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Bans Off Our Bodies: Fighting To Protect Reproductive Rights In America

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Around the country, a great many people got a very rude awakening last Monday, May 2, when Politico published a draft opinion by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, which appeared to indicate that the court would rule in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow individual states within the United States to ban abortion outright. This is a ruling that would overturn 50 years of legal precedent and disrupt the lives of millions of American citizens.

Right now, 13 American states have “trigger laws” that will immediately ban all abortion within their borders as soon as Roe v. Wade is overturned, and eight more still have pre-Roe laws on the books that will ban abortion as soon as they are allowed to take effect again. Four more states are seen as likely to ban abortion as soon as Roe v. Wade is overturned. This means that, almost as soon as Alito’s draft opinion becomes official, abortion will be illegal in more than half of the 50 United States.

Meanwhile, polling has found that a significant majority of Americans say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. The Supreme Court seems poised to ignore the will of the people and deliver a ruling that will restrict a civil right that many have utilized over the past half century.

Here in Virginia, there are currently no laws on the books that will ban abortion once Roe v. Wade is overturned. That’s the good news. However, with Republicans controlling the Governor’s mansion and the House of Delegates, we can’t assume this won’t be changed. In order to protect reproductive rights in Virginia and beyond, we the people must make our voices heard.

This weekend, a variety of advocacy groups around the country will be joining together to lead rallies in many major cities, to let our government know that we won’t stand for this. The event, called Bans Off Our Bodies, is taking place Saturday, May 14 from 2-4 pm here in Richmond, coordinated by Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia and Virginia Reproductive Equity Alliance, with the support of a variety of other reproductive rights-focused organizations here in the city. For details about how you can join in, click here to RSVP and learn all you need to know.

In the meantime, RVA Magazine spoke to Jamie Lockhart, Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, to get details on what exactly is going on, what the ramifications of overturning Roe v. Wade will be, and what we can do to stand up and make our voices heard.

RVA Magazine: How do we advocate to keep abortion legal in Virginia?

Jamie Lockhart: In Virginia, we are one Senate seat/vote away from losing access to abortion. This past legislative session, we were proud to have the brick wall of support from Senator Louise Lucas and Senate Education and Health Democrats to stop bad bills from advancing. But, make no mistake — anti-abortion legislators tried. And anti-abortion legislators will try again next year. PPAV is prepared for this fight and we’re prepared to mobilize anyone who wants to advocate with us. It’s critical that the majority of Virginians who support safe, legal abortion make their voices heard now, during the next legislative session, and next November when all state Senate and Delegate seats are on the ballot.

RVA: What are the far-reaching effects of the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and how will this affect women’s choices beyond abortion?

JL: The impact of overturning Roe and Casey IS DIRE. Overturning Roe means 26 states could swiftly move to ban abortion — including 13 states with laws that could immediately go into effect. That’s half the country where people no longer will have power over their own bodies and their own lives. What is clear from Justice Alito’s draft opinion is that nothing is safe — they are coming for birth control, marriage equality; they are coming for everything.

RVA: If abortion is banned, who will suffer the most?

JL: Black and brown people, LGBTQIA individuals, and people with low incomes, who experience poverty or houselessness or experience the negative impacts of other social determinants of health, will suffer most. And we know this because access to abortion is difficult today for many of these folks, and is difficult in states that have nearly banned abortion already. 

RVA: If it is ruled illegal, what follows? Will the ruling take away access to birth control, plan B, or condoms?

JL: WE HAVE NEVER LOST A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT. And while it has been a decades-long systematic effort to take our right to abortion, it is no less devastating.  The Supreme Court is planning to take away our power to control our personal decisions and hand it to politicians. What is clear from Justice Alito’s draft opinion is that nothing is safe — they are coming for birth control, marriage equality; they are coming for everything.

RVA: Is period-checking software safe to use?

JL: Let’s be clear: No one should fear arrest or prosecution due to a pregnancy outcome. All people deserve to access safe and legal abortion free from shame, stigma, and intimidation.

Patient privacy and security is a top priority at Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood has a period tracking app, Spot On, and does not sell user data of any type for any digital tools. They’re committed to providing sexual and reproductive health care and information in settings that preserve and protect the essential privacy and rights of everyone — no matter what.

However, it’s important to know that mobile apps — not related to Planned Parenthood — have different privacy policies, and make their own decisions about how to use data.

RVA: What are the economic benefits of access to contraceptives?

JL: Reproductive health care is a good investment; every $1 of public investment in family planning programs is estimated to save over $7. These are public cost savings from fewer unintended pregnancies, births and abortions, lower health insurance bills, and fewer cancers and sexually transmitted infections. Access to reproductive health care improves the health and financial security of women and families. Women, non-binary, and trans folks who delay childbearing experience higher educational achievement and attain higher incomes. A better-educated workforce helps grow the economy, and higher-income earners are more self-sufficient and pay more in taxes.

RVA: How will the reversal of Roe vs. Wade affect the LGBTQIA community? Will same-sex marriage be imperiled?

JL: As mentioned above, we have never lost a constitutional right. The Supreme Court is planning to take away our power to control our personal decisions and hand it to politicians. What is clear from Justice Alito’s draft opinion is that nothing is safe — they are coming for birth control, marriage equality; they are coming for everything.

RVA: How will Planned Parenthood continue to ensure people with religious affiliations can’t prevent women from seeking medical care?

JL: It’s critical that the majority of Virginians who support safe, legal abortion make their voices heard now, during the next legislative session and next November when all state senate and delegate seats are on the ballot.

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia is on the ground across the Commonwealth building a base of supporters who will not be silent as our rights are stripped away. If folks care about this issue, it is critical that they stand up and make their voices heard now. 

RVA: How can women resist the effects of this decision in a meaningful way?

JL: Here are some ways all people can help (not just women!):

  1. Donate to abortion funds.
  2. Sign the Virginia Reproductive Equity Alliance’s Petition to Virginia Legislators
  3. Reach out to your state and federal legislators to express your support for protecting abortion access. 
  4. Join a Bans Off Our Bodies Rally on May 14th
  5. Sign up to volunteer with Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia

RVA: How can women with resources help other women?

JL: By supporting Abortion Funds, everyone can support the many women, transgender, and nonbinary people who need abortions every day. Abortion funds are groups of people who help fund people seeking financial and logistical support accessing abortion. For instance, someone could need funding for their procedure, funding to travel, or they could need a ride to and from their appointment. Abortion funds play a crucial role in helping to fill that need. With more patients expected to travel longer distances to get care, it is more important now than ever for people to support their local abortion funds! 

RVA: How can men be allies in concrete ways?

JL: Men and transfeminine folks can be allies and help just as all people can help — by donating funds, making their support for abortion rights known to their legislators, attending rallies, and engaging in an informed dialogue about abortion. It’s so important that people share their stories to break the stigma. 

Speaking of stigma, it’s not just women who have abortions. Abortion access and reproductive health care is important for people of all gender identities; all people have reproductive health care needs. 

RVA: If a greater percentage of Amercians support abortion rights than oppose them, what is the political fallout of reversing Roe vs. Wade?

JL: When people’s rights are under threat, they will stand up and fight back. The public will remember which elected representatives stood up for their reproductive freedom and which continued to be complicit in the attacks on their rights.

RVA: What is the #1 message Planned Parenthood wants to convey to the public right now?

JL: Abortion is legal in Virginia, but that is not a guarantee forever. We must remain vigilant. We must make our voices heard, and organize and vote for pro-reproductive health champions to protect access here in Virginia.

RSVP for the Bans Off Richmond event tomorrow, Saturday May 14 from 2-4 pm, by clicking this link.

Introduction by Marilyn Drew Necci, interview coordinated and conducted by Kimberly Frost. Thanks to our friends who contributed questions and helped us put this together.

Arkansas Governor Signs Pro-Religious Discrimination Bill Allowing Doctors to Refuse to Treat LGBTQ Patients

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Late last week, Arkansas’s Governor signed into law the “Medical Ethics & Diversity Act,” which — in classic Republican doublespeak fashion — actually legalizes discrimination against LGBTQ patients for reason of “conscience.”

Arkansas Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson Friday afternoon signed into law a bill designed to give medical professionals, hospitals, insurance companies, and other medical providers – including students – legal protections to discriminate against LGBTQ patients while claiming they have a religious or moral right of “conscience” to do so. SB 289, the “Medical Ethics and Diversity Act,” is a sweeping law that could have devastating implications on the health and well-being of every LGBTQ person in the state.

SB 289 is sponsored by Republican state Senator Kim Hammer, a Missionary Baptist preacher and hospice pastor who earlier this year declared war on Democrats after then-President Donald Trump had been impeached.

As NCRM reported earlier, when Hutchinson’s “Medical Ethics and Diversity Act” goes into effect this summer a physician could refuse to treat a transgender person, a mental health professional could end treatment with a young teenager who just revealed to them he is gay, a pharmacist could refuse to dispense contraceptive medication even if prescribed for non-pregnancy-related illnesses, and a student nurse could refuse to assist with an abortion, even if it were medically necessary to save the life of a woman.

But that’s not all. The new law is so broad that it allows hospitals and even insurance companies to refuse service for – including refusing to pay for – anything their polices claim violates their conscience. Catholic hospitals for decades have been refusing to allow abortions to be performed, but now an insurance company could refuse to pay for HIV medications, or even PrEP. They could refuse to pay for gender confirmation surgery.

Gov. Hutchinson signed the possibly unconstitutional legislation less than a day after signing another anti-LGBTQ bill into law, one that bans transgender girls and women from playing women’s sports.

Hutchinson, who is possibly considering a 2024 presidential run, is term limited and will be out of office after the 2022 election.

Last week the governor signed into law an anti-abortion bill he fully admits was designed to go to the Supreme Court in a far right wing effort to kill Roe v. Wade. Hutchinson back in 2015 signed into law an anti-LGBTQ “religious freedom” law he himself had called “divisive,” after having a small portion of the language changed. That same year Gov. Hutchinson allowed a bill prohibiting towns from enacting non-discrimination ordinances to become law.

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image via NCRM.

Trump Has Chosen Right Wing Extremist Amy Coney Barrett for SCOTUS

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Trump’s latest nominee for the Supreme Court is an anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice religious conservative whose appointment to the court may put marriage equality at risk of being struck down.

President Donald Trump has reportedly chosen a far right wing religious extremist, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, to be his third Supreme Court pick, according to The New York Times.

The Times is reporting, and contrary to Trump’s claims, that he did not interview any other candidates. Barrett was vetted, as much as any Trump White House candidates are, when he ultimately chose Brett Kavanaugh as his second SCOTUS choice.

Judge Barrett is anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice, and would vote to strike down Roe v. Wade and same-sex marriage.

In 2006 Barrett told Notre Dame graduates, “your legal career is but a means to an end, and . . . that end is building the kingdom of God.”

Coney Barrett has said she believes “life begins at conception.”

She has made clear she does not respect stare decisis, the legal tenet that says Supreme Court decisions are settled law.

Critical issues such as the right of women to obtain an abortion, the right of same-sex couples to marry, as well as the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) are seen as being overturned with her on the court.

Barrett is just 48 years old, and could sit on the bench for four decades should she be confirmed.

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image via Wikimedia

Trump and the GOP Are About to Give a Rabidly Anti-LGBTQ Judge a Lifetime Appointment

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Part of a sweeping effort by President Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate to pack the courts with extremely conservative justices, Mississippi judge Cory Wilson has been open with his anti-LGBTQ political views.

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee conducted a hearing of Cory Wilson, an anti-LGBTQ Mississippi judge nominated by President Donald Trump to have a lifetime appointment on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Pink News points out that in 2012, Wilson strongly opposed same-sex marriage, calling it “a pander to liberal interest groups and an attempt to cast Republicans as intolerant, uncaring, and even bigoted.”

Keep in mind that the Republican Party has repeatedly pushed ballot measures, statewide bans, and national laws to keep same-sex marriage illegal. In fact, the party’s 2016 national platform sought to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage.

In 2016, Wilson also supported Mississippi House Bill 1523, a hideously anti-LGBTQ bill that would prevent lawsuits against anyone who discriminates on the basis of “sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions” opposing same-sex marriage, transgender identity, or premarital sex. In short, the bill allows businesses and medical workers of all sorts to deny service to LGBTQ people.

The bill was signed into law by Governor Phil Bryant on July 27, 2016, and though U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law in 2017, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals — the exact same court Wilson now wants to sit on — reversed Reeves’s decision.

Wilson also wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion access, and the Affordable Care Act (aka. Obamacare). Wilson dodged questions about his desire to turn over the ACA during his senate questioning.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Slate has a rundown of Wilson’s very vocal disdain for Obama, Hillary Clinton and the ACA:

Wilson called Barack Obama “King Barack,” “petty and small,” “a fit-throwing teenager,” the “Anointed One,” a “radical leftist,” and “shrill, dishonest, and intellectually bankrupt.” He charged Obama with running the “most paranoid and politicized White House since Nixon.” He has also called Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary,” “criminal and clueless,” and either “felony dumb or willfully ignorant.” And he falsely accused her of destroying documents under subpoena.

Then there’s Wilson’s loathing for the ACA. He has called the law “illegitimate,” “perverse,” “big intrusive government” that “is less about healthcare than it is about redistribution of wealth and power.”

He has also stood up for his state’s voter ID laws and mass purges of voter rolls, repeatedly (and falsely) claiming that voter fraud is a serious problem in Mississippi, Slate writes. In short, he’s just the sort of ideologue that Trump would love to install in the increasingly right-wing 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Thanks to Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Wilson is likely to get confirmation.

Written by Daniel Villarreal, The New Civil Rights Movement. Image via NCRM

Senate Republicans Just Gave a Lifetime Appointment to One of the Most Anti-LGBTQ Judges Trump Has Ever Nominated

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He thinks transgender people are “delusional.”

He sees the fight for LGBTQ equality as a “clash of absolutes” where “religious liberty and sexual liberty” are forever at odds.

He says the Equality Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is “weaponizing” the Supreme Court Obergefell marriage ruling against Christians.

He’s said that “preventing sexual orientation-based discrimination cannot justify serious burdens on…constitutionally protected religious freedom.”

He works for an anti-LGBTQ legal group that seeks to defend Christians against  perceived religious discrimination. Among their clients have been Christian bakers Melissa and Aaron Klein of Sweetcakes by Melissa.

And on Wednesday Republicans in the U.S. Senate voted 52-46 to give him a lifetime appointment to the federal bench.

Matthew Kacsmaryk of the very anti-LGBTQ First Liberty Institute will soon be U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk for the Northern District of Texas.

All Democrats and one just one Republican, Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) voted against Kacsmaryk’s confirmation, as The Washington Blade reports.

Kacsmaryk is opposed by hundreds of LGBTQ and civil rights groups. The Leadership Conference, a coalition of more than 200 national organizations calls Kacsmaryk “a right-wing extremist who has made a career out of dehumanizing LGBTQ people, debasing women, and assailing health care rights. He has expressed staunch opposition to the Equality Act, marriage equality, and promoted the dangerous lie that being transgender is a ’delusion.’ He has attacked Roe v. Wade and challenged the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive access.”

Lambda Legal is part of a 75-group coalition that also opposes Kacsmaryk, saying in a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham and Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein. The group notes that Kacsmaryk defended Melissa Klein of Sweetcakes by Melissa, and argued that “preventing sexual orientation-based discrimination cannot justify serious burdens on…constitutionally protected religious freedom.”

The Alliance for Justice published a six-page report on Kacsmaryk, concluding “Kacsmaryk has built his legal career opposing equal rights for millions of his fellow citizens. His harsh and demeaning rhetoric regarding LGBTQ rights and reproductive rights sends a clear message that he has little regard for established legal precedent in this area. Kacsmaryk often couches his opposition to equal rights in religious language.”

The AFJ added, “Kacsmaryk’s statements demonstrate beliefs that discrimination against LGBTQ Americans is valid and should be condoned.”

Written by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement. Photo via NCRM.

Op-Ed: Gay Men Have a Stake In the Abortion Debate — The Women Who Have Always Supported Us

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Behind every gay man, there is a great woman — or, more accurately, great women. Joe Biden said of Will and Grace that the show “did more to educate the American public than almost anybody’s ever done so far.” And he was absolutely right. The sitcom was indeed groundbreaking, because it normalized gay people to American audiences.

Yet, perhaps just as important was how it portrayed the relationships between gay men and their straight female friends. Did Will and Grace slip into low-hanging fruit territory? Of course it did. But beyond tropes and cliches, at its core, it was a decisive and reverent portrayal of the bonds between gay men and straight women. For Will, Grace offered a brand of supportive love that is so familiar to gay men everywhere. The most unconditional, non-judgmental kind of love. A love rooted in compassion and commiseration.

As Pride Month begins, I am reminded of all of the ways straight female allies have supported me throughout my life, and how straight women have fought shoulder to shoulder with the LGBTQ community from the very beginning. They have no skin in the game. No horse in the race. They stood with us out of pure conviction.

So as we celebrate Pride and the legacies of the activists that have stood up for LGBTQ rights, we must remember the role that was played by our straight female allies. As we watch state after state pass legislation that blocks access to reproductive healthcare, we have a moral obligation to sound the alarm, to galvanize, and to fight. We must stand with them as they have always stood with us.

While gay men will never need an abortion, women have everything to lose if Roe is overturned. Their fight is beyond the right to choose — it is a fight for dignity and equality. And that is precisely why I am committed to protecting access to safe and legal abortions. Advocating for women’s reproductive healthcare is a moral imperative for anyone who has ever experienced inequality. The lesson my community should take away from the advocacy of straight women is that we are all in this together. As Martin Luther King Jr said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

To the women in my life, the women of my state and of my country: I stand with you. You are not in this alone. You have always been there for us, and we are here for you now.

Note: Op-Eds are contributions from guest writers and do not reflect GayRVA editorial policy.

Photo courtesy Zachary For Virginia