fact, abortion providers. I have no problem with someone sharing their opinion about abortion, but I do have a problem with people pretending to be doctors and sharing lies about abortion with people in need of medical services.