The Quickie: PPTV's Wendy Davis on MSNBC: Texas "Is Ground Zero for this Fight" 

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: PP TX Votes Wendy Davis on the Reid Out, total abortion ban in IA introduced, gender-affirming care bans move in MS and OK, and PP Utah holds a press conference on proposed abortion ban today. 

PP TEXAS VOTES’ WENDY DAVIS ON THE REIDOUT: TEXAS “IS GROUND ZERO FOR THIS FIGHT”: Former Texas State Senator and new Senior Advisor to Planned Parenthood Texas Votes Wendy Davis sat down with MSNBC’s Joy Reid last night to discuss the fight for abortion access in Texas and around the country. Davis talked about how abortion bans in states like Texas are preventing people from getting the life-saving care they need, regardless of exceptions. (Notably, while Texas law includes a vague exception for life-threatening medical emergencies, it lacks an exception for survivors of rape and incest.)

“What’s happening on the ground in Texas today is that doctors are absolutely terrified to provide needed care, even if arguably it fits an exception in the law,” Davis said on The ReidOut. “These exceptions are really just window dressing to make these bans look more acceptable and they’re absolutely not working in practice.”

Davis went on to explain that anti-abortion politicians and their allies aren’t satisfied with overturning Roe v. Wade and banning abortion — they’re weaponizing the courts and hostile state legislatures to launch more attacks on our health and rights.

“The Attorney General in Texas is literally trying to sue Planned Parenthood and the health care that it provides to patients across this state every single day out of existence,” Davis said. “They’re also trying to block the use of mifepristone not only in Texas but in every single state in this country. What we’ve known for a long time here in Texas is that this is ground zero for this fight. Whatever is happening here, I promise you it is going to come to your state, even if you think right now it’s not. That’s why we all have to be in this fight together supporting organizations like Planned Parenthood Texas Votes.” 

Watch the full interview here. 

IOWA LAWMAKERS INTRODUCE TOTAL ABORTION BAN WITH PROVISIONS BLOCKING ABORTION CONTENT ONLINE AND ALLOWING CHARGES FOR AIDING AND ABETTING: Yesterday, anti-abortion politicians in Iowa’s House of Representatives introduced a total abortion ban with a number of provisions that severely limit abortion on top of a draconian ban, which include: 

• Penalizing abortion providers for providing abortion care 
• Allowing anyone to sue someone who aids and abets a pregnant person seeking an abortion 
• Requiring Internet providers to block people’s access to websites related to abortion care while in the state. 
• Blocking medical providers who also provide abortion care from being a Medicaid provider
• Prohibiting government contractors and subcontractors from using benefits to get or help them get abortion care 

“This total abortion ban is far-reaching,” said Mazie Stilwell, Director of Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Iowa. “It is dangerous, and it takes many rights away from Iowans-including the right to an abortion. It even takes away access to medically accurate information about abortion. Iowans deserve better. Regardless of how each individual feels about abortion, Iowans agree that abortion decisions should be left to a patient and their doctor, not politicians and judges. And politicians should not be censoring information about health care. This bill goes so far, we can’t even see where it would end.”

On top of this highly restrictive bill, Iowa lawmakers have also introduced a ban on medication abortion as well as millions of dollars in additional funding for anti-abortion centers, also known as crisis pregnancy centers.  

Read more at Iowa Starting Line. 

ANTI-TRANS LAWMAKERS MOVE TO RESTRICT GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE IN MISSISSIPPI, OKLAHOMA: Anti-trans lawmakers are on a crusade to restrict often life-saving gender-affirming care across the country. Just this week (it’s only been two days), Mississippi and Oklahoma lawmakers approved harmful bans on gender-affirming care for minors. 

In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves signed HB 1125, which bars medical professionals from providing gender-affirming health care for trans youth and prohibits individuals from aiding and abetting a trans person seeking gender-affirming care, effective immediately. This makes Mississippi the sixth state overall and the third state this year to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth, the Hill reports. 

“This is a devastating development for transgender youth in Mississippi and heartbreaking for all of us who love and support them,” the ACLU and ACLU of Mississippi said in a statement. “This care was already difficult to access across the state for transgender people of any age, but this law shuts the door on best-practice medical care and puts politics between parents, their children, and their doctors.”

Yesterday, the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a bill (HB 2177) that would ban gender-affirming care for trans youth and create funding restrictions on gender-affirming care for all ages. The bill would ban coverage for gender-affirming care in private health insurance plans and prohibit public funding for any medical provider that also provides gender-affirming care. 

“These continued attacks on essential, life-saving gender-affirming care for trans Oklahomans are straight out of the anti-abortion playbook we saw from lawmakers last year – based on fear, shame, and stigma,” President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes Emily Wales said. “We won’t stop fighting this bill and many others that have targeted all trans Oklahomans. Everyone deserves the care they need, when they need it most.”  

The bill will now go to the Senate for consideration. 

Read more about Mississippi’s ban at the Hill. Read more about Oklahoma’s bill at KOSU here and here. 

TODAY: PP UTAH PRESS CONFERENCE ON PROPOSED ANTI-ABORTION BILL: Today, Planned Parenthood Association of Utah (PPAU) and other reproductive health advocates in the state will hold a press conference on the implications of HB467, a highly restrictive bill that would create a legal trap making any abortion care outside a hospital illegal and functionally ban access in the state.

“Abortion access is a public health imperative,” President and CEO of PPAU Karrie Galloway said. “When abortion is illegal or inaccessible, women, people who can become pregnant, and families suffer severe consequences. If HB 467 becomes law, it will harm individual Utahns and our communities by putting abortion and other reproductive health care further out of reach and, for some people, limiting access altogether.”

WHO: Jason Stevenson, Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, Marcela Smid, MD, University of Utah Health, Jessica Sanders, PhD, ASCENT Center for Reproductive Health at the University of Utah, Brittney Nystrom, ACLU of Utah

WHEN: 12 p.m. MT

WHERE: Presentation Room at the Utah State Capitol

Contact PPAU at [email protected] for additional information.