The Quickie: Planned Parenthood Votes: About Last Night 👀

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: Last night’s town hall, gender-affirming care bans in SC and OH, and Arizona abortion advocates respond to opponents.

ABOUT LAST NIGHT 👀: In case you missed it, at a Fox News town hall last night, Donald Trump proved once again that he is a grave threat to our fundamental freedoms. During the exchange, Trump bragged about overturning Roe v Wade, saying it was a “miracle” and that he was “proud to have done it.” Has he forgotten that the vast majority of voters want abortion to be legal or missed that reproductive freedom keeps winning at the ballot box? No spin necessary — hear Trump’s damning response for yourself and plan to vote accordingly this November. Another Trump term would be disastrous.

Read more from HuffPost and The Guardian.

 

GENDER AFFIRMING CARE BANS GAIN TRACTION IN STATE LEGISLATURES: Just a few days into the new year, lawmakers in South Carolina and Ohio are prioritizing attacks on transgender people. In Ohio, House lawmakers overrode Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto on a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors and barring transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams. The Ohio state Senate is expected to follow suit, paving the way for these restrictions to take effect. 

In South Carolina, a gender-affirming care ban is also making its way through the state legislature. Its provisions include banning gender-affirming health care for anyone under 18, forcing health care providers to stop providing treatment to patients already receiving care such as hormone therapy, and would require school officials to “out” children who are questioning their gender to their parents. “If a young person, their medical professional, and their parents all agree that gender-affirming care would benefit their health and well-being, then that patient should be able to access this care without the government interfering, full stop,” Vicki Ringer, Director of Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, said in a press release. “Instead, our state lawmakers are once again ignoring the pleas of doctors, parents, and people directly affected by this legislation in order to push a political agenda that takes control of private health care decisions and dictates medicine that they don’t understand. Gender-affirming health care is essential, life-saving care, and it is absolutely shameful and dangerous to take it away from young people in this state.”

Read more about Ohio here and South Carolina here.

 

ARIZONA FOR ABORTION ACCESS RESPONDS TO LIE-FILLED OPPO CAMPAIGN: In Arizona, local news outlets report that, before the abortion rights ballot initiative is even qualified for the ballot, “a new campaign is already trying to block it.” 

The Arizona Republic reports that the “opposition campaign…is the first coordinated effort to defeat the ballot measure that is likely to be one of the highest-profile issues this election year.” 

The report quotes Chris Love, senior adviser to Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona and a leader of the political committee backing the initiative, as saying the opposition campaign “is already lying to voters in order to deny Arizonans their reproductive freedom…They’re using the same tired playbook of voter intimidation and confusion that we saw fail across the country, and Arizonans will see right through it.”

 Read more from the Arizona Republic and KJZZ.

Paid for by Planned Parenthood Votes, 123 William St, NY NY 10038. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.