The Quickie: Trans Rights Under Attack but the Strategy Is All Too Familiar
For Immediate Release: June 8, 2023
Welcome to “The Quickie” — Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s daily tipsheet on the top health care & reproductive rights stories of the day. You can read “The Quickie'' online here.
In today’s Quickie: the anti-trans movement is very familiar, stop comparing states’ abortion bans to Europe’s, and a minister pens op-ed on Christians’ support for abortion.
TRANS RIGHTS UNDER ATTACK BUT THE STRATEGY IS ALL TOO FAMILIAR: Yesterday, Missouri Gov. Parsons signed into law a gender-affirming care ban for trans youth and limitations on access for trans adults. The law will take effect on August 28, and make Missouri the 20th state to restrict this essential health care. Parsons also signed legislation targeting trans people in sports teams, prohibiting trans girls and women from playing on women’s sports teams from kindergarten through college.
“We will continue to do everything in our power to ensure all patients are supported, seen, and cared for,” said Yamelsie Rodríguez, president and CEO, Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri (PPSLRSWMO). “Any patient wanting to continue their gender-affirming care in a state that welcomes people of all identities: our Fairview Heights, Illinois, health center is open to you and we are here to help you make plans to get care.”
Also, yesterday, the Louisiana legislature sent a gender-affirming care ban for trans youth to the desk of Gov. Edwards. Edwards has indicated that he may veto the bill, however, anti-trans lawmakers hold a potential supermajority, allowing them to override his veto.
The unprecedented, rapid increase in attacks on trans rights has had devastating consequences for trans people, but the strategies these anti-trans groups and legislators have been using are all too familiar. As the LA Times argued yesterday, the anti-abortion and anti-trans movements are inextricably linked: both hinge on restrictions on our bodily autonomy. The majority of states with gender-affirming care bans also have highly restrictive abortion bans — many of which target doctors for providing life-saving health care.
“What is unique about the political attacks on the trans community is the rapid nature in which they are moving this slate forward,” Dr. Colleen McNicholas, PPSLRSWMO’s Chief Medical Officer, told the LA Times. “What took them 40 years to dismantle in abortion is really happening over one to two years in the trans community… I oftentimes tell our supporters: If you stood with Planned Parenthood because you thought people deserve access to abortion, then you must stand with us when we fight for access for our trans community to access the care that they need, because the fights are not different.”
Read more about Missouri at ABC and more about Louisiana at CNN. Read the full LA Times article here.
STOP IT: STATES’ 12-WEEK ABORTION BANS ARE NOT LIKE EUROPE’S: This week, Vox debunked the common talking point from anti-abortion advocates that the recent 12-week abortion bans we have seen signed into law in several states are comparable to abortion access in European countries. While some European countries have laws on the books that limit abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy, they almost all include broad exceptions allowing pregnant people to obtain abortions for financial or mental health reasons. Any doctor, including abortion providers at clinics, can attest to these reasons, which means. In practice, pregnant people in many European countries can obtain abortions far after 12 weeks of pregnancy. Additionally, most abortions are covered at no cost to pregnant people, ”meaning the cost of accessing care is a far lower barrier for pregnant people facing time constraints.” That is not to say that abortion access can’t be improved in Europe; indeed many countries have been updating their abortion laws to be more permissive since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, sending reverberations around the world. The United States remains an outlier as it is one of the only countries where access to abortion is getting more restrictive.
Don’t fall for these anti-abortion politicians’ talking points that try to make 12-week bans sound reasonable. As we’ve said before, there are no “reasonable compromises” on someone’s reproductive freedom. These 12- and 15-week bans will only be used to justify increasing restrictions on abortion access as we’ve seen happen across the country. A ban is a ban.
Read more at Vox.
“NOT ALL CHRISTIANS OPPOSE ABORTION”: Today, ordained Presbyterian Minister Rebecca Todd Peters published an opinion piece in Newsweek highlighting how many Christians and their churches support abortion rights. Peters also argues against Christian nationalism and the codification of what are minority Christian beliefs into restrictive abortion bans, like the one recently passed in North Carolina. She writes:
“Christian support for abortion has been effectively erased from the public sphere even though the majority of Christians, including white mainline Protestants, Black Protestants, Hispanic and white Catholics support legal access to abortion care. Christians who support abortion access must publicly challenge the perversion of the Christian principles of justice, love, and care of neighbor that are daily being obliterated by the public policies of Christian nationalism. And we need the media to recognize and complicate public understanding of the complexity of Christian thought and practice.”
Read more at Newsweek.